California Love

10/05/2001 7:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Sandy Masuo

Hormones have been a primary motivating factor in countless rock 'n' roll careers, but for Lit guitarist and main songwriter Jeremy Popoff, they were just a catalyst. Popoff began his musical education early in life. Following in his grandfather's footsteps, he began learning how to play the Hammond organ at the tender age of 7. For years he was content with the keyboard, but as adolescence set in, his perspective began to shift.

"This older lady taught organ and piano, and she had these two daughters that were kinda hot, and they taught guitar," Popoff recalls. "So I'd be sitting there doing my lesson with the old lady and I'd see these guys rolling in with their guitar cases and they'd disappear upstairs with the hot daughters for their guitar lessons, and that made me kinda wish I was doing that."

Before long, he was really feeling the urge to switch instruments, but when he finally did finally make the move, it had less to do with biological impulses than musical ones.

"The organ was cool, but right around that same time is when I started getting into heavy metal--AC/DC, Iron Maiden, bands like that," Popoff explains. "Obviously there wasn't a lot of Hammond organ being played in those, so I got this old hand-me-down guitar from a family friend and started teaching myself."

By the time he was 16, he left high school to pursue rock 'n' roll full time and played with several local groups Anaheim (suburb of Orange County in Southern California) before Popoff, his younger brother A Jay, bassist Kevin Baldes, and drummer Allen Shellenberger formed Lit. After years of gigging in and around the Orange County club circuit, the band self-released its first album in 1997. Tripping The Light Fantastic captured the attributes Lit fans had come to know and love. The songs were an exuberant mixture of hard rock and catchy pop--a product of the band members' shared penchant for metal and the fact that the Popoff brothers' father is a top 40 DJ and instilled in his boys a deep appreciation for the pop tradition, from Elvis Costello to Frank Sinatra.

Those influences continue to shape Lit's music, though Popoff says the band's current album, Atomic, was more of a concerted effort to achieve a classic rock sound. Working once again with producer Don Gilmore (who also manned the boards for 1999's A Place In The Sun), the new material swaggers with big rock gestures and the kind of sassy humor that made the hit singles from Place ("Miserable," "My Own Worst Enemy") so endearing. Tracks like "Lipstick And Bruises" are a raucous homage to the glorious excess of rock, while other songs ("Last Time Again," "She Comes") dwell on the ups and downs of love.

If Popoff's songwriting inspiration hasn't changed much since those early experiences with girls and guitars, it's because he maintains the firm belief that when it comes to rock 'n' roll, Lit is best off sticking to the basics.

"Bands like Staind write these deep, dark songs, and they are great at tapping into that emotion," he observes. "Sure, we've all had screwed-up relationships and problems, and that's in our songs too. But we grew up in Southern California--the sun's shining all the time, the women are beautiful, we all grew up in middle-class neighborhoods...so our songs are generally about fun. We're normal dudes that write about everyday stuff--'cause that's what we know."