By Bob Klanac.
In one world, a band was looking for a new lead singer. In the other, a singer was looking for somewhere to sing.
Specifically, ten years ago, a band called Backline Revival was hosting a YouTube series to audition a new singer. Behind it was Rickie-Lee Houle of Loveless, who organized the series and the search.
“We asked ladies to try out and had two or three rounds of auditions. Long story short, Megan was one of the contestants,” explains Houle.
“And I will not forget when she showed up because we were all searching for our singer and had similar but different ideas of what we were looking for. When Megan sang, we were all thinking ‘this is who we want’.”
In the other world, Megan Schroder was unsure of her abilities, confessing, “I wasn’t very hopeful because I had not sung in a rock and roll band before. The only singing I had really ever done was like in my room as a kid, a bit of musical theater, and karaoke. That was really it.”
“I never fronted a band before, and didn’t really have a lot of confidence in my own rock and roll front woman ability, but I thought, you know, why not give it a shot?”
In Houle’s world, she already knew who she wanted, but life threw both young women a curveball.
Despite having Schroder top of mind, Rickie Lee had to continue with the competition to be true to the goal of the contest. Meanwhile, Schroder got an offer to audition on Broadway.
“I made it through a couple rounds of the competition and then, funny enough, I got a call to audition on Broadway for the show Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which I had recently done as part of the London Fringe Festival”, she explains.
Schroder did get a call back about the play, so she called Houle and told him she had to drop out of the auditions.
“I told them all my focus was going into preparing for this Broadway audition, and in the off chance that I happened to get it, I didn’t want to leave them high and dry,” says Schroder.
“I was certain that they weren’t even really gonna care because I thought I was the weakest link,” Schroder says flatly. “Everyone else had experience. I didn’t know what I was really capable of and thought I was probably in last place anyway, and they’re not even really gonna care.”
As for Houle, “We were devastated” when she got the call from Schroder. But the competition continued, and a winner was chosen.”
“We took a couple of weeks off after we had finished the process, and then everyone got pregnant,” she laughs. “The winning singer got pregnant. The drummer’s girlfriend got pregnant, so we kind of went on hiatus.”
At the time, Houle’s guitar-slinging, soon-to-be husband Nick, was in a band with guitarist Ian Hebert called Bender. They put Backline Revival on the back burner but kept in touch with Megan.
Back in Schroder’s world, “Rickie Lee got in touch with me and asked to meet up. I didn’t end up getting that part on Broadway, so I was intrigued.”
One meeting later, the core of Loveless was born.
Both Houle and Hebert were looking to leave Bender and wanted a lead singer.
“Ian is super talented, but one thing that he doesn’t love to do is front a band,” Schroder explains. “It’s just not really his thing. So, they wanted to create a band where Ian sings a little but not as the lead singer.”
After a skinsman shuffle, the newly named Loveless ended up with their forever drummer, Warren Stinson, and got down to work.
Having eschewed original material ala Backline Revival, the idea behind Loveless was basically 70s and 80s rock music. What made Loveless stand out among an endless list of similar-themed cover bands was their youth. They were young and played these songs not with a rote note-by-note recitation of de facto classics but rather with the raging wonder of young guns trying out these gems for the first time.
They sounded fresh, a rarity among cover bands. And they came by their freshness honestly. They all grew up with these songs.
“Much Music was always on when I was a kid,” recalls Schroder. “I remember being in kindergarten and my mom took out her old record player and 45s and as a super young kid, I would go through that box full of British Invasion stuff.”
“I was always really into the oldies, and then I just continued to really love it, you know.”
As the Schroder household went, also went the Houle abode.
“My dad always says he plays a mean radio,” chuckles Houle.
“We had sort of a thing where every weekend we would go up to the third floor, and I would get to pick out an album that I wanted to listen to, and he would tell me about it, and I’d hear about when it first came out, when he waited in line, to pick it up at Sam’s and just getting little mini music lessons.
“We would get into like a whole bunch of bands, even Loveless doesn’t play because they’re like a little more obscure, like The MC5 or Frigid Pink, Michael Jackson, the old Chess Records stuff, and Little Feat’s Waiting for Columbus album.”
As for what’s next for Loveless, it’s truly up to the band. They all have side projects and other musical outlets, and because of that, the band remains excited and vital.
“We all support each other,” says Houle. “It’s also good that we come back to the band with renewed energy, too. We are always so appreciative of what we have when we come back.”
“We’re all really good friends. Like, we all really genuinely like each other,” Schroder enthuses.
“So, like when we’re having fun and goofing off on stage, it’s all real. None of it is fake, because we’re just like five friends who are hanging out and having a good time together. And just, yeah, loving it.”
You can catch Loveless at the Pierside Pub in Port Stanley: Sunday, August 2 and September 6.
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By Bob Klanac
Bob Klanac is a London-based music journalist who has penned hundreds of reviews and interviews. He was a juror for the Polaris Music Prize, a member of the Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize Jury, and a Juno Awards juror. Bob has also penned two books, Promo Man about London’s late music legend Nick Panaseiko and Shooting Stars, Telling Tales, about photographer to the stars photo-journalist John Rowlands.
(Photo Credit: Paul Lambert.)
The Beat Magazine 2025 