(for physical copies, you will get a better deal at our website: www.loversoffiction.com)

Thank you for coming to our Bandcamp page. Please look around and have a listen, and perhaps even take advantage of some free downloads we are offering (tracks 1 and 7 above).

This is Dan Sonenberg, AKA “the Professor.” Three years ago I surprised three former music theory students of mine by asking them to help me realize my passion and form a rock band. The result was Lovers of Fiction.

I had played in bands plenty during high school and college, but from college on had shifted my professional focus to contemporary art (“classical”) music. I began teaching music theory and composition at the University of Southern Maine in 2004, and for the most part kept my interest in rock to myself. Oh sure, it was known I had written a doctoral dissertation about Joni Mitchell, and that I had a scholarly interest in popular music [I have taught seminars on pop and, more specifically, the Beatles], but my playing and writing days in the genre seemed to be far behind me.

Something about being in the midst of the vibrant Portland, Maine indie rock scene, however, of which several of my students were active and celebrated components, stirred an old urge within me, and I found my compositional interests veering back toward a terrain I thought I had abandoned. I wrote a bevy of rock tunes, demoed them up myself, and figured these hidden demos would be the end of the story.

The period of composition of these songs coincided with some major life changes for me - most particularly the dissolution of my marriage, a painful experience. I found myself writing rock songs as means of self-therapy and healing, and gradually the stockpile of angst-ridden rockers grew until critical mass was reached and I couldn’t bear keeping this side of my music making private any longer.

The musicians I selected for the enterprise, Sam Chandler, Mark Dennis, and Jimmy Dority are all well known figures in the Portland Scene. Sam plays keys for the very popular band Theodore Treehouse, Mark was the guitarist for math rock wizards the Waldos, and Jimmy is esteemed for a wealth of projects, including mounting a production of Weil’s Threepenny Opera, and being the bar pianist for Mama’s Crowbar’s beloved weekly Piano Night. (Don’t go looking for that, alas; Mama shut her doors in September of this year). You can download his first song for the band, “Another Song,” for free right now, right here.

Through the years, amidst frenetic schedules rife with other projects, we Lovers have developed a repertoire of old school, song-driven rock, but with a contemporary edge (thanks to the young, talented whippersnappers I’ve conscripted).

In 2013 we released an EP, The Bear, which you can listen to and even purchase here. It was met with great enthusiasm from the local Portland press, who eagerly awaited our full length album.

Now, a full two years later, after significant labors, we are ready to release that album, which is appropriately titled Long Overdue. We recorded it at the University of Southern Maine, in a digital recording studio I’ve been developing over the last decade, and I mixed the album myself (last summer’s education, 100s of hours worth!)

This is a big, ambitious rock album; musically complex, but fully accessible, complete with brass arrangements, an Edward G Robinson snippet, and a kazoo choir, all brimming with bona fide rock energy. At least we hope it is - you’ll be the judge. Please give it a listen and send your thoughts.

If you send us a kind (or mean) word and your email address via the contact form here, we’ll respond with an additional free track (via a download code) - our Myers Briggs anthem Everybody Wants to be an ENFP. It’s been one of our most popular live numbers and we’re very eager to share the studio recording (especially the wild free-form jam in the middle).

And of course, we would love it if you wished to support us by pre-ordering our album. Every dollar goes directly to the final expenses of this project (at this point CD replication), and gives us a very welcome shot of confidence and love (on which we thrive).

SUPPORT US BY PREORDERING THIS ALBUM.
[but first download the free tracks and see if you like em!]
$10 or more for digital download
$12 or more for physical copy (includes digital download)

Digital will be released in early December, 2015.

Your support now helps us get this done. Every pre-order goes directly toward completing this Long Overdue album!