Behind the Scenes: Tuff Love vs Josie Long

The Skinny sits in a crushingly hip eatery in east London with Julie (Eisenstein, vocals/guitar), Suse (Bear, vocals/bass) and Michael (O'Hara, drums) from Tuff Love. We’ve been waiting for the last two hours for Josie Long to turn up. The prolific comedian is set to co-direct and appear in the band’s next video and has apparently been filming all morning in Hampstead. Or is it Hackney? No one’s quite sure as to what’s going on, or indeed where the star of the show has disappeared to. 

But it’s okay because Tuff Love are very charming and very hungry. Suse is wise beyond her years and speaks fondly of Glasgow and Johnny Lynch, AKA The Pictish Trail and now Tuff Love’s label boss. Suse marvels at Johnny’s press strategy: instead of traditional PR spiels, Johnny writes hand-written, swoonsome notes to journalists accompanying the band’s demo tape. This works a treat. Julie is originally from London but has forgotten the majority of the bus routes so the band are forced to travel in style, taking cabs around the city. She moved to Glasgow to study creative writing and never left. Meanwhile, Michael is desperate to take up smoking full time but is struggling with commitment and technique; his first attempt at rolling a cigarette comes out curiously ‘s’ shaped and Suse has to step in to salvage the tobacco. Nevertheless, while the two girls are away Michael opens up and tells me about his rather dark past: he once played in a band which sounded like a funkier version of The View.

Tuff Love play pop music. It might be fuzzy, it might be grungey, it might be lo-fi but beneath the terms and the signifiers, there is an unabashed love for popular music. Their songs swoon and soar with harmonies –sometimes ropey, sometimes note-perfect – and yearning hearts of gold. But there’s nothing twee about Tuff Love; there’s muscle and grit behind the shiny pop façade. The band’s debut EP is called Junk and has perfectly formed song titles like Sweet Discontent, Penguin, and Copper. But Flamingo is the pick of the bunch as it gallops along like vintage Vaselines in Technicolor.

At some point amid the food, the loose talk and the ceaseless yet good-natured chiding of Michael, Josie arrives, dressed appropriately for the occasion with ‘LOVE’ emblazoned across her tracksuit. It’s also her birthday and Julie expertly handcrafts a card made entirely out of tissue paper. The star of the video is breathless as she fills us in on the morning’s events. 

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“This isn’t my first music video. But the other one, it meant nothing to me, honest!" – Josie Long

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“The thing that added an hour on to us and kept us late is that we went to do some filming at one pond but the security guard would not let me jump in the water! Even though there was nobody there! So I thought I could charm him by saying [seductively] ‘Oh, it’s just me and my own private video’...he was having none of it – it was too dangerous! But there’s just loads of footage so far of me being tough. There’s a lot of swearing and me giving ‘two fingers’ to dogs in the park.”

Nevertheless, the stresses of the morning have finally come to an end and Josie offers up a ‘cheers,’ albeit one that comes with a warning to us all: "The reason they do the clinking of the drinks is because the Vikings used to do it so hard to ensure that one person wasn’t poisoning the other! So, now instead of saying ‘cheers,’ I think we should all say ‘no one’s poisoning one another!’ Unless I want to poison someone….”

Josie is dying to show us the footage so far and the band are eager to find out what exactly is required of them. Can she reveal what’s in store for Tuff Love?

“My idea originally was that me and [partner in crime] Doug [King] had to fight each other but that was turned down. Basically, there’s an audition to become a member of Tuff Love and I see it and think ‘great!’. So, I’m training to become tough, doing loads of running, sit ups, swearing at dogs and throwing people’s phones in the pond which makes them cry! I’m also downing raw eggs in the video – I tried it with real eggs but it was too much so I had to use orange juice instead… the thought of drinking real eggs was so bad! Anyway, this tough guy ends up running out of the auditions crying and then the band just start throwing water at me before saying ‘Congratulations’! I think I’ve won the chance to be in the band, but then you point out that I’m actually just a security guard after all…”

Michael is impressed at Josie’s physical exertions all in the name of making the first proper Tuff Love video. “Good effort!” he exclaims.

However, Julie is somewhat more pragmatic as Josie tucks into her full English. “You wouldn’t be so hungry now if you had eaten all those raw eggs,” she points out.

Josie is nonplussed. “This isn’t my first music video,” she confides. “But the other one, it meant nothing to me, honest! It was for [comedian] Tom Rosenthal who makes loads of silly videos. I basically had to go around and touch strangers' faces. But I felt really weird at the end of it, having touched this long line of strangers.” I turn to Suse and enquire as to how she feels about the ritual of making music videos and having Josie as the star of this one. “We actually did one ourselves already,” she says. “it was part of an end of year university project. It turned out better than we hoped, we played in front of a green screen. But this is a step up!”

Josie is incredulous. She thought she was the first. “You have another video?!”

“Yeah…”, confirms Julie.

“But is it online?”, gasps Josie. “I never knew. I’ll watch it later… and then I’ll send a very rude email to you guys saying ‘Dear band, I resign. Retrospectively.'"

Having quickly gotten over this perceived infidelity, Josie tells us how she came across the band through the aforementioned Lynch. She also had plans to make a feature film but it’s on hold at the minute. This ignites an idea…“Why don’t you just make a bunch of videos for us,” enquires a very alert Julie, “ and then make it into one big long feature?!”

“Yes!” gasps Josie. “It’ll be like The Beatles’ Help!! I’m in! Now I just need to start a huge fight with everyone…”

Julie is by now visibly very excited at this prospect. Feverishly so. However, it turns out there’s something else at play. “Okay I think this fourth coffee has pushed me over the edge…” And at this point, with Julie wide eyed and teeming with impending mania, Suse the calm voice of reason, Michael grappling with his rollies and Josie spoiling for a fight, The Skinny decides to leave them to it. As their name suggests, Tuff Love are tenacious and charismatic in equal measure. Heaven forbid what they'll turn into once Michael’s fag habit finally kicks in.