Lazy Legs, a talented, playful, and kind trio from Chicago, played a noisey, fuzz-filled, shoegaze show at a DIY space in February. Lazy Legs are Michael Tenzer (guitars, vocals), Laura Wagner (bass, vocals), and John Rungger (drums for this band, Light Foils and Chorus of Shadows). Their set was nothing short of a reverberated, overdriven sonic dream. Michael’s guitar sound became a net over the room, while Laura’s bass and vocals entranced the room, and John’s drums just encased us. I was in this small, shed-looking thing with a good crowd, and, to hear this particular wall of sound creep into every corner of this space was amazing. It’s exciting to see a band like Lazy Legs play in an intimate setting. They just invoke the make-out out vibes, and then suddenly, everyone is swaying and daydreaming. I may have held hands with someone at some point during the set. It’s just that kind of romantic.
I caught up with Laura and Michael, and interviewed them prior to their set.
1. The beginnings of Lazy Legs: Who’s idea was it? Who started it? Who are your influences?
Michael: I think we—it was once of those collaborative things. I’ve been in bands before. I used to be in this band, Savage Sister, and during the course of that time, I met Laura. And then, we started dating, and then, eventually, we found out that we had mutual interests in music, and then we started to play simple stuff together and kick around ideas. This was, like, 2014. It took a little while for us–it look, like, a year and a half, until we got my friend to be our drummer, and that’s kind of how it started. I was coming out of Savage Sister, and wanted to do something new.
Laura: I didn’t know how to play anything, but i had a background in music. I played violin for a long time, and I thought it would be fun to learn, and then I tried to play guitar, and I didn’t like it. So then I learned to play bass, and I like it.
2. So who are your influences in defining the sound of Lazy Legs?
Michael: I think that bands that we most acted on together–because that was a prerequisite, like, “What kinds of shoegaze bands do we both really love? MBV was really obvious, like the boiler plate of it, but she was like, way more into Ringo Deathstarr than i was at the beginning and she pushed it onto me, and now I really like Ringo Deathstarr. I have a laws been a big fan of No Joy. No Joy is one of my favorite bands, and pushed that onto her. So it’s kinda been a rotation of that, and then, we also have a noise-rock and post-punk like Sonic Youth and The Lilys, We’re also just influenced by contemporary bands. There is this band in Wisconsin, not too far away, called Haunter, and they have this really awesome, just heavy, sound, and that’s actually kind of an influence. And they’re younger than we are!
Laura: Same thing. I would just say that I really liked Whirr. Whirr was a huge influence for m. I really liked Pipedreams, and I think, like, I, personally, wanted to channel a lot of that sound (even though they’re assholes). My huge thing is psych, too, even though I feel like everything I bring to the table is very dream, dreampop-y, ghosty sound.
3. Do you have any definite goal with your music, or you just happy to be out and playing and having people listening to your music?
Michael: Right now, we are definitely going to be shooting to record our second album this year. We’ve talked about it already, and have a concept in mind about what we want to do. The first album was kind of about the process of break up and then recovering from that, and looking at new horizons and stuff. The second album is going to be about anxiety, and how to deal with anxiety, and how anxiety makes you feel. So we are looking forward to that, and playing more shows, and, I think just trying to expand the sound palette a little bit. Beyond that, I don’t think we have many plans.
4. So what does anxiety sound like to you?
Laura: It sounds chaotic.
Michael: I think there’s going to be more like an interspersing of noisier elements. You know, stuff that’s not, like, song structure stuff, that’s more Sonic Youth, where it’s more free-flowing. At least for some of it.
Laura: We don’t totally know yet, but I think we might go, like, in a psych-ier direction. We’re not sure. It’s very organic.
Michael: If you listen to VISIONDEATH, it’s very like a squash of different sounds, so we’re kind of “whatever we feel at the moment,” but it does kind of come together. If you try not to think about it too much.
Laura: Yeah.
We here at Fadeaway love you, Lazy Legs! Thanks so much for the interview!
You can find Lazy Legs‘ Chain of Pink EP, VISIONDEATH LP, and their self-titled EP on Bandcamp: https://lazylegs.bandcamp.com/