Lance Bangs
The band formerly named after their leader Collin Thibodeauxx are now Lance Bangs who present the following listen to their EP Lance Mountain available now from Citrus City Records/Danger Collective. With the name change comes tighter chops as heard on the tight arrangement & execution on “Sneakin’ Out”, the energy of abandon on “Dig”, to the slacker pop high times vibes heard on “#1 Single Released On 4 20”, right before giving us what is possibly one of the best DIY anthems for the new football season with “Football” that contains the radical & ridiculous chorus/anthem; “I need some footballs to keep from feeling down…”—leaving you with the smart & suave garage pop slice of discourse on “Let It Grow”. Following the listen to Lance Mountain, read our interview with Collin featured right after the jump.
Describe how Collin Thibodeauxx would go into the transformative chrysalis to become Lance Bangs.
The transformation was never planned, it just sort of happened—we grew as musicians together and, naturally, our musical abilities adhered and we were able to piece together the songs that appear on Lance Mountain.
From Nothing Buttrock to Lance Mountain; how do you describe the group’s own natural ascention & evolution?
As mentioned above, it was never a planned or even sought-after process. We would play shows and people would mention how our recordings could excel with live drumming. So slowly we transitioned to live drum tracking, and from there we felt comfortable collaborating on and altering existing tracks.
Of course. So this EP was done almost entirely by the members of Lance Bangs. We did our own recording in our practice space and had Colin’s brother, Gavin, mix and master the tracks. When we were on tour with our friend, Sports Coach (J. Thatcher May), and we snapped a picture of him and his girlfriend and decided to slap it on the cover and Colin generated the rest of the album art. The title, Lance Mountain, is a nod to Robert “Lance” Mountain, an original member of the Bones Brigade. I [Drew] saw Stacy Peralta’s documentary Bones Brigade: An Autobiography at a screening put on by my college’s film department because they were going to Skype Tony Hawk afterwards and that geeked me. But during the film, a lot of the skaters they interviewed said Lance Mountain was their biggest skating influence because he made skating look fun. His tricks (moves?) weren’t as technically difficult as the other guys in Bones Brigade, but he showed a lot of kids that a high degree of technicality isn’t requisite to enjoy a skateboard, just a sincere passion for it. And I think that resonates a lot with what we are as a band. We’re definitely not the most talented band even in our own neighborhood, but we’re three good friends who really enjoy playing and making music together so we went out and did it. It was also another way for us to name something after another person named Lance who is not affiliated with us or our music in any way, and we thought that was funny.
The report on what seems to be quite a cluster of DIY communites happening right now in Richmond, Virginia?
Richmond, VA historically is a great city for culture and I think it’s true today (I just moved here from Fredericksburg, VA in August. Colin, Joel and Manny have lived here for 1-3 years now). Someone told me the Jackson Ward neighborhood was once referred to as the “Harlem of the South”. I don’t know if that’s true. But jazz has a huge presence in the city. Richmond is also home to Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), a premier public arts institution. So in a city with a relatively small population dense with artistic individuals, artistic communities are bound to flourish. I’m only really familiar with this DIY pop/indie/alt. rock/garage scene, but it’s bumping. Everyone is really passionate about music, either playing it or listening to it, so it really drives a thriving show scene at houses and venues. And this is true of all types of music in Richmond. Metal. Jazz. Pop-punk. Buttrock. Whatever. It’s all out there. And the city is pretty affordable. Makes being in a band that much easier.
What other great local phenomenons & the like should the world be aware of?
Lamb of God [insert 😛 emoticon]
How did the Danger Collective with Citrus City come about?
Reed of Danger Collective was interested in working with us when we dropped Nothing Buttrock (Citrus City Records) as Collin Thibodeauxx last summer. When word got around that we were going to release something as Lance Bangs, he reached out to Manny at Citrus City about doing a split release and presto!
Insights on the next big moves from Lance Bangs?
We took a little hiatus following a tour we finished in July. But now we’re hankering to get back out there. I think we have a few shows in Richmond scattered throughout October, but we’re aiming to hit the road again in January. And we might release some more music somewhere in there, too, if we get our minds right!
