It’s almost that time of year again, where thousands upon thousands of black t-shirt and jorts wearing music fans will descend upon Gainesville, FL in hopes of seeing their favorite bands and drinking just enough to not remember seeing anything all. While there are hundreds of well-known names on the Fest schedule this year, we wanted to showcase a handful of the bands who are heading down to Florida and playing for the very first time. So keep reading, check out all the bands in this series, and get to know some really great under the radar talent!
When Brookyln, NY’s Heavy Lag released their demos in late 2020, we knew that the band was going to be something amazing. Here they are, just a few years later, playing Fest. We chatted with Anthony, Greg, and Matt – three of the four members – about all things Fest and beyond!
Stream Heavy Lag’s latest release, an eight track album released almost one year to the day on Bloated Kat Records! And don’t miss them this weekend when they play at Palomino (that’s the one inside) at 9:00PM thus Sunday, October 29th!
Interview
How long has the band been playing music?
Josh: We started writing Heavy Lag songs in my basement during the pandemic in 2020, but we’ve all played music together to some degree for years before that.
Have you personally attended Fest before?
Josh: Yes! I think this will be my 5th fest.
Greg: This will be my fourth Fest and second time playing, but Anthony and Matt have never been!
What are you most stoked for during Fest weekend?
Josh: Seeing all our friends’ bands, Saetia, Negative Approach, Chinese Telephones, and burritos from Flaco’s.
Greg: Definitely stoked to see Chinese Telephones and Dillinger Four for the first time… and birdwatching in between sets.
What’s your very best tour story?
Matt: I saw a horse walk into a bar one time…
The horse walks up to the bartender and orders a Manhattan. The bartender makes the drink and hands it to the horse. The horse takes a sip of the Manhattan, spits it back, and says “What kind of vermouth did you put in this?” The bartender says “Vermouth is vermouth” and he pulls out a bottle of dry vermouth. The horse about loses its mind. It’s like “You put dry vermouth in MY Manhattan? It’s not a martini, sir. A Manhattan is made with sweet vermouth”. The bartender says “Look I don’t need any lip from some horse, alright? You can get the hell out of my bar”
The horse starts putting his hooves in his own mouth and starts pulling and pulling. Pulling at its hooves and the skin around its ankles starts tearing. Horse blood starts to gush out onto the bar. He pulls his own hooves off of his legs with his mouth and out of the ankle holes emerge two human hands. The hands reach into the horse’s mouth and start pulling open its jaws wider and wider until they snap and horse teeth are flying all over the place. And then out the neck hole emerges the head of Jon Taffer…
It was an episode of Bar Rescue and he had disguised himself in a living horse flesh exoskeleton so that no one would recognize him and he could get a better feel for the place.
We haven’t really toured since.
Let’s say you’re booking the lineup of a festival that represents you as an artist/band. What would the top 5 headliners be?
Matt: The Replacements, The Marked Men, Vic Sayz & The Midnight Snacks, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, The Suicide File.
Greg: Leatherface playing five sets.
What can we all look forward to from you in the near future?
We spent a few days over the summer recording with Jeff Burke (Marked Men, Radioactivity) for a couple of TBD releases. We’re also playing with Off With Their Heads on 11/11 in Long Island and at Fear City Fun Fest on 12/9 in Queens.
Matt: Anxiety and awkward interactions.
Anthony: Other than that, I think we’ll mostly be focusing on demoing our next record, but would love to play more shows outside of NYC whenever we can, so hit us up!”
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