It’s a tool, a device… an instrument, if you will. But it’s also an idea. A spoon is a challenge to innovate and explore. It’s an experience, one that you co-create, an experience only limited by how deeply you’re willing to engage with it.
It is the medium, it is the message, it is everything. 🥄
Full disclosure, I don’t have this strong of feelings about spoons.
I do, however, have incredibly strong feelings about the band being featured today, Large Spoon. They are a band that epitomize (and are actually the true subject of) these initial spoon ramblings. Large Spoon is a St. Louis emo-pop-rock trio who perfectly encapsulate these concepts, and they are undoubtedly the greatest spoon themed band I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.
When I think of Large Spoon, I think of antics. I think of props, I think of magic. And obviously, I think of the music. These guys put the “power” in power pop. There’s something utterly energizing about a Large Spoon song, and even more so about a Large Spoon show. You can feel the release of energy into the environment, and it just builds and builds and can stay with you long after the experience.
The first Large Spoon I went to involved a Fushigi Ball (I’m not going to elaborate, just know that it was involved and it was beautiful), and I think there’s something emblematic about that. A lot of pop music is simple (in a sense, it can obviously still be very complex and require a LOT of effort), and it’s really the passion and genuineness of an artist that breathes life into it. These songs, and especially the performances, feel incredibly intentional, and passionate. They almost force you to buy in, to let some part of yourself go to be able to fully experience it- it really is enchanting in a lot of ways.
Rambling aside, we had the honor of interviewing the Large Spoons themselves, to learn about their journey, their mindset, and their future plans. Be sure to follow them and engage with their creations using this link!Now we will recount to you their tale in full. It is a tale of creation, adventure, mysticism, magic, and more. So, without further delay, please enjoy our conversation with:
[ Originally recorded June 23, 2025 and March 27, 2026 ]
(Editor’s Note: Pieces of this interview are taken from two different sessions. The first, main part was recorded 6/23/25. The second part was recorded 3/27/2026, mainly focusing on the group’s upcoming plans and album release!)
The Forging of the Spoon
Amaia: How did you all meet?
Shaver: We all went to college together.
Leah: That’s true.
Shaver: I think that’s where we met. Brandon and I started the band with another drummer at first, and then things got busy and he had to drop out and we picked up Leah.
Brandon: The long and short of it is we’ve kind of all been friends for a super long time. Large Spoon started like three or four years ago before- but we only played one show, with a different drummer. Guy by the name of Gabriel Vianello, who does a lot of work with Po Mia and has some solo work stuff. He’s a very good guitarist, very good drummer, love the guy. Still have a lot of love in my heart for him. We wrote a couple of songs for a bit there, and then just… schedules, things petered out.
Then we got back together a year and a half ago because Allan Stacy- bassist for Inner City Witches and guitarist for Heedoski- was doing a senior college [project] and wanted to record a capstone of one of our songs. We started practicing every week and he made the agreement, like, “If I record one of your guys’ songs, we have to do the whole record” and I was like, “Sure, whatever”, ‘cause I didn’t have any faith in the music at the time.
Leah: Yeah, he’s held us to it since.
Brandon: He’s held us to it, and I was like, “Well, if we’re gonna practice every week we might as well book a show”. And then we just went out and started playing.
Leah: Things just kind of escalated, our schedules lined up perfectly to practice every Tuesday and we were just like, “What if we just keep practicing, ‘cause we’re already doing it for his capstone project”. So we just practiced all summer and by the fall we were like, “Alright, we’re ready for a show”.
Brandon: (laughing) In Shaver’s mom’s sweaty attic.
Leah: Yeah, we started out in Shaver’s mom’s attic.
Shaver: It wasn’t an attic, it was my bedroom on the second floor of the house…
Leah: That’s true.
Shaver: You guys keep calling it an attic, it was a fully furnished bedroom.
Brandon: It was really sweaty though. Large Spoon was forged in the fires of heat.
Leah: But, yeah, we all met in college. I remember playing- [Shaver] had a senior project that I played some Large Spoon for...
Shaver: Yeah, my capstone- it was kind of as Large Spoon… it was us, but we weren’t really Large Spoon.
Leah: Yeah, it wasn’t Large Spoon really... we were doing some- originally there were some that were just [Brandon’s] singles...
Brandon: They were just songs that I had written.
Leah: We were kind of like the session musicians, I guess.
Brandon: It was easy ‘cause they’re my best friends anyway, so it was like, “Okay, cool!”. Originally we were gonna do a whole record but that was so much effort. The singles already took so much blood, sweat and tears as it was.
Leah: And I was a very green drummer at the time, so it was kind of tough getting takes sometimes...
Brandon: Yeah. The, the two songs from those sessions were “Lovely Loudmouth” and, uh, “Leslie”.
Shaver: We all have audio degrees from Webster University.
Leah: Yeah, we all met in the audio engineering department. School of Communications.
Brandon: I feel like most bands are from Webster in some way, it’s really funny.
Shaver: There’s always at least one member.
Leah: A lot of bands shake hands with Webster at the very least.
Brandon: St. Louis is like the the biggest small city ever. Everyone just knows each other.
Leah: Everyone kind of knows each other.
Brandon: Everyone’s really nice.
Leah: Yeah.
Shaver: Except for me.
Brandon: Except for Shaver over here. That’s why he yells at every show.
Shaver: I’m rude. I beat people up.
Amaia: Do you want me to cut that or do you want me to emphasize, “sarcastic”?
Brandon: Put it in bold text, parenthesis: “He really means this, he really is a threat, he’s a really angry guy.”
Amaia: “As I entered the coffee shop, I felt threatened.”
Shaver:“He wasn’t even there yet”.
Leah: You can feel his aura.
Shaver: “You can feel his presence from down the street”.
Brandon: He’s the tallest one here, so he’s a pretty scary guy. I love hanging around Shaver ‘cause I know if I get in a fight that he’s gonna defend me because I’m like 5’8 and he’s like 6’2.
Shaver: I’m not gonna defend you, I’m just gonna pick you up and carry you away.
Leah: What was the question Anna asked me about if I got nervous on stage?
Brandon: Oh god, this story’s so funny. During our second show, one of our friends Anna was talking to Leah and she said like, “Hey Leah, do you ever get nervous?” And Leah responded, “I got nervous for the first show, but then after that, you know, it’s kind of just muscle memory and I already know the songs. And, you know, I’m behind a drum set behind two men, like if anyone were to be nervous it would be Brandon.” And that show I might have been the most nervous I’ve ever been in my life.
Leah: I was like, “If I was Brandon I’d be terrified. I would be terrified the entire time”. Like, I’m behind two people and a drum set, I have a few degrees of separation. Sometimes you guys are standing in front of the crowd and I can’t really see them and I’m like, “This is good for me…”
Brandon: My stage antics are just fight or flight half the time. I’m just panicking, but in a good way, because I’m around my best friends. So I’m like, I gotta say something funny, and I already talk fast.
Amaia: How did you decide to start doing music in general? Like, what made you want to found this band specifically?
Brandon: I think all of us have always wanted to be in a band.
Shaver: That’s true.
Brandon: I think I think if you play music, like, you want to be in a band in some way.
Leah: Yeah. I got heavy into Nirvana in high school and I was like, “Well, rock bands are cool, maybe it’d be cool to be in a rock band.” That’s when I learned how to play guitar, and then I did percussion in high school and that’s where I learned drums. When I got asked if I wanted to play drums for them, I was like, “That sounds like fun.”
Brandon: She was just so down to hang, it was cool. I was like, “Oh, Leah’s so cool and she’s just gonna play drums for us.”
Leah: Yeah, ‘cause we were already friends, so it’s kind of like, “Oh yeah, I can try to do that.”
Brandon: And I’ve never wanted to be a solo artist. Part of the thing I’ve always liked about the fact that we’re a band is that it’s a group of other people to not only rely on when you need it, but also get ideas and inspiration and energy from. I always make a joke that if I’m writing a song, I always run it through Shaver, because he’s my filter for bad ideas. I just really like the collaborative aspect of being in a band, like even if I’m bringing maybe a larger chunk of the song to the table, I don’t want it to be solo-istically my idea.
The songs aren’t Brandon songs, they’re not Shaver songs, they’re not Leah songs, they’re Large Spoon songs, ‘cause we all throw a little bit in there. And I obviously don’t write the parts for the other band members because I want to see what they want to do! I think it’s cool. That’s my favorite part about the band is the blending of different people’s inspirations and styles.
A Spoonful of Inspirations
Amaia: Touching more on inspiration, that’s actually one of my other questions. What are y’all’s main inspirations, individually and as a band?
Leah: Tool.
Shaver: No, not that…
Brandon:(laughing) Just that.
Shaver: Weezer, Nirvana…
Leah: I know [Brandon] has a lot of answers.
Brandon: I actually have a very long answer, so I’m gonna say at the end.
Shaver: Um… I don’t listen to music. [Laughter] No, uh, I grew up listening to a lot of post-grunge so a lot of my stuff is very simple and strong. Very straightforward, my bass lines aren’t really all over the place.
Brandon: You write very simple and effective, which is really cool.
Leah: He’s our rock.
Brandon: He’s our lead bassist.
Shaver: So stuff like Breaking Benjamin or Shinedown for me.
Leah: I don’t know about the band, but at least for me, I really got hooked on Nirvana in high school and I’ve just really loved any kind of drums from the 90s since then. I just like big drums, like Dave Grohl was a big inspiration for me. I like his style of pop drumming, I think it’s really cool.
Brandon: Gosh, she hits drums harder than anyone I’ve ever seen… You’ve broken so many sticks just practicing!
Shaver: She does not hold back.
Leah: That’s true. I gravitate towards drummers that hit the drums as hard as they can. Like, Dave Grohl and then- the other month we went to a show that had Inches From Glory on it and their drummer Marty is incredible. Shout out Marty. Incredible drummer- all of those guys are super talented. But I’ve never seen somebody hit the drums that hard in my life. And I was like, “I have to lift weights or something. I can hit them harder, so”.
Amaia: You should check out Josiah from St. Clair. Like, he’ll break the drum set.
Leah: Yeah, yeah.
Shaver: We actually played with them our first show.
Brandon: They were super supportive of us on our first show. It was so cool.
Leah: Awesome guys.
Brandon: I actually jammed with them like last week. They’re like the sweetest guys ever. I’m actually so glad you guys interviewed them, they’re so cool, I love them to death. Um, I guess it’s my turn to yap. When I joke about the band I’m like, “Oh, it’s a pop rock band that’s similar to like Semisonic or like Fountains of Wayne or like Weezer”, but when I’m writing a song, I feel like I write motifs almost.
I always joke that a song like “Mr. Wizard” was inspired by Inner City Witches in the way that the guitars and the drums kind of have a conversation. Like I play a guitar riff and then Leah does a drum fill and then I play a guitar riff and Leah does a drum fill, and there’s pauses and stops and things move around. Whereas a song like “Interstellar Car” was like a Van Halen riff turned into a pop song. So I feel like when I’m writing stuff I’m like, “Oh I want it to kind of be like this thing I really like”. “Wrong Song” is basically just a really immature Melvins song pretty much.
Leah: What did Jamie say?
Brandon: Oh, Jamie from Four Degrees Colder said “Cowboys” reminded her of mid-2000s Counting Crows, which is so crazy.
Leah: It’s so funny because right before she said that we were talking about Counting Crows. [Brandon was] like, “I think we sound like Counting Crows” and then Jamie said it and it was like, “Whoa!”. So, we’re a Counting Crows cover band.
Brandon: I write in motifs usually. I don’t think I’ve ever gone into it being like, “I want this to sound like a Large Spoon song”. It’s just, “I want it to sound like this song that I like”.
Amaia: How would you describe your music style in general? Do you guys stick around any genre or do you describe yourselves kind of just as Large Spoon, take it as it is?
Shaver: Pop rock, sort of. Power pop.
Brandon: Our bio says “earnest DIY Midwest power pop”, which is not a real genre, but it felt right.
Shaver: It’s an amalgam.
Leah: A spoonful of all of that.
Brandon: Somebody described us as rock lowercase. I didn’t know how to feel about that, but I guess it makes sense. Someone said something really nice that I liked where it’s a lot of melodies and concepts that… it’s very comforting music ‘cause it’s a lot of melodies and concepts people have kind of heard before, but re-contextualized in some way. I don’t think we try to write songs that are bigger than the audience, you know what I mean? Like at the end of the day they’re just catchy pop songs through a distortion pedal, which I think is what’s fun about it.
Leah: We’re not reinventing the wheel.
Brandon: I say power pop just because I want to write songs that are catchy, but I could see us in the future doing something that’s a bit more Midwest emo or maybe a bit more hardcore, a bit more this or a bit more that. But right now we’re writing song by song pretty much, and kind of what feeling what that song needs to facilitate. And obviously like my larger inspirations are gonna be power pop or pop music like the Beatles, song writers like Elton John and stuff like that.
Leah: Weezer.
Brandon: I do really like Weezer. You can leave that in, I like Weezer…
Shaver: Weezer cover band Large Spoon.
Brandon: I think it’s fun to wear your inspirations on your sleeve. But I just try to write song by song. I think that’s what’s fun about them is we get to work on them and be like, “What does this song need?”
Leah: ‘Cause [Brandon will] walk in the room with something and then we’ll just kind of lay it down I guess.
Brandon: And I love it when the idea is completely different by the end of it. I know the stuff that we’ve been working on that’s after the record we’re working on right now sounds kind of different, which I think is really cool. Which is what I really liked in St. Clair’s interview where they’re like, “You don’t have to feel the attachment to these songs anymore. Like, you can start working on things that are newer and fresher and feel more fun.” Obviously I feel a strong attachment to the eight-song set list we have right now, but I’m so excited for the new things around the horizon, new melodies, new songs, new experiences. I get to put them under the rug, they get to be done. Some of these songs are sitting on like four years old at this point.
Leah; Yeah, I’m tired of some of it, we’ve been practicing these songs for two years.
Brandon: And they’re good songs!
Leah: They are good songs.
Brandon: Cowboys is like a four year old song at this point. That was one of the first songs we ever wrote. “Interstellar Car” and “Cowboys” we wrote at the creation of the band. And then songs like “Mr. Wizard” and “Tell Me I’m Pretty” were more recent. Just doing new things, making music, making them song by song.
Shaver: Genre isn’t real.
Amaia: We talked about a few different bands already, is there anyone else that you guys want to shout out or mention in this?
Shaver: Talked about Four Degrees Colder. Inner City Witches.
Brandon: I have a list.
Leah: We’re super appreciative of everybody that helped us out.
Brandon: I have like a long list, I’m not gonna do the whole thing. Um...
Amaia: You can if you want, I can include all of them.
Brandon: God. Well, at least- power round, power round: Martyridge. Shout out all those boys! Disney Killed the Everglades. Four Degrees Colder. Inner City Witches. And also Alan’s solo project Heedoski. Uh, HAFFiE’s really cool. You’ve already mentioned St. Clair. Fool’s World rips! 86 Red has some of the coolest guitar riffs I’ve ever heard in my entire life! Frog Crossing and Buy Her Candy! Obviously Goo Man is the coolest person who’s ever existed. I’m such a fan.
Leah: Yeah, [Brandon is] a big fan of just like everybody that we rub shoulders with in the scene. Or just any show that [he goes] to.
Brandon: Everyone’s been so nice to us.
Shaver: We also like Fever Pitch, and Mellow Trauma. Played with them a couple times. Very nice. Very good people.
Leah: Shout out Kota, your girlfriend who takes a bunch of our photos, videos.
Brandon: (laughing) She doesn’t have a band, but she’s cool.
Shaver: And yeah, shout out to our friends coming to our shows.
Brandon: Shoutout friendship.
Leah: Big shout out to friendship.
Brandon: Large Spoon’s really a band based on friendship.
Leah: Yeah. And [Shaver’s] parents for letting us practice in their attic for like half a year.
Brandon: Shout out the attic.
Leah: I keep saying attic, it’s literally just a room.
Shaver: Shout out attic band.
Leah: t’s just the second floor. There’s carpet.
Shaver: It has painted walls, there’s air conditioning.
Brandon: I think that’s the thing that’s so cool though, like all those bands I listed all sound a little different.That’s such a cool part of the DIY scene right now. Like, I was worried that when we came in that us sounding not like other bands would be a bad thing, but when we played our first show people were like, “Oh, the fact that you guys are kind of like a goofy pop rock band is what’s cool, and that it sounds different”. Not to say it’s the most revolutionary sound in the world, but just texturally there’s a lot of hardcore in St. Louis, there’s a lot of punk, there’s a lot of, like, indie rock, but I think what we do is kind of silly and fun enough that it’s kind of its own little thing.
Caleb: If you had to perform a set in front of a group of animals, what animal would you choose?
Leah: Can I perform in front of a bunch of raccoons? I think that’d be fun. A bunch of raccoons and we can give them a bunch of food to eat and they can all hang out and eat food.
Shaver: Cats.
Brandon: Fuck you, seals. Seals! I wanna perform in front of a bunch of seals and when they eat fish they slap on their bellies. I fucking love seals.
Leah: Can we throw out fish in the audience?
Brandon: We can throw out fish.
Caleb: What shape and color do you feel like represents you?
Brandon: Fuck… orange rhombus, next question.
Shaver: Four inch rhombus??
Brandon: Orange rhombus.
Shaver: Oh, orange rhombus.
Brandon: Four Inch Rhombus is my new prog rock band.
Leah: Can I be a periwinkle parallelogram?
Shaver: Gold… rhombus.
Brandon: Shaver’s a white square.
Caleb: What are your feelings on horses in general?
Brandon: Fuck ‘em. Next question.
Leah: In general?
Brandon: Fuck, I actually don’t like horses, actually fuck ‘em.
Shaver: I tried to ride a horse in 6th grade and I cried because it was terrifying, so…
Leah: I was going to say, they’re really graceful, but they kind of scare me. I’m afraid of getting kicked by one, honestly.
Caleb: Would you rather be a tree or a fish?
Brandon: Fish, easy.
Shaver: Fish.
Leah: Tree.
The Spoons Made Along the Way
Amaia: Are there any shows that particularly stand out or that you remember or want to emulate?
Brandon: I think the best local bill that I ever saw was with Leah and it was Portraits and Landscapes, Dialogue, Inches From Glory, and Family Medicine. It was on a Thursday night, it was at Sinkhole, and it was four of the tightest bands just even in general. Like, Portraits and Landscapes played a perfect, uninterrupted set, Dialogue had so much charisma and so many guitar riffs, Inches From Glory was the loudest, fastest-
Leah: That was the loudest three-piece I’ve ever heard.
Brandon: The loudest three-piece I’ve ever heard!
Leah: In a very good way.
Brandon: And Family Medicine just melted my face off. It was so cool. And these are bands that are, like, local. These aren’t touring bands. The thing that’s so cool about the scene is that everyone is in, like, friendly competition. Everyone is trying to one up each other with how good their set list is. When someone plays a really good set, you go on after them and you’re like, “Yeah, I’m gonna be even better than they were”. That’s kind of how it felt at- we played a show at the Webster Concert Series that kind of felt like that. Our friend Andrew Jolly is in a really cool band called “Chase the Dragon” and they played a really solid set and I looked over at Shaver and I’m like, “We’re gonna play an ever better set. This is going to be the best show we’ve ever played”. I was manifesting, “This will be the best show we’ve ever played”, and it was pretty close! It was a really good show.
Leah: One of my favorite shows just ‘cause I’m biased is the first time we played Sinkhole with Mellow Trauma and Fever Pitch. After our set when I went outside there were a bunch of audience people there and they all clapped and went, “Large Spoon!!!” and I was like, “Oh my gosh”. And then I had to grab something and when I came back outside they were like, “Leah!!!”.
Brandon: That show was so weird ‘cause someone got a selfie with me!
Leah: It was super weird. I was like, “Whoa, why does everybody know my name?”
Brandon: I was at the bar cooling down and some some person got me by the shoulder and was like, “Can I take a photo with you?” and I said, “What?” And by the time I’d realized what happened, they’d already gotten a photo. I was like, “Am I a celebrity now? I’m kind of scared.”
Leah: That felt nice though, it was super cool. I think my favorite performance performance-wise was the second time we played Sinkhole. I thought that was a really good show for me.
Brandon: That was a really good show for us. That was a really solid set.
Shaver: My favorite show that we’ve ever played was at Shock City Studios.
Brandon: Oh, yeah!
Shaver: The place where I work. They set us up a little show in the studio. That was fun. It was very small, but it was fun.
Brandon: That was Four Degrees Colder and Disney Killed the Everglades.
Leah: And one of our friends Anna gave me a pink cowboy hat. That was really nice of her. I was like, “No, no, no, it’s okay.” and she’s like, “No, you have to take this.”
Brandon: And we got the large metal spoon at that show too!
Leah: Oh my gosh, yeah.
Brandon: My friend Jacob, he does film work and he did film work for a blacksmith and the blacksmith was like, “I can’t pay you the whole amount, but I can craft you anything that you want”. And he was like, “I don’t want a sword… So I got him to make you a big spoon.” And I was like, “This is the most insane specific gift I’ve ever gotten”. I almost cried on the spot. I love prop comedy.
Leah: Before the set and we were like, “I think we’re a prop comedy band now”.
Brandon: STL’s infamous prop comedy band.
Amaia: You need to bring it to every single show.
Shaver: We try to. Brandon forgets it sometimes.
Brandon: I forgot it the last one.
Leah: I don’t know how you forget it, it’s humongous.
Amaia: I feel like it’s time for me to ask the obvious question, why “Large Spoon”?
Brandon: It’s from the Vine.
Shaver: That’s it. That’s that’s all you need to know, you don’t have to do the whole thing.
Brandon: …how long do you have?
Amaia: Um, we can go for as long as you want.
Brandon:Ohhh you should not have said that.
Shaver: Don’t tell Brandon that ever.
Leah: It’s from the Vine where the guy has a large spoon.
Brandon: There’s this really iconic vine where King Bach wants a scoop of ice cream. And his friend replies, “Only a spoonful.” One would think that, “Hey, he’s only gonna get a small amount of ice cream. A spoon’s like really only this big, right?” One would assume that. The spoon itself can only be this (hand gesture) big. And one would assume that he doesn’t want that much ice cream… King Bach out of nowhere pulls out a comically large spoon, implying that he’s gonna eat all of his friend’s ice cream.
So, imagine this bit that I just did to you, expanded over the time of like ten minutes. This was a running bit during my junior year of college. Every time I’d have people over at my apartment, we would be hanging out and drinking and I would trap someone in conversation and explain to them this vine in vivid detail for ten minutes. And I would just be like, “And he pulls out a comically large spoon!” There were so many anti-jokes that we had with each other where it was like, “Oh ,he pulls out a comically large spoon, that’s really funny.”
Shaver: No one would laugh but we would say, “Wow, that’s really funny.”
Leah: Literally just an in-joke about a vine and then I think you were just like, “What if we just named it Large Spoon?”
Brandon: ‘Cause all the good band names are like two words.
Shaver: Yeah, so we had to drop the “comically”.
Brandon: We cut the “comically” and “Large Spoon” just sounded cool. And there was no band that had that name that we Googled.
Leah: Yeah, no other bands named after kitchen utensils.
Shaver: There’s Spoon. Spoon is a band. But we’re bigger than that.
Brandon: We’re larger, in fact! And realistically I kept the name because I think it really fit the dorky nature that we kind of have. Like, when you hear a name like Large Spoon, I feel like the music we play fits that in some way.
Leah: Yeah, the vibe of that name kind of fits what we do.
Brandon: We try not to take ourselves super seriously. We yap a lot and joke, because it’s fun.
Shaver: At our first show we said we play Fortnite. We shouted out Fortnite at our first show.
Brandon: And our second show we shouted out Marvel Rivals. Gamer culture is a big part of Large Spoon.
Amaia: What are your plans for the future of Large Spoon, like in the short term and long term?
Leah: The only future thing I can see is like in a couple years I just hope I’m still playing shows with you guys. I think that’d be fun.
Brandon: Yeah. What did I say to you Shaver when we started this band? We were talking about stickers or merch or something and I was like, “Shaver, all I want to do is play music. That’s the only thing I like about this band is I get to play music”. And I like other stuff about it, but I’m the only thing I want to do with this band is play music. Everything else is extra. I don’t want to do social media, I don’t want to do all this nonsense. I want to go to a show, play music and have fun.
Leah: Yeah.
Amaia: I think that’s definitely part of the appeal of Large Spoon in general too. Like it’s just a very solid band. I really appreciate that.
Shaver: We’re just having fun.
Brandon: We’re just three friends having a lot of fun.
Leah: I guess that’s it then, like I think a lot of people just like us because we get up there and it just seems like we’re having fun and are enjoying playing music. I think people just like that honesty.
Amaia: ‘Cause your style when performing is very energetic. Like, the appeal of y’all in a big way is the authenticity and, I don’t know, you guys just seem joyful to be there.
Brandon: We are! We’re having so much fun.
Leah: We all get really excited. Like definitely when I’m playing on stage, I’m just trying to use that excitement to hit the drums as hard as I can. It’s kind of the same feeling as when you get really into it when you’re jamming, it’s that same kind of, just getting in the zone and having a lot of fun. And it’s really cool to see a bunch of people having fun too.
Brandon: If you have fun it translates to the audience a lot. Large Spoon is something that… like, I’ve purposely in my stage mannerisms and the songs I write, I’ve tried really hard to make it appeal to people that don’t go to shows, if that makes sense. ‘Cause for a lot of people it’s really hard to feel confident leaving their house and going to a show ‘cause it’s very foreign, and it feels like there’s such a disconnect between the artist and you.
What I’ve tried to do with Large Spoon is just be my most genuine fun immature self so people can be like, “Yeah, we can cast a spell at the end of the song,” or, “Yeah, that’s funny. That’s a silly thing. Mario Kart is dumb. Fortnite is silly. I play Fortnite.” Stuff like that. I’ve tried really hard to not make the band bigger than the audience, ‘cause there’s a lot of people that I think try really hard- for good reason. Like I think it’s cool to take yourself seriously, but I think we do that in moderation. We just try to have fun.
Leah: Yeah, when the band’s name is called Large Spoon it’s kind of hard to feel serious sometimes.
Brandon: The next record’s dark and serious.
Shaver: The next record’s about death.
Leah: I think our friendship carries through onto on stage. We have a lot of fun up there. Like it was not too long ago that you guys were dragging me out of my apartment at like 4:00 PM when I was having a bad day.
Shaver: Make you go practice.
Leah: Make me go practice and feel a lot better. We play friend rock.
Caleb: I know you have a record coming out in June, can you talk a little bit about that and what that process has been like?
Brandon: I’m very excited. We recorded pretty much all of last year, we did band practice every Tuesday and recorded every Thursday, we alternated kind of like that. It was taking a lot of our time up, but we wanted it to be good. We recorded with Allan Stacy of Inner City Witches, he engineered it all. Spencer Soracco, he did the new Buck Fever stuff. So kind of the power team on that. Shaver’s the…
Shaver: Mastering engineer.
Brandon: He’s also the director of studios at Shock City, so we got a lot of studio time and we were able to just experiment and try different things. We were able to dial in tones that we thought really sounded good on the record. I mean, I think it shows with the singles. The singles sound really good, I’m really proud of them. And if it was just me, I wouldn’t be able to do that, so it’s genuinely really cool. We have some of my favorite people recording and mastering the music. And… we have a Shock City Live, which is similar to AudioTree Live, and that will be five tracks. There’s going to be a recorded video with it as well, and it’s going to be on streaming platforms.
Shaver: The video will be on YouTube April 5th.
Brandon: That’s going to be cool, I’m really excited about that. That’ll be like a pallet filler before the record comes out, because we’re going to be on hiatus until the end of May. And after the record, we’re gonna… go on tour, with Creysi.
Caleb: Oh, wow.
Brandon: Yeah, we’re revealing everything.
Caleb: That’s actually crazy hype.
Brandon: It’s a little four-day run, so it’s not too much.
Caleb: Still very hype.
Brandon: We’re kind of dealing with booking right now, but it should be a lot of fun. It’ll be our first tour with an out of St. Louis show- we played Rolla once, but like real, genuine out of St. Louis show that’s longer than a couple hours drive. Then after that… (laughing) I’m going to sit down and write songs. We have a couple of songs we’re cooking on right now, but I feel like I have whole records worth of music, I just need to sit down and make demos for them and workshop them with the band. I mean, “Bad Man” is the newest song, that’s not going to be on this record, and I kind of want to go to a new direction and… build songs to be like epics almost, you know what I mean?
I have this weird intersection of local bands I like where it’s like: Inner City Witches and these songs that almost don’t have verse-chorus-verse or whatever, but then I’m a sucker for a good chorus, which is why I like Disney Killed the Everglades so much. So it’s this intersection of, like, emotionally resonant, genuine music, and just different song structure. I don’t think “Bad Man” sounds like anything else we’ve done, which is why I like it so much. And it’s just very visceral emotionally. I want to write on more topics that feel more genuine to the good and bad parts of how my mind works. Anything you’re excited for, Shaver?
Shaver: I’m excited for the album to come out. We’ve been sitting on these songs for a couple of years now. We’ve played them out. We want to get them out there and start working on cooler, newer stuff.
Brandon: We have a couple of new songs that I think are really, really good that we need to workshop a little bit more. Ideally by the time a record is out, we’ll have two or three more songs under our belt, which will be cool. But, big things coming!
Caleb: Seriously, yeah.
Brandon: Should we announce the super secret show…? I’ve been talking about it. We have an album release show at Off Broadway, June 12th, the day the record comes out. I don’t know why I’m being so coy about everything, I’ll just tell you everything. Fuck it. We’ll make a post about it soon. But, we have an album release show coming up June 12th. We’re going to have Creysi, Inner City Witches, Disney Killed the Everglades. We’ll be headlining Off Broadway. That’s going to be fucking crazy. Dude, talking to Sarah the booker was the most like hail mary, like, “Can we please have a show?”
Caleb: That’s a crazy lineup. All of those could be headliners.
Brandon: But we’re headlining. Yeah, that’s gonna be really fun. And my philosophy is like, I just want to take us as far as I think we can go. There was something that [Shaver] and Leah said that really resonated with me, and it was like, “Brandon, we’ll be right behind you, just do what you think is right”. I’ve been kind of rolling with that. I just have full faith that they’re going to be behind me. It’s… a lot of pressure, but it’s really freeing. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, I love it. And I love the scene, I love all the people in it, I’m at a bunch of shows. I’m a show-goer as much as I am a guy in a band.
Amaia: Is there anything else you guys want to talk about or anything I’ve missed that you guys think is important or want to say?
Brandon: Important things? It’s so hard to say “important things” without coming off as like preachy or like…
Leah: “Only a spoonful.”
Shaver:(laughing) Anything you want the public to know? “Only a spoonful.”
Brandon: I guess, closing thoughts: Be yourself. Be with your friends. Your friends will always make you happy. Do everything you can with love in your heart. Meet and talk to as many people as you can because the experiences of other people are what’s gonna make you happy. “Only a spoonful.” That’s my fifth point.
Leah: Embrace being cheesy.
Brandon: Embrace being silly.
Shaver: Have love in your heart. Piss in your balls.
Brandon: (laughing) Cut the tape!
Amaia: Should that be the end?
Brandon: That’s perfect! That’s beautiful!
Leah: I think the underscoring of earnestness with like the dumbest thing possible is Large Spoon.
Brandon: The dumbest joke you’ve ever heard. Totally Large Spoon.
As always, huge, huge, huge shoutout to Large Spoon. I wish the shoutout could be as large as the spoon, but alas, we may never reach such heights. I really can’t express how excited I am for this Large Spoon album, I am ready to be nourished and forever changed by it.
As you might have noticed, this article took us a bit of time to get finished… However! It did give us the chance to really promote the spoons at a nice time. They are going to be taking a short break the next few months, but their return (as mentioned above) is going to be legendary. Seriously their album release show is going to be so explosive and awesome, I can’t think about it too much or I’ll get too excited.
All that is to say: get hyped! Stream the singles they have released. Follow their journey on Instagram, go to their future shows, and of course, stay silly. 🥄
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