The Lo & Beholds A little Q&A with Garrett Herzfeld, drummer in The Lo & Beholds. Leicester Bangs: Tell us a little about yourself, and your band. Garrett: Yo! I'm Garrett. I'm 20 years old and I'm from Charlotte, North Carolina in the U.S. I'm pretty into food, stand up comedy, music, traveling, television, pop culture, stenciling and street art, and mainly hanging out with as many friends as possible. Our band is a 5-piece rock group with Jason Rudisill, our vocalist, contributing mainly to the basic formations and words to our music. Our guitar players are Pat Goley and "Sprad" Spradling, and our new bass player is Andy Cummins. We just really share an awesome musical chemistry, and it really doesn't hurt that we're all great friends as well. I've found it hard to label our music specifically, but I'd say it's alternative / indie melodic rock or something of the sort. It's really just fun to make and play, which it should be. LB: How did you start out making music? Garrett: I was introduced to Jason about 2 something years ago. We fooled around with a guitar and bass player, and I could already see Jason's amazing talent in songwriting, so I knew I had to stick with him. Eventually, we met Sprad and Pat and CJ, our original bass player, and came together as The Lo & Beholds. People immediately seemed to notice our playing in the Charlotte music scene which led to us getting bigger and bigger until where we are today, which is still not big at all, unfortunately (laughs). Again, it was really just about the awesome chemistry we found we had together. LB: Who did you grow up listening to and how do they influence what you’re doing now? Garrett: I used to listen to much crappier music than I do now, since discovering all of these new bands my musical friends have shown me. I loved Limp Bizkit; 'nuff said. But now my favorite group is Radiohead. I also love Rage Against the Machine, Modest Mouse, Animal Collective, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Brand New, Foals, Kings of Leon, and many others. I'd say my drumming is influenced by many, many sources and is hard to say from whom it is directly influenced. Jason (at least used to) love Manchester Orchestra, and I think he has a striking resemblance to Andy Hull's amazing music ability and his voice as well. He also loves Ray LaMontagne and others who I'm sure influenced his songwriting. Pat likes the Mars Volta, Circa Survive, and many others, which influences his crazy awesome guitar parts. Sprad likes Boards of Canada, Flaming Lips, and many others, which influences his awesome layers of chords and everything else. Andy likes a lot of stuff in general and he's just a good bass player. We really all listen to a whole lot more than I can talk about that influence everything in both obvious and subtle ways. LB: Tell us about your latest release. Garrett: Our newest EP is called "Wild Choirs". It is second to our first EP called "Lo and Behold!" and I think it's a huge step in a right direction. Our first EP was a little more soft and ambient with the girl we had in our band at the time. We feel this CD is a lot more focused, and I really like it because as the drummer I get to do a whole lot more. The thing about it is that it's got several styles on it we've found we like doing, from pop-y and bright to a darker heaviness. I think the variation on the EP, even though it's only 5 songs long, is what makes it really great. LB: Do you get out and play your music live, and if so, what can an audience expect at one of your shows? Garrett: We do play live, although since heading to school for the school year we haven't been able to do as much. We have a few shows coming up during our winter breaks from school in December / January in Charlotte, NC and we hope to play in other vacations, and during next summer, a ton. The audience can expect to hear first-hand the melodic musicality they hear on the EP, with an energized bonus added to it. Playing live is a truly genuine, one-of-a-kind feeling and we would like to think we show it when we're on stage. LB: What aspects of playing and recording music do you most enjoy? Garrett: I actually find the recording process to be somewhat frustrating, if only because I get so frustrated in myself when I can't do things perfectly how I want to. I'd say the writing is one of the parts we enjoy most since it's really just us hanging out while jamming on new little parts we each think of. Songs come together when writing amazingly quickly, which is a great feeling. Playing live, though, really is a good feeling too, so that would have to be up there as well. LB: Where can people find (and buy) your music? Garrett: People can find our music on our MySpace. You can buy our EPs at CDBaby, and our first EP is on iTunes while our second is soon to be up on iTunes as well. Here are the links: MySpace: www.myspace.com/theloandbeholds CDBaby: www.cdbaby.com/Artist/TheLoandBeholds The Lo & Beholds – Mouths To Feed