Lie Low

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It’s a Friday night in a small suburb of Tampa, Florida. Working on a lead from a person I don’t know very well, I venture to a local hotspot to check out a band by the name of Lie Low. They’re in the middle of a four-hour set when I sit down at the bar and ready to order a mojito. It’s still summer down here, and unlike where I come from, it’s okay to wear short sleeves in November.

“What can I get you, honey?” asks the bartender.

“Can I get a mojito, please?” I ask, once again placing a request in the question format.

My drink, the one I’ve been excited for all day, arrives in a plastic cup with not enough ice. Ambivalence is how I would describe my feelings toward the first few sips of this rum-based libation.

“How’s the mojito?” the bartender asks after a small amount of time has passed.

“It’s good,” I tell her, not because it actually tastes good, but because life is easier when I’m more agreeable. And really, life wouldn’t be that much better if the mojito tasted impeccable. I’m living under palm trees and walking around below a circle of hot gas that shines from sunrise to sunset.

Once Lie Low’s set ends and they clean up, we sit down for a conversation.

“Why are you out here tonight?” I ask the four band members, a group started a few years ago on a whim that now boasts a steady following in the Tampa area. “Like, how are you feeling?”

“Exhilarated,” says Taylor, the lead guitarist.

Then Rochelle, the vocalist chimes in. “So tired,” she says with a smile. “We played last night at a late-night smoky bar, and we play again tomorrow night, so we’re in a marathon right now.”

“It’s rewarding, but it gets to a point where you feel so drained,” says the drummer, Spencer. “And then you have to get up and go to a normal job in the morning,” he laments with a soft chuckle.

The quartet is seated on a park bench that is too small, forcing them to be more physically intimate than perhaps they’ve ever been. They can’t help but smile the entire interview, as if no matter how sore the combination of their legs, voices, and membranes might be after a long night, there is nowhere else these friends would rather spend their Friday night. Their playful sides are now coming out, and for the first time they are asked to evaluate how this all came to be.

At least on paper, one would never imagine these four forming a collective: a youth soccer coach, a contractor, a photographer, and a computer programmer. By day, they’re just like you and I, but when the sun sets, four alter personas come to life via soft melodies and a vocalist who embodies the same sound as the late Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries.

“It’s nice being away from the job,” notes the bassist Gabriel before removing himself from the spotlight, willing to let his more vocal bandmates run away with the conversation.

We begin talking about their original music, specifically “Strange Dreams,” a track from earlier in the evening that would be perfect for a rainy day, if precipitation ever did make its way to The Sunshine State.

“I came up with the progression and the riff, the trippy kind of feel of it,” Taylor says of the song. “Sent it over to Rochelle and she wrote over the chord work. We brought it to the band and they built on top of it, enhanced it.”

As Rochelle explains, “I had a month of just the weirdest dreams that were very vivid, like my parents dying, falling from a hot air balloon. Just very strange dreams, so I wrote about it, and it became the chorus.”

***Stay tuned for the full article***

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A quick word from this post’s sponsor: 

Interested in buying or selling a home? RE/MAX agent James Eason can help with all your real estate needs.

Get in touch with him today by clicking on this link!