Chat with Slothrust’s Leah Wellbaum

We had the chance to chat with vocalist/guitarist Leah Wellbaum, from rock band Slothrust. The band is getting ready for their US tour starting in San Diego this Friday, along with the release of their EP, I Promise. Besides those exciting news they also announced another tour starting in January to celebrate the 10th anniversary of, Of Course You Do. You can catch them at Madame Lou‘s in Seattle when they come through for that on January 27th-28th.

Where am I catching you?

I am in Los Angeles right now prepping for the start of our tour on October 20th, so we’re just doing sort of basic touch ups getting everything ready to go. There is a lot of moving parts necessary to make tour work so we’re just in the process of wrapping up all that we need to do before heading out for the month.

Speaking of tour, what are you most excited about heading out for a month?

As always, we introduce forum and we’re just excited to bring new music to different cities all over the country. There are a few places on the tour that we’ve never played before and that’s always really important to us to play new markets that we’ve never been to. So super excited for that and see how things feel in those cities.

Seattle’s not on the list this round of touring?

We just announced Seattle actually for our Of Course You Do, 10-year anniversary tour so we’ll be there soon enough. It’s going to be special as we play the whole record in front to back.

There’s been a few configurations of Slothrust through the years and now it’s you and Will Gorin, how did things get started?

I met Will in college, and we played in a bunch of different types of bands together, we played in a blues band and jazz improv group, and we just really connected musically. We connected as people, so we started spending a lot of time together as friends and playing together and decided to try some original music and the rest is history.

Tell me a little bit more about the new EP, I Promise, what inspired it or help it come to life?

Our new EP will be out on October 20th, and it is a combination of a couple different variations of Ginuwine‘s Pony, and the reason I did that is that I wanted to match what he put out in 1996 so we actually released a single where side A is the regular version of Pony and the extended version that is fourteen minutes long and then side B is the acapella and the instrumental. It’s definitely a weird thing to do and I haven’t really heard of anyone doing it recently, but I love committing to a concept and I really wanted to commit to this one. We also have a drum and bass cover of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and then we also have two original songs and those are the ones I’m most excited to share because they are original.

How did you even think about wanting to release Pony?

We listen to a lot of radio hits from the 90s R&B and hip hop, I grew up listening to a lot of that music and it’s always been influential and important to me covering more R&B stuff. The song just seemed to jump to the front so we committed to its concept, and we thought it would be fun and interesting to do a rock version of it.

What role did music play when you were growing up?

I grew up in a classical music family, there are a couple different orchestra musicians in my family and both of my grandparents were in the Cincinnati Orchestra, my grandma played the harp and grandpa the piccolo and flute. Everyone also plays the piano because that’s just an important, fundamental instrument to understand if you want to teach and a lot of people in my family are also music teachers. Both of my parents play music and growing up in addition to being into R&B and hip hip I loved musical theater.

How did it become something you decided to pursue a career in?

I grow up playing the piano, and I picked up the guitar around fourteen or so and I didn’t get particularly serious about it in terms of thinking about it career wise until I was in college. I didn’t think I was good enough at it and once I saw that I actually was good enough I still didn’t really think about my future all that much. I was just really focused on playing music and doing what felt right in the moment, it’s always interesting when the thing that you love becomes your livelihood because it does change your relationship with it. I try to have a relationship with music outside of the band as well and that’s really important to me to have a space where I can engage with it that doesn’t feel related to capitalism.

Speaking of music do you have something that you’re into right now or listening to?

I just got done playing guitar for an artist called Lady Lamb and she’s been doing music for a really long time and it was such a special project to participate in because it was an eleven-piece band and it’s just so cool to be able to play with other multi-instrumentalists and what it felt to be in a more traditional setting, where people were reading charts and all of that. In terms of what I’m actively listening to I’ve been really into Khruangbin they’re really great. They’re more instrumental leaning and Mark Speer plays guitar in the band, and I love the way he plays. He’s an expressive guitarist and I’ve been taking notes on his playing and thinking about how to incorporate that in my playing. I also love this Colombian Canadian artist named Jessie Reyez.

When you go on tour do you bring something from home that you must tour with?

I absolutely have to tour with a noise maker because I’m a very sensitive sleeper and I need white noise in the room. Usually there’s fans and air conditioners and whatnot depending on where you’re staying. I’m also a big crystal enthusiast so you can count on me to have at least a couple of crystals on any given tour.

What’s the hardest thing about touring?

There are a lot of challenging things about tour, there are also a lot of amazing things about tour and that’s why we keep doing it. It’s challenging controlling your eating and sleeping habits and maintaining a healthy balance of those, especially if you’re under resourced on the road which most artists are these days.

What’s the most rewarding things you can think of touring?

Playing for the people, I love to play for the people, I love to see what type of energy shows up in each of each room of each show and take each of them as they come. To feel what happens when you’re in front of an audience that is really ready to receive your music.

Can you share a story from a tour night that was memorable?

We’re playing a place in November called Jamestown Skate Products in New York and we played there last year too and it was really fun. Not a ton of people know about it but it’s this really amazing indoor skate park and there’s an amazing community feel about it. My friend Pete is the head of Jamestown Skate and he’s great and has built an amazing community of young people that are very focused and passionate about skating. They all really love music and are just so sweet and openhearted, so we’re excited to go back there in November 13th.

What are your favorite things to do outside of music?

I’m a visual artist, I have been for my whole life, and I didn’t start doing it in a more commercial way until a couple of years before COVID but that’s definitely something I spend a lot of time on when I’m not on the road. I did commission work for people in addition to that I also teach, and then I also write, I have a poetry manuscript that remains unpublished, but we’ll see what happens with that. I’m always looking for different modalities and I’ve been doing those forever it’s just a matter of when and how I want to structure them and what my goals are but what people want also is also important to me.