How would you describe your band’s sound and style in the Winnipeg emo scene?

We started off very much a midwest emo band inspired by the likes of American

Football, Algernon Cadwallader and Tiny Moving Parts. Lots of riffs and busy drums

which was apparently exactly what the Winnipeg scene happened to be missing at the

time. Coming out of the pandemic, a lot of our local emo adjacent bands had moved on,

so we were able to kinda fill a gap in the scene and the support was there pretty much

right out of the gates. A few bands who we now call friends were kind of in the same

boat in their respective corners of the DIY scene, so mutual admiration and healthy

competitive spirit has pushed us all to continue developing. We've gradually been

incorporating more shoegaze, hardcore and screamo into our sound leading up to this

new album we're putting out and a lot of those ideas are thanks to growing with, and

being inspired by our peers.

What inspired you to start Leon’s Getting Larger back in 2021?

Niko and I had been playing in a couple bands that split amicably one way or another,

but we found our ideas bounced really well off one another so we pretty naturally joined

forces and started our own project where we get to do the exact style we wanted. Our

tastes are in a similar enough realm where our direction is clear but we can draw on our

own corners of sub-genres to keep things varied and fun to make. As a rash

generalization, Niko leans more Modern Baseball power-pop emo and I lean more Drive

Like Jehu math-y emo. Noah joining a bit later and coming from more of a metal

background without really having any foundation in emo in the beginning was kind of the

push we needed to take a step back from genre touchstones and just write good songs.

What themes do you like to explore in your songs and lyrics?

With this new record, we really looked inward which is a funny thing to say being in an

emo band cause that's kind of the whole point of the genre. You Be Good Now had a lot

more fragmented vague themes with a veil of sarcasm overtop. “If You Lived at Home

You'd Be Here By Now” is just us being more honest with ourselves and open with the

listener. I think this comes from Niko and I writing lyrics for entire songs this time rather

than trading verse/chorus duties song-to-song. There's songs about survivor's guilt, grief,

the whole works. Overall, there's a lot of feelings of not being enough for yourself and

others one way or another and at the same time, a crushing awareness that everything

around us is in really bad shape and out of our control.

How was the experience of creating your debut album You Be Good Now?

Writing You Be Good Now was pretty breezy because we had most of it written before

we even started playing shows. One perk of being trapped at home in a pandemic. A

year of gigging helped us sand the edges and before we knew it we had studio time

booked. We went with Jordan Voth on the strength of the work he's done for local bands

like Screaming at Traffic and Sit Calm and it turns out he's a good hang to boot. We

were pretty new to the studio and it was a good time and a great learning experience.

Knowing what we know now, we would've spent more time working on textures and

harmonies, but the end result is still a solid no-nonsense emo record that we're still very

proud of.

How has touring and playing live shows helped shape your music?

We try to give people something to dance about because it makes us feel like we're on

top of the world. We live-test everything we put out and the general rule is if our friends

stop dancing/nodding along, the song needs work.

What makes your live performances stand out to audiences?

We don't really do anything flashy aside from just flailing around a bunch and getting

soaked in sweat. Niko and Noah have this synchronized jump they do at certain points

and it's the cutest thing when they absolutely butcher it. We try to dwell less on minor

mistakes and just keep the energy up. Early on, after a gig we played with slim

attendance, our buddy Andy (shoutout Great Wealth) imparted some wisdom to us and

said something along the lines of you can't be disappointed with the crowd that isn't

there. We've applied that philosophy to our live set since then and rather than lament a

small turnout (practically a given at least a couple times when DIY touring), we try to give

the people that did show up something to connect with.

How do each of you contribute to the band as a trio?

We write pretty much every instrumental as a trio. Usually starts off with Niko bringing a

riff or two to jam and Noah and I just bounce ideas off it from there. A lot of times they'll

be working out chord progressions together and I'll belt in with a badly vocalized guitar

melody and sometimes they can translate it. We're also comfortable enough writing with

one another to be able to just straight up say if an idea isn't working and not get into a

spat about it. Really makes the process run very smoothly. Once we have an

instrumental, Niko or myself will take it home and write some lyrics overtop whatever

phone demos we remember to catch along the way.

What are your goals for the future as a growing band from Winnipeg?

We have no illusions about achieving stardom. We went into this not knowing if anyone

was gonna even like it so the fact that we're still able to do this for an audience at all

blows us away. The immediate goal is to take this album on tour out east and then

maybe through Europe someday. We're all dreaming that someday "If You Lived at

Home..." achieves status as one of those cult classic emo albums with a green album

cover, but we're satisfied having actually just recorded and released it. If people like it,

that's all gravy.