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Music

There’s Nothing Leisurely About Leisure World’s Raw and Jarring Noise Rock

The Orange County punks share 'Cut Me Loose', a track taken from their new cassette release.

Image: Bibs Moreno

Named after a gated Orange County retirement village, Southern California’s Leisure World blow out a raw and jarring punk and noise rock sound. There’s a heavy Pissed Jeans vibe going on but it’s more 'punk' than your typical Am Rep noise rock work out. The four-piece have just released a seven-track demo that includes amazing art from Mexico City’s Abraham Díaz.

The tapes will be available August 2 from their show in Fullerton, California at the Continental Room with Canada’s Tunic.

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Listen to the track "Cut Me Loose” below and read a short chat we had with the band’s Erik Varho.

Noisey: Do you live near the Leisure World retirement home? You should do a gig there!
Erik Varho: My Grandma lives there. It's pretty nice. But they have good lawyers I'm sure, so it's probably best they don't know we exist until after we are rich and famous and unfuckwithable.

Some of your songs are likely to be compared to the shouty noise rock of Pissed Jeans?Have they been an influence?
I mean, I like that band. I like their whole deal of "we like playing loud dumb riffs in our free time but we still have day jobs and would like to keep it that way and also please don't take any of this too seriously cause at the end of the day we are just a bunch of ding dongs." That's the correct balance in my opinion. I think Brian likes Pissed Jeans too. Colin mostly listens to Janet Jackson as far as I know. Andy likes Discharge or whatever real punks listen to.

I’ve just discovered the amazing artwork of Abraham Díaz. How did you hook up with him?
I was really into underground comics a few years ago so he was on my radar from that. So we asked him and he said yes. Very nice fella, lots of people should give him money to do things. I still am into underground comics but I actually do stuff now and don't just sit on my computer at my parents' house so I'm not really up on what's going on anymore.

What other bands in Los Angeles/Orange County area do we need to know about?
Our friends Bad Antics are the top dog riffers around here but they don't do anything anymore cause they're bored of Orange County sucking. YAAWN are the queens of being weird and fucked up and pissed off. I don't know anything about Los Angeles, I never go there. If anyone knows any other good bands in Orange County please tell me.