Petite League on Pandemic, Perspective, and Production

By Tiara Grace

Petite League is an indie pop-rock band hailing out of Queens, New York. The band consists of frontman Lorenzo Cook, Henry Schoonmaker (Drums), Adam Greenberg (Guitar), and Kevin McCallum (Bass). I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Cook to learn more about the band. Read on to find out more about the band’s collegiate inception, their newest album ‘Thrill Seekers’, and their future in the modern age of streaming music. 

Ease Up: To start off, I want to ask you, “Who is Petite League?”. Tell me a little about the band and how you guys came to be. 

Lorenzo Cook: I’d say a majority of the band is me. It’s something I started when I was a junior in college. I think my first semester of junior year was like 2015, no..2014. The band is just guys I went to school with. My good friends who I lived with during school and continued to live with after school. We were just doing a bunch of stuff in Syracuse. We were putting on shows, we were involved in that scene a lot. There were a bunch of bands that were happening and I had been making a bunch of music but kind of more on the acoustic side and sort of, just me. I kind of wanted to hang with everyone else so I started playing some heavier stuff and more band-oriented music. Just kind of my friends were hired on to be in the band. We’ve been going on for eight years now so it’s the same dudes. There’s been some changes but still always guys that I knew from school and have been part of my life for a long time. 

EU: Going over your socials and listening to your music, I really like the ‘nostalgic’ vibe that your songs and socials provide. How did you and your bandmates develop that style and how do you see that having lasting power in your careers?

LC: I don’t even know if it’s an intentional thing at least in the music. I think when it’s the type of songwriting that I like in general is just something that feels reminiscent. I think it’s really hard to write about something or write music about things that you’re currently going through. It’s a lot easier to write about things that have happened and reflect on it. So I think that’s where sort of that ‘nostalgia’ stuff comes from because you know you’re reflecting on good things or bad things. You’re going to look at it with a little sense of uh…or you’re going to have a bit of putting on rose-tinted glasses looking back on things or you’ll just have some perspective that I think is valuable. I wouldn’t call it nostalgia like it’s definitely not something I intend to do but it just happens that way, I think it’s just a specific type of songwriting. In terms of the design and the shirts and stuff, I think I just, I just like [laughs] old-looking things and vintage baseball stuff is something I collect on the side and so, yeah I just think that all kind of fits by mistake but it’s not an intentional thing but it ends up working well together; And it’s all I really know how to do. In terms of like, design stuff, what looks right to me just feels a little bit more real. That was kind of like the origin of the band. We started out with all the merch. We were printing it ourselves and we really had a hands-on approach to everything that we were doing. Without any help from anyone. I think people get that a little mixed up. When things are done the old way, it can feel old or vintage or a callback to a different time, which is true but I just think that it also has some of the blood, sweat, and tears in it that makes it feel a little bit more personal. I’ve always been really keen on keeping that aspect of things involved in the music and apart of it all.

EU: Definitely! Speaking to your new album, I took a listen. I really enjoyed the opener “Bloody Knuckles” and “Mets”. They really sounded awesome and “Bloody Knuckles” sounded like the opening of a really cool indie film. 

LC: I appreciate that. I think “Bloody Knuckles” to me always felt like an opener. So it’s cool to hear you say that and then, you liking “Mets is really cool too because that song is a little bit of a different style from anything we’ve done before. I feel like I’ve never, I don’t think I’ve ever really had keys, like little keyboard parts in songs before and actually the dudes in the band and my roommate came together and bought me a little keyboard back in March. So I was like, “I really gotta use this on something. That song, I understand what you’re saying about that song specifically being very nostalgic, but that’s definitely what that song is all about, kind of reflecting. 

EU: Yeah, yeah. I actually wanted to see if you could speak to the songwriting process of either one of those songs. 

LC: “Bloody Knuckles” was one of the first songs that I was workshopping early on for this record. I made a friend. She was a fan of the band for awhile and she had moved to New York and she’s involved in the urban exploring community and climbs these insane skyscrapers just for the photo and she’ll sleep out on the roof. It’s the kind of stuff that makes your palms sweat. She was telling me all about this. It was the first time I’d made a new friend in a while. Throughout the pandemic, it was sort of hard to meet new people and that was something I was really into before, you know living in New York and stuff, you meet people all the time. So I went out of my way to meet her and hang out and listen to her stories. I thought it was super inspiring and such a contrast to the life that we had been living in the lockdown where she was like breaking into places and doing the most she could to like, feel something outside of her bedroom or her apartment or her house. So, I was just really inspired by it. It felt like a really nice idea. That’s not something I’ve ever participated in. I’m not afraid of heights but I’m not like…the most well-balanced person. So that’s where that song came from. It created a pinhole for me to sort of look into a new theme to go into for the new album, a new idea to go in with. With “Mets”, I don’t know, it’s called “Mets” because we were watching a lot of the Mets this year, ‘cause they were doing really well. That song really is a reflection of the past few years and the ups and downs of life and overcoming everything, in a good way or a bad way. That was the idea behind that song. It was actually one of the last ones that was finished. I tend to do that with albums where the last song ends up being sort of wrapped up in a bow and see how it all fits together and how it’s all molded together. What the process was like --- you can go back to the other albums, there’s always one song that is, not always the last song on the tracklist, but there’s a song that’s the conclusion of it all or the thesis of everything. I think it’s really difficult to go into an album and be like, “I’m going to write about this and it’s going to be this theme”. I feel like if I tried to do that, it wouldn’t feel very real and I’d be forcing my hand on certain things. I think, and this was the process for this album as a whole was, “Let’s let it free flow, write what feels right, write what feels good and collect everything that sounds the best together, make an album, and then look at it and be like “What did I do? What did I make? How does this fit into my life? What does it feel like?” That was really the process this time, taking a step back from really being zoomed in on it all. Taking a step back and looking at it like, “Alright, nice, I think I understand what I was doing. I understand what this means in a broader context.” It was a fun exercise. It’s important to keep things fresh and try new things all the time. That’s kind of the process behind everything, not just those two songs. 

EU: Kind of stepping back from your previous work, what sets this album apart? You mentioned specific tracks that listeners will really resonate with or like a certain vibe or sentiment that you want listeners to feel? 

LC: I think it’s really up to interpretation. I don’t think you have to think of it in any certain way. For me, good songwriting is something you can write and it can feel personal to anyone who’s listening. Even if it’s…you just don’t want to get super specific about things but also you want it to feel real. So, no, I mean…there’s differences on this album for sure. I think, again, when the band started I was nineteen and I’m twenty-eight now so there’s a maturity that’s happened in terms of the production of the music like how we play and how we play together and how we record. I think we’ve changed a lot in that sense and grown hopefully. You don’t want to be doing the same thing you’re doing ten years ago. So that was something I definitely noticed as we were going along. “These songs sound more mature”. It’s not as…you know maintaining a rambunctious energy is great but also being a little bit more controlled with it, I think that was a big theme in terms of how we were going about recording drums...You know we weren’t letting anything be simple. We wanted it to be a little bit more complicated, we wanted to put some more thought into this. Be more than just a basement party show song. We wanted it to feel more…to exist more in a broader context. So that’s kind of like..in terms of the writing like I was saying [earlier], it’s just a mixed bag of everything; Tying it all together in a way that made sense in the end. It’s always a different process. As I’ve gotten older and gotten more jaded about the music industry, I hope to not keep repeating myself. In a way you’re sort of just, stuck in a whirlpool, you’re doing the same thing, trying to make it work again. We have that a little bit with some of our older stuff has done really well more recently and comes up more on searches and people like those songs. Which I totally, totally understand. I am a victim of the same thing where I like bands when it felt unintentional and I don’t like when bands try to replicate that stuff. So I think with this album, specifically, I was trying to let go of that and trying just to make what I wanted to make now and not really think too hard about “Does this sound right in the context of our older stuff? Will people derive the same energy from it?” and instead be like, “This is what I’m doing. You can like it or you don’t but I’m kinda into it.” That’s sort of the thought process behind it. It doesn’t have to be one-upping yourself every time. I think it’s more just, in context, “Where does this play? How do we listen to it? How do we appreciate it? Who’s going to listen to it?” I try my best not to concern myself with it. It’s difficult though to look at your old stuff and see it get millions and millions of streams across everything and be like, “Oh my God. Can I do that again? Is that possible?” ‘Cause if you start thinking about that, you’re going to try and make that song again and it’s not gonna work and you’re gonna [go into a] downfall of trying the same trick over and over and over. I think it’s just more interesting to grow and fail maybe. Maybe you won’t fall again the next time. The process doesn't really end. That’s important to remember. 

EU: I liked what you said about, I’m paraphrasing but, understanding strategy. People [Artists] tend to strategize after seeing their old work do really really well and it makes them over-evaluate what they’re putting out now. What I think is a great aspect about the music industry is that you can also be performing live, you don’t have to think about the music on the apps, you can be in front of an audience and playing in front of people who are listening to you live. What has your experience been performing in live venues in the area and beyond? 

LC: It’s been great. Living in New York, you’re sort of in the mecca of it all. We end up not playing as much as people would think, in the city, but there are a lot of bands who play every weekend. I just think that we would feel a little burnt out on that. We are sort of a product of the internet in a lot of ways. We have a bunch of friends here and stuff but we’re more of a global/world wide web band where people like us all over the place. We tend not to overdo it in our own town just so it doesn’t become stale for us or anybody else. Post pandemic or wherever we are with it; After we were able to play again, the first show back was that euphoric feeling. I had gotten such bad depression and anxiety during the pandemic that I was worried that I had lost that feeling and whenever the day would come that I would play again, I wouldn’t feel that cathartic post-show euphoria where I was just so happy that I’ve done that and it feels amazing. It’s almost like when you do a group project or a big presentation and then you’re done with it and you get to sit back in class and just kind of zone out while other people are presenting. That’s what it feels like but ten times better. {laughs} Your friends are there and it’s just an amazing experience. So to get back into that, into the swing of that, is so nice. The first few shows back were that feeling, magnified, and then we got to play, go on some tours, and hang out with people. We get to play in LA, Miami, and Nashville; Going to places where others hadn’t had the opportunity to see us yet; That’s what I love the most. Getting to these places that are so far from where we’re from, just to be like, “Hey, I don’t know who’s going to be around but, I know there’s like six people who really want us to come to this town so we’re here now” and they bring like five of their friends each and some random people come and all of sudden, it’s a party and that’s just the best. You were saying, we don’t play “the hits” exclusively. We play some of those but we play some of the songs that no one really knows from our catalog. People come back after the show and are like, “Oh, I like that song!”. Like, yes, it’s there. I don’t blame them for not finding it, we live in an age where Spotify picks and chooses what people will get fed. I think it’s up to artists to show people their work and no better way than playing it for them and having them be like, “Oh my god, what is that song?”. It’s a great experience. 

EU: The algorithm can be kind of deceitful, especially when finding new artists, I would like to know that I’m hearing all parts of them and not just “the hits”. So that’s really cool. 

LC: Totally. I just saw Turnstile the other day; My girlfriend got us free tickets and they were obviously playing their newest album almost in full or maybe totally in full, but they played some of their oldest…from their first record and stuff.

EU: Yeah. 

LC: It’s really important. Especially with a band like that, that blew up off of this specific record in a massive way, it’s great to hear them show their roots again and have people be like, “Oh my God, maybe I have to listen to the rest of their catalog. Not just that one album.” We have six albums at this point, or about to be on our sixth album [on Friday]. There’s a lot of stuff that wasn’t even that long ago but it’s like, “That was from our fourth album.” and it’s like, “Oh, we never really played that one, maybe we should show people. It’s a great song, we should try it out.” So we have a breadth of catalog that we can choose from at this point. So, yeah, I love when bands do that. It’s good to show people something different. 

EU: Definitely, I love knowing and hearing that about bands. In closing, what do you see or where do you see I should say, Petite League going in the future? I know that’s a very broad and vague question but just understanding what a band’s trajectory could be even though it’s always up in the air. 

LC: Well, you know, at the beginning of this year, we were at a bar with some of the guys and someone asked me, “What do you see happening with everything, from this album specifically?” and I was like “Ah man, I just hope it lives up to some of the other stuff and people continue to find the band. It doesn’t just become, “Oh, this is another Petite League album.” It just turns into another new entry point for more people. One goal in mind, I really hope that in the future, in the next few years, we could have some music in some movies. I would love for that to be a thing and I think that’s any band’s real goal at the end of the day because that’s big money and that’s super fun and it’s like, “Oh my God, this actor-”, whatever, it’s just a fun..it’s a privilege, not everyone gets that. I got approached, maybe a month later, from a director who’s making a movie and I thought it was like a pretty small indie movie, and they wanted a lot of the catalog, and I was like, “That’s great.”; And they wanted some original music and it paid well and I didn’t know much about it. Then, I saw an article about it and it’s actually going to be a big movie. 

EU: Oh wow! 

LC: So, it happened. It was so nice when one of those things that I really wanted to happen in the next few years is actually happening and is going forth and is going to be in festivals and there’s some big actors in it and it’s like, “Oh my god, it’s f*cking awesome.” I was super happy to see that. So, I think that's a long way of answering it. I just hope that the band continues to grow and hope more people come in on this new record and are able to find the rest of the catalog from it. I hope we’re able to tour more. I hope we get to build on what we’ve already built on and just get it to that next stage. I have no ambitions of being famous. I have no ambitions of being a staple in the indie rock music world. I just want to be able to make what I do and make enough money so that I can afford to do it. For the better part of this year, I’ve been full-time working on this album and doing Petite League full-time. So, I want to be able to continue to do that. I want to be old and just be like, “Yeah, I don’t know, I never really… I’ve had real jobs but I want to be like, “This has just been my gig.” I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to work in this way and the way I want to. It occupies my time. 

Petite League’s most recent record ‘Thrill Seekers’ is available now!

You can listen to their music on streaming services Apple Music / Spotify / YouTube and keep up with them on Instagram and Twitter.