Columbus’ Own: Lazy Susan & The BeanBag Boys are all about growth

Courtney Voisard
Fri, 19 Oct 2018 03:37:40 +0000
Arts & Life, Lantern TV, Music, News, Anna Weber, band, Columbus, columbus' own, featured, Lazy Susan & The BeanBag Boys, local music, ohio state, rock music

Video by Katie Hamilton

Lazy Susan & The BeanBag Boys are all about growing their sound within the Columbus music scene.

The idea behind the band came when singer and keyboardist Anna Weber and drummer Carson Dentinger were hanging out in bean bag chairs in the Baker West dorms on Ohio State’s campus where they met.

“I think we were just talking one day about what funny band names would be and we came up with one,” Dentinger said.

Guitarist Joe Ernst was introduced to the project after picking up and playing a guitar at Dentinger’s house while Dentinger played the drums, Ernst said.

But, the group was still missing its final BeanBag Boy, guitarist Noah Zeitlin.

Zeitlin was introduced after meeting Ernst in the dorms and Lazy Susan needed another person to play a show, Ernst said. So, Zeitlin learned five songs that week.

“I guess I picked it up kinda quick, but it was definitely a lot,” Zeitlin said. “I hadn’t performed since I was a kid. I used to do after-school music programs when I was a kid. It had definitely been awhile, but it was a lot of fun,” Zeitlin said.

The bandmates have been playing together as Lazy Susan & The BeanBag Boys for about three years now, and the diversity of their own musical backgrounds has played a big role in experimenting with their sound.

“We all have a lot of different musical tastes,” Zeitlin said. “Anna is in the music school, she studies jazz piano. Joe and I and Carson all have different musical interests. Carson loves hip hop, I like classic rock and like shred stuff.”

The band has been branching out from their original grungy sound, toward a more experimental psychedelic sound, taking influences from Lake Street Dive, Jefferson Airplane, Crumb, and Mac DeMarco,

“I feel like we draw classic vibes, as well as futuristic psychedelic,” Ernst said.

Zeitlin said the song writing process is a collaborative one, where each band member contributes their own individuality to the process.

“Sometimes the process just comes from one of us will just be working on something individually and we will record it on our cell phone and send it over,” Zeitlin said.

Lazy Susan & The BeanBag Boys have performed at staple Columbus venues like ?Newport Music Hall, The Shrunken Head, and Trism, as well as Ohio State events like ?Ohio Union Activity Board’s “Battle of the Bands,” according to the band, but the crowds at house shows have been exciting.

“Recently, we’ve just built a pretty large network of bands that we know, so we’ve been playing a lot of different house shows,” Ernst said. ”Through that you meet new people and for me personally, I’ve enjoyed those the most.”

“We’ve seen people moshing at our house shows before, which is always funny,” Zeitlin said. “It doesn’t even matter what the song is, it could be one of our more tame songs and people start moshing.”

Lazy Susan & The BeanBag Boys will be bringing their groovy psychedelic melodies to Ruby Tuesday’s at the corner of 19th Avenue and Summit Street on Oct. 20 for their EP release show.

In the meantime, the band said it is going to keep writing and incorporating new sounds into their set.