For most zoomers and younger millennials, the entrance of the video gameinto our childhood homes is not a memory associated with the buttressing of family ties. Speaking personally, it took only a few frustrated whacks upside my little sister's shins with nylon-tipped imitation drumsticks for my parents to forever consign the disc to the small valuables safe.
One imagines that someday soon this C.V. will read quite well tucked between scrapped Machine Gun Kelly press releases on the desk of some jet-setting label exec. But to truly appreciate the Llamas' auspicious come-up, you simply must put down this article and give a listen to the defiantly unconventional music undergirding it.
Of course, the professional intimacy of the blood-based contract simply means the Llamas have traded one sort of career anxiety for another, far closer to home."We could be at dinner like, 'Pass the peas,' and then suddenly we're being interrogated about our plans for the next three years," they continue.
When I inquire about a term used in their bio to describe the variety of genres they embrace –"shillelagh music" – the band is quick with an update. This isn't some ponderous, book-derived manifesto. Rather, the Llamas' broad outlook is the natural outgrowth of their upbringing. Across a childhood that shuttled from L.A. to Austin and then back again in 2017, the Mitchell household's esteem for chaotic eclecticism has – oxymoronically – always remained its one stable constant.
"In middle school there was a running joke where everyone who played in band would spread stuffed llamas all over the classroom," explains Blake."So when anybody who wasn't in middle school band walked in, they'd gaslight them into believing that there weren't any llamas in the room when there clearly were."
"That was the most staggering thing," effuses Mykal."Seeing them have the discipline to learn a song and perfect it within four days. And none of them are formal readers of music, so it was always done purely by ear."Though the apparent fruit of all that labor – an invite to, gulp, SXSW 2020 – seemingly died on the vine, the Llamas were quick to seize on pandemic-era opportunities.