Llano, an Austin-based post-punk group, released a music video on Tuesday for their song, “Llano.” After the release of their debut album on Dec. 12, the band accumulated over 10,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. The Daily Texan sat down with two members of the band, Brooks Johnson, bassist and radio-television-film junior, and Lucas Hendrix, guitarist, who joined the band in late September, to talk about their upcoming show at Cactus Cafe on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
The Daily Texan: What would you say is your favorite part of performing gigs?
Brooks Johnson: Most of my life, I’ve thought that I was gonna be a filmmaker
(and) work on movie sets. Creating movies is one of my favorite feelings in the world. The only kind of other place that I feel that alive, focused, useful even, is being on stage performing with this band. My favorite thing about it is being part of a team, creating something in real time that people are enjoying as much as we are.
DT: What does Llano stand for?
BJ: To us, it’s really disappointing to see that music in the mainstream doesn’t really stand for anything right now. It’s not that people aren’t making good music or trying to do something, but it’s easy to feel like what you’d hear on the radio, you’d get recommended by Spotify, or what you see headlining ACL is bland and lifeless in a way. What Llano stands for is the drive to do something new when it feels like, as an audience, you’ve heard everything. (It stands for) the hope that there is still more to be said, artistically and musically.
DT: What is the environment like at the shows you perform?
Lucas Hendrix: Well, I knew (Llano) already had people that followed them around, like fans that would go to their shows. One of the shows I saw was at New Guild … Everyone was just ecstatic in the audience, crazy to see, something (like) magic.
DT: What went into the planning for this gig (at Cactus Cafe)? Are you guys excited for this one?
BJ: We got this gig because somebody at the Cactus Cafe … saw the YouTube video of our set that we played at Longhorn Late Night, and they reached out to us because of that, which is crazy. The Cactus Cafe is legendary in Austin. We’re all born and raised through and through South Austin kids. It is very special for us to have this opportunity, not only that, but to have been reached out to by the Cactus. This is a really special step for us in our journey, in our evolution as a band.
DT: Is there anything you want to add about the band (and) your experience?
BJ: I think we’re a little surprised about how well our album is doing on Spotify right now, as we’ve really done nothing at all to promote it. We just crossed 10,000 monthly listeners a couple days ago, and it’s been out (for) just over a month. We haven’t put up any ads; it’s just word of mouth and Spotify algorithm doing the work. We’re really excited to keep gigging, (and) we’ve been in the studio these past couple weeks working on some new material.
