Following the October release of their album Head Shoulders Knuckles Floor, St. Louis rock band Lobby Boxer are preparing to close out a packed 2024 with their release show at Off Broadway on Saturday, December 14. Even though the road to their latest album took a bit longer than expected, it only made Lobby Boxer stronger and more confident in the process.
Lobby Boxer officially started in 2013, but its origins can be traced back further to when guitarist/vocalist Zach Fendelman and drummer Max Sandza first met playing in a metal band in high school. After that band broke up, the two stayed in touch and wound up rooming together as students at Webster University, where they started working on what would become the first Lobby Boxer songs, soon adding bassist Andrew Gurney. Over the past decade, Lobby Boxer has made a name for themselves as one of the best DIY rock bands in St. Louis.
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Shortly after their 2019 release, Eugene’s Preference, Lobby Boxer wanted to get back in the studio and even planned to record with Foxing’s Eric Hudson in November 2019. But as they prepared, Fendelman says the group realized they just weren’t ready.
“We kinda started from scratch at the beginning of 2020,” Fendelman says. That included adding another guitarist, Jack Catalanotto, into the mix. As lockdown hit, the band decided to use that time to recalibrate their approach “We took a little time off and then we started writing once we got back together,” Fendelman says. “That was the new inception point of what the album was.”
Lobby Boxer began performing again in 2022, and they spent the next two years recording the songs that would become Head Shoulders Knuckles Floor, working with Ryan Wasoba for tracking and producing the record themselves. The intention was to write an album that played around with more traditional pop song conventions. While the band has identified with more niche subgenres in the past, Lobby Boxer is first and foremost a rock band, and exploring the boundaries of what they can do under that umbrella was part of the process.
“I almost feel like rock music is the paintbrush, and we’re using that to explore so many different areas of the genre,” Fendelman says.
“We appreciate every sound that a guitar can make,” Sandza adds.
The resulting record features a lot of gleeful genre-hopping that conveys Lobby Boxer’s sensibility and approach to music. While everyone in the band has their own, often disparate, music tastes, where they overlap is what makes Lobby Boxer. Fendelman cites My Chemical Romance, Incubus, and Mellon Collie-era Smashing Pumpkins as partial influences on the record, especially from the standpoint of making a big, eclectic album.
“There were a couple of years doing this band where we felt like we could only do certain kinds of music, and we had the epiphany that any song we write, no matter style, will still be a Lobby Boxer song,” Fendelman says. “We’ve been operating that way for the past five or six years, and Head Shoulders Knuckles Floor is a very focused version of that.”
Alongside releasing their newest record, Lobby Boxer has had a busy 2024. They toured with bigger bands, such as Gold Necklace, The Fall of Troy, and Hail the Sun. Playing for new audiences, many of whom weren’t already familiar with Lobby Boxer, at these shows allowed the band to better hone their live show and play with how they bring new people into the fold.
“It got us to think about how we bring ourselves into a presentable form that would make sense to these people,” Sandza says. “I think the fun thing about this show coming up is that we’ve been able to hone in on how we’re going to play the album and segment it out.”
With Head Shoulders Knuckles Floor out, Lobby Boxer is looking to blow things out for the end of the year with their album release show at Off Broadway on December 14. The bill features a DJ set from The Mall’s Mark Plant, Chicago emotional cybergrind band Blind Equation, and Chicago math rockers Origami Button. As they plan their own set, Lobby Boxer ultimately just wants to do something that is fun for them, adding rarities, older songs, and covers to the setlist to craft a show that feels fun and joyous for everyone in attendance.
“I think we’re really trying to bring a positive energy to what we do,” Fendelman says. “We want our shows to be a space where you can forget about whatever bullshit is happening in your life, let loose, and enjoy the moment.”
Lobby Boxer have some tricks up their sleeve for 2025 that they’re not quite ready to share yet, but Fendelman notes that they’ll likely be heading back into the studio to start working on some new material.
“Even though this album just came out, we’re really itching to see what’s next,” Fendelman says. “I think 2025 will be the coolest year yet for this band, but that’s all I can say about that for now.”
For tickets and more information visit offbroadwaystl.com.
