Petite League have worked hard to maintain their DIY ethos in the decade since their scrappy college basement show days at Syracuse University. The lo-fi power pop project is the baby of songwriter, composer, guitarist and vocalist Lorenzo Gillis Cook, who set the tone when he and his housemates established The Scarier Dome space in 2016, a riff on their hometown’s old Carrier Dome basketball stadium.
Living there by day and booking and playing shows there by night, Petite League self-released their first two albums on Bandcamp, made tapes and screen-printed their own merch. “Growing up in that world and seeing music as a community thing and not a super serious thing, but something to get behind and do for fun,” Cook tells PureHoney,” it was very DIY and that definitely is the origin of the band.”
After relocating to New York City, Petite League received some label attention and comparisons to Big Apple rockers The Strokes. But as the band grew and prospered, they found they didn’t need the outside help and started their own label instead, Zap World Records.
On their latest LP, released in May, Dead Star City Tours, Cook took inspiration from indie pop group The Drums, paring back guitar chords for more single-string lines, drum machines and synthesizers. Along with Henry Schoonmaker (drums), Adam Greenberg (guitar) and Kevin McCallum (bass), he also took a page from Paul Westerberg’s melancholy songwriting playbook. On the second single, “Ghosts,” an effortlessly catchy, jangle-pop refrain (with synth) bursts through Cook’s playful yet yearning vocal about a lost love who haunts his dreams.
Just months after a West Coast tour, they’re back on the road heading south, with Gramps in Miami as the finale. Cook felt the city pulling him back after a Petite League show in Miami in February. “All these kids showed up, and it was kind of a revealing thing to realize that people are very appreciative when you come out of your way to play for them, in a way that’s kind of foreign to us,” he says.
Petite League performs 7pm Saturday, Oct. 4 at Gramps in Miami. petiteleague.com ~ Olivia Feldman
