Muncie isn’t the kind of place bands come from as much as the kind of place bands try to escape. But LEISURE HOUR didn’t run — they stayed long enough to turn that strange, empty Midwest quiet into their engine.
They talk about their hometown like a liminal space: no venue ecosystem, no real art or nightlife energy, just long stretches of nothingness and the people you hold close to survive it. It’s where they formed, where they still crash between tours, and where the walls feel blank enough to force you to build your own world from scratch.
“Being in Muncie feels… strange. It’s where we formed as a band and where we all live now, but we’re on the road so much that we find our community in the DIY scene in people rather than places.”
And that’s how their community formed — not around a place, but around people.
The band found their real center a thousand miles away at Sound Acres, Gary Cioni’s studio in New Jersey, where they tracked their first record and learned how to function together. Those sessions shaped how they write, how they play, how they move as a unit.
“We made our first record there a couple of years ago, and we all truly believe that’s what turned us into a real band. There we learned how to play together, create together, and be together.”
Back home, what keeps the local scene alive is stubbornness: Indiana emo kids refusing to quit, writing and performing even when there’s no structural support and no financial sense to it.
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…and to think came out of that landscape — both the physical one and the emotional one. The dull, flat quiet of Indiana felt like the right backdrop for everything they were trying to unpack.
The songs deal with the damage people closest to them can cause: partners, friends, family. They used the record as a place to dump frustration, grief, anger, and regret, and they let it sound loud and fast enough to match the weight underneath. That tension between internal chaos and external emptiness is the emotional DNA of the album.
“The record was really written about struggling with our relations with loved ones. Whether it be partners, friends, or family, these songs are outlets for our negative emotions on a backdrop of music that feels like the dull empty state of Indiana can feel like.”
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At the same time, they’re balancing two different worlds: the pure, sweaty, basement-level DIY reality and the surreal visibility of the internet. They meet people at shows who care deeply about the scene, and that keeps them grounded.
But then they check their phones and see a song with over a million views — only to show up to a room of fifteen people the next night. It’s thrilling and confusing in equal measure. Viral traction gives them reach; DIY gives them meaning; the clash gives them perspective.
“Like, what do you mean this song has over a million views on Instagram but there’s only 15 people here at the show to see us? It’s an exciting, humbling, and challenging experience.”
If this record feels “Midwest,” it’s not in the chords or the gear — it’s in the attitude. There’s a quiet self-pity baked into the region, the kind you fall into when you spend too much time thinking about your life and not enough time escaping it. “I suppose the self pity of the record is quite Midwest coded.”
LEISURE HOUR lean into that honesty. They describe the album as a collection of their own traumatic experiences blasted at full volume, each member bringing their story and shaping the mess together.
The result is a young band telling the truth the only way they know how — by turning a place with nothing into a record that finally says something. And for LEISURE HOUR, it almost feels like the summer came early this winter.
