As I was walking into ACL weekend two, day two, I heard a rocking melody coming from my left. I turned and saw a band of five young men playing to a completely enraptured crowd on the BMI stage. While my mind told me to keep walking to a tent in the opposite direction that would shield me from the cold, my body carried me over to the stage. 

It was freezing and rain started to drizzle making outside unbearable. However, I maneuvered through a crowd ranging from middle-aged adults in the back to young teenage girls singing every lyric in the front. On stage was LAUNDRY DAY, a BROCKHAMPTON inspired band from New York.

The lead singer, Jude Ciulla, was jumping all around, engaging the audience in a young Freddie Mercury way. I never once saw the microphone on the stand, and in fact, he swung it around like an extension of his own arm. I had a chance to speak with Ciulla and the guitarist, Henry Weingartner (HW), the next day. 

The three of us sat down after the two band members watched the end of the BANKS performance. At only 17 years old, these boys made their first festival appearance at Austin City Limits. 

“We didn’t have a game plan three years ago that at this point we would be playing ACL, it just all kind of has built up naturally,” says Ciulla. The group has been making music since their freshman year in 2017, but it didn’t start with the five of them.

“Jude and Sawyer started working on a song together,” says HW. Once the two finished their first song, the rest of their friend group, Etai Abramovich, Henry Pearl (HP), and HW, expressed they were interested in making music too. HW continues, “Then we all made a song together and we couldn’t call it their song because we all worked on it, so we just decided to form a group.” 

“We were like ‘Oh wow, we all just worked on this song. I guess we’re a band now,’” Ciulla adds. The band created the name, LAUNDRY DAY, after the first song was written and recorded. Ciulla says, “Everything about it has been supernatural.”

Making music must be natural to these five because the band has already released three albums in two years. Ciulla notes their sound is a “blend of stuff” taking components from rock, hip hop, R&B, jazz, and even mainstream pop. 

“It’s very collaborative,” Ciulla adds, “as we’ve gotten closer, we all really trust each other and are super honest when we’re in the studio.” With almost 200,000 followers on Spotify, their system seems to be attracting fans.

Though according to Ciulla and HW, when the band started, it wasn’t about the fanbase. The boys just wanted to “make really cool music” and the rest just followed. 

Success followed this band from New York to Texas, where the band played for 45 minutes, captivating a sizeable audience. Beforehand, the band didn’t know if anyone would even show up.

“It’s scary not really knowing how many people are gonna be there, how many are gonna know our songs, how many are gonna have energy,” Ciulla explains, “It’s part of the fun though, not really knowing what to expect.”

As the band was playing, it began to drizzle, but that didn’t deter the crowd. HW mentions that even more people came over when it did. The crowd huddled closer and the once humble group turned into a mass of people either nodding their heads or rocking their bodies to the beat of a LAUNDRY DAY song.

“We’re giving as much energy as they’re giving us,” Ciulla warns. He says the best shows are when the exchange between the band and the crowd is at its best. The approval from their audience was unanimous by the swaying of arms in the air.

In November for a limited number of shows, the band will be opening for The 1975. The band will also be opening for Claro in Europe this December. For more information on LAUNDRY DAY and specific dates visit www.daundrylay.com.

My personal opinion on LAUNDRY DAY:

As a live performance, they are very entertaining group and definitely worth seeing in concert. The members are constantly moving around on stage, engaging the crowd vocally or through movement, and do so confidently. The guys looked young, but by the way they played and meshed together, they seemed professional grade to me. On stage, the five of them looked like they were having the time of their lives and radiated that to the crowd. After reviewing their albums, their live versus recorded songs sound almost identical, an area which many big name bands have trouble. Although some songs are quite repetitive and a few are lyrically undeveloped, they’re catchy in a non- “Justin Bieber-Baby” sort of way (still ~edgy~). I believe LAUNDRY DAY is at just the beginning of a long, successful career ahead… below are a couple of their songs I’ve added to my own playlist:

Bon Appetit! 

Written by: Hannah BrennanPhoto courtesy of: Camilla Ffrench (@ffrenchphoto on Instagram)