Bayou Beats: The Mitch Laing Band

While anime and eighties fans wait to nerd-out to The Mitch Laing Band’s upcoming albums, the recent Marvel album is instantly familiar and fun. Overall, it’s a hard rock album that admixes classic tunes with straightforward songs that capture the heart of each character.

ARTICLE BY VANELIS RIVERA AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW BAILEY

With top-grossing films like Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame, it’s become intriguingly apparent that we crave extraordinary humanity. We recognize our own struggles and shortcomings with those of the warriors on movie screens or pages of comic books, probably because we’re all going through our own hero’s journey though we don’t always recognize it. Mitch Laing, frontman and guitarist of the Mitch Laing Band, was on a musical hero’s journey, and the events leading to his two concept albums show that persistence and hard work clears the path.

“Without comic books, I wouldn’t know how to read,” says Mitch. Diagnosed with severe dyslexia at a young age, Mitch’s parents frantically tried to help their son by taking him to the Sylvan Learning Center and hiring tutors. Nothing worked until his mother, activating her supermom powers, took him to the first Clint’s Comics store. She told him that he could pick out five comic books, and if he read them all by the end of the week, they would return for five more. Every night, mother and son sat down and read comics together. Even after his mom stopped buying comics for him, he frequented the store until he graduated high school. His first selections foreshadowed his band’s LPs. On his first visit, he unknowingly grabbed all DC Comics superheroes—Batman, Swamp Thing, Flash, Green Lantern, and Aquaman—which became the focus of Justice (2017). On his second visit, he ended up with Marvel heroes, like Ghost Rider and Spiderman, spotlighted in Avenge (2019).

Clearly, his passions were destined to converge, but as a kid, his sole reason for picking up the guitar was to bond with his father, a long haul trucker he saw forty-eight hours a week. Learning guitar at nine and bass at eleven readied him for joining a band. Encouraged by his father, he began his search at church. His performance peaked with the praise band Uncommon, who toured in other states to shows of hundreds to thousands of people. Led by his success and the confidence of youth, he quit praise and started 1 Method, a Christian metal band, where he met current bass and guitar players of The Mitch Laing Band—respectively, Jeremy Harrington and Kyle Simpson. Expecting to pull the same audience numbers as before, he quickly met the grueling reality of a newborn band. Six years later, he and Jeremy played together in a few other bands , including Borderline and Amie’s Escape, which was a Nirvana-Weezer cover band. Though songs for the band’s first album were composed between 2006-2009, the band, as an entity, started in 2016.

“The Mitch Laing Band got started essentially out of my need for my family to have health insurance,” says Mitch. With a one year old, he was prompted to drop all the bands he worked with and projects in the making to play at restaurants and patios. Already considering composing a superhero album since The Dark Knight was released, he set to record his DC concept album solo. He began recording at Tipitina’s Music Co-op, located in downtown Monroe. Other musicians frequenting the studio began to listen, showing interest and encouraging Mitch to start a band. Though his musician line-up has changed since the first album, he welcomes rotating members, particularly because most of the players are dads and husbands with other professional obligations. Mitch now works at KTVE, owns his own production company, and produces a reality TV show on the local CW called Rednecks for Hire. “The musician line-up that we have now is the line-up I hope to keep forever,” Mitch says. The group established synchronicity as a result of years playing together which aids the songwriting experience. Mitch admits he often has a clear vision of his music that includes bass, guitar, keyboard, and drum parts. “As a songwriter, the biggest difficulty when writing with other musicians is translating the parts you have envisioned in your head without sounding like you’re telling people what to do,” he says. But Jeremy and Kyle, instinctively anticipate Mitch’s vision, resulting in a proactive exchange of ideas and the playful music that has become their staple.

If you haven’t already thought it, the band skirts a fine copyright line—they had to change their recent album cover—but their immersion into the concept band genre is solidified. Before the release of their DC album, they already had three concept album ideas lined up, but the Marvel album wasn’t one of them. Prompted by fans, Marvel got immediately prioritized, a timely choice with the release of Avengers: Endgame as the epic conclusion of Marvel’s Infinity Saga. The goal became to compose albums that would stand alone, produced, recorded, and mixed in-house. Their next album will be a nod to anime fans: a punk Naruto album focusing on the young ninja’s saga which will be called Hokage (“fire shadow” in Japanese). Next on their agenda is a heavy metal homage to movie monsters from the eighties like Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers. Thirdly, they’ve planned a mish-mash style album called Toy Box which will cover all the eighties cartoons that they grew up loving, including Star Wars, Ghostbusters, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

While anime and eighties fans wait to nerd-out to the upcoming albums, the band’s recent Marvel album is instantly familiar and fun. Overall, it’s a hard rock album that admixes classic tunes with straightforward songs that capture the heart of each character. When writing about his fictional childhood luminaries, Mitch takes an immersive approach to his songwriting. For instance, before writing the Ghost Rider song, “Flames on the Highway,” he spent a full day consuming Ghost Rider media—he watched the Nicolas Cage movies, read his extensive comic book collection, and watched season four of Agents of Shield. He wanted to match the character with spaghetti western guitar licks and drew additional inspiration from Johnny Cash’s “Ghost Rider in the Sky,” which he listened to while reading his Ghost Rider comics. Avenge is the creative regurgitations of Mitch’s superhero media consumptions.

“We wanted to make sure the music matched the personality of the character,” says Mitch. An endeavor most significantly noted in “Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist,” a heavy dubstep track meticulously composed with the help of Chris Esswein (stage name AvonovA), which is meant to match business magnate, Tony Stark. Songs also range based on social and personal insights. Spiderman’s song, “Web-slinger,” reflects his pop-icon status, so the song is “poppy and upbeat,” almost “teeny-boppy,” explains Mitch. Meanwhile, Captain America’s track “Star Spangled Avenger” becomes the album’s “Freebird” or “Fade to Black.” The song takes the perspective of what Captain America would think of America if he showed up right now. Mitch takes a few risque liberties with lyrics, but the moral of the song can be summarized in the line, Cause this don’t look like America, from his side of the shield. Another reflective ballad is the song “Life,” which is the only non-superhero song. “When you’re in a world of fantasy, you still need to have one foot in reality,” Mitch explains. It acts as the album’s balancing element, one that hits home for him: “I feel that’s where I’m starting to get in life. I’m in my mid thirties at this point. More things are going to be taken away than given to me from here on out.” Mitch barely completes the last word when Jeremy effortlessly blurts, “Like your hair.” Mitch deadpans a playful vulgarity, then both stream spells of laughter, as Mitch expresses his grievances about Jeremy’s thick-hair genetics.

It doesn’t take long for the dust to settle at the backend of Villains Comics & Collectibles. Surrounded by shelves of the most powerful fictional characters in the galaxy, Mitch reveals that the character after his own heart is Swamp Thing. “That’s Weezy’s superhero,” he says enthusiastically, “He’s so overpowered and underestimated because people forget that he is the avatar for the planet Earth. All plant life and photosynthesis, all things that create life, that’s his domain.” Often Mitch finds himself defending Swamp Thing, arguing that the Louisiana-based humanoid could easily end Superman with a single touch by dangerously turning up Superman’s photosynthesis to “a thousand.” It would overload Superman “like a battery,” a plot line explored in a comic timeline where Superman turns evil. Even when wearisome comic-based discussions ensue, he enjoys sitting down with fans after a show.

Clearly, Mitch is a wellspring of comic book knowledge, and in building them into his songs, he’s created a musical encyclopedia, distinctly made for those enthralled with the superhero mythology. Mitch, like most superheroes, isn’t chasing fandom: “I’ve always wanted just to be in a band that makes records every couple of years, tours the nation. I don’t want to be the Foo Fighters. I’d rather be the Toadies.” The stories of superheroes—their triumphs and weaknesses—speak to all those who seek greatness in themselves. If you can connect to those emblematic men and women, you can connect to the energetic, intelligent, and talented music of The Mitch Laing Band.

Listen to The Mitch Laing Band on Spotify and follow them on Facebook to learn about their summer tour with Hellgrimm. Show this local, OG band some love!