World Leader Pretend

Amidst the rum and ramshackle structures of mid-city New Orleans

stands an old hotel, a brokedown relic of the busy Southern streets of

the 1960s. Overhead the interstate casts noise and shadow, and down

below sit forsaken Cadillacs, probably unmoved for decades. And though

each of its eight stories reeks of stale beer and bathroom, its walls

seep a certain indescribable charm.



Inside these halls of faded glamor and former exuberance, World Leader

Pretend has made a home. The floor is well-littered: sleighbells, a

tipped-over lamp, a little black book, dried-out coffee cups, a

glockenspiel, and a pair of perfectly shined shoes. With careful steps,

these scrappy and spirited gentlemen enter daily to write, arrange, and

rehearse their sweet music, and to sort through their overactive

imaginations and aesthetic hunches.



While not a likely setting for a pop band, it suits this gang well.

World Leader Pretend has always been a maverick crew in New Orleans, a

city where trumpets outnumber people two-to-one and jazz and jam bands

are heralded while all others are mostly left to their own devices. The

antique city's insularity and lack of a trendy scene gave the boys

freedom from seductions to compete or conform, leaving them to develop

their own unique charm over the years and, ultimately, make something

beautiful.



The result is Punches, a collection of 14 pop songs with a rock flair

and a soul feel, an homage to the music that had surrounded them for so

many years, blasting from front porches on the racially integrated

uptown streets, crackling from their busted tube radio, and intimating

through the walls of their ragtag '60s hotel.



Punches espouses the grandiose orchestrations of blue-eyed soul, the

raw intimacy of Stax records, and the playful crooning of vocal legends

of yesteryear. Its combination of haughty glamor and heartbreaking

honesty allows for a glimpse into a world of the boys' own creation.



World Leader Pretend is taking their own little universe of fractured

glamor and slipshod sincerity on the road this spring, and inviting all

to drop by. And although these gentlemen remain humble and earnestly

unassuming, they're hedging their bets that you'll want to stay.



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