San Francisco Voice

The Brothers Lekas are a musical duo (and yes, actual brothers) who perform acoustic folk rock together and who also make up part of the jam band, In Rare Form.  These guys are down-to-earth and truly love making and listening to music, interacting with their fans and taking advantage of all of the great things that San Francisco has to offer.  But I’ll let them tell you all about it in the interview.  Just one more thing: The Brothers Lekas play tonight May 12 at Café International and next week on May 17 at super-intimate-and-fun North Beach venue, Giordano Bros. 

How does your work as a duo differ from the music you make with your band?

The approach and styles are completely different; acoustic music is much more thought out with us. In our duo, we structure the songs in a specific way and we stick to those structures. With our band, we tend to have basic structures but allow room for much more experimentation.  We try to get lost in those episodes; sometimes it works out well and sometimes it’s a challenge to get back!

Another major difference between The Brother Lekas and In Rare Form is in how we write songs in each band. Our electric band is much more of a team effort where our duo is more geared towards individual writing. With the band, we also piece together parts of smaller songs to create longer compositions. In Rare Form pulls from a greater variety of music; funk, rock, blues, and jazz. In the duo, it is more like traditional song writing where maybe we’ve started with lyrics and pieced a song to those words. 

What’s your favorite song to perform live and why?

In the duo, our favorite song is Upstream. There are so many moods it puts us into and we really get lost in playing that song. In the band, it would be Unemployment Blues, which we never play anymore although we’re working on bringing it back. But the lyrics to that song really hit home; we wrote it when everyone in SF was getting laid off, 2000 to 2001, so it was a very personal piece to be a part of. 

Do you have a favorite SF venue?

Hands down, it’s the Great American Music Hall, for the history and the fact that some of the nicest people in the city work at that venue. From an artist’s standpoint, there is no better stage then the GAMH.

Which spots in the city can you are found in when you’re just out and about? 

We frequently eat at a few restaurants around our neighborhood (in the general vicinity of The Great American Music Hall). The favorites would be Shalimar, The Bell Tower and The Street, both of which serve mean burgers. But, we like a lot of neighborhoods in this town. It’s hard to beat all the nightlife in The Mission and we really like to sit outside at Zeitgeist. Sunday is a day to go to a Giants game and fully enjoy the day before the work week begins again.

If the band was a San Francisco landmark, which one would it be and why?

Golden Gate Park, because it’s big and so are both of us, but also because of all the nature there.  And in what other city in America can you stroll through the park and see a herd of buffalo? We’ve had the pleasure of playing Bay 2 Breakers a few times in the park and it was a steady stream of people rocking out for 5 straight hours. Those have been some of our fondest memories of playing music in SF. 

Describe the average Brothers Lekas fan.

If your record collection has Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, James Taylor and other folk staples of the late 60s and early 70s, you would probably appreciate our sound. As for our fans, the age range is pretty broad and the best part about our fans is that they encourage us to keep going, which is really the greatest thing that you can ask for from your fans. Usually our fans like to have a good time and that helps with

If there was anything that you could make sure your fans knew, what would it be?

How much we both love to play music. It is truly our favorite thing to do, to see someone smiling or dancing to your music makes a life long impression. We also would want them to know how much we love to listen to music. So go out and find good local talent; there is so much of that in SF. The other thing that we would want people to know is that we are both self-taught musicians. Erik started at 18 and Mark started at 13, so if you ever thought it was too late to start playing music, think again!

Where do you want to be a year from now? Five years?
A year from now, we would like to start playing outside of the Bay Area and California in general. We would love to start playing the spring and summer festival circuit. We also think within a year we will be close to finishing our second album.

Five years from now, we would like to be full time musicians, have artist representation and continue to create new music. If in five years all we are doing is playing music, then we both will be extremely happy.

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