27 July 18th-July 24th, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | though. Let Alone are also making smart choices with their good luck and small dash of internet fame. “So the reason this happened this way was we went to try to sell this record, right? We talked to a bunch of labels and booking agents and stuff at the beginning of the year,” Rushmore says. “They gave us a list of all the stuff they would want to see to pick us up, basically. And on that list is, ‘Go sell out a 200-cap room,’ which basically we did at Rebel Lounge on a Thursday evening, which was really great. A lot of people really invested in us and I’m so grateful. But within a couple of months, they said, ‘We want to see you move up to a 500-cap room.’” Rushmore adds, “So I told Charlie Levy and Jesse Teer at Crescent Ballroom what we were doing and they were so great. So now we’re one of very few local bands that have ever had a Friday night at Crescent, and we’re so grateful because we need the stage space.” Let Alone’s post-release show plans include “tour clustering,” where they “go to an area for 10 days and play eight shows in that area to build up.” Then, they’re “moving on from there to getting on legs of tours” for the fall and winter. If you ask Rushmore, he has zero regrets about how any of this unfolded. It’s hard to fully encapsulate the scope of what they’re doing, and why it’s worked. But there’s one story that hints perfectly at those ideas. At one point during the call, we talked about emerging post-COVID to play shows, and if that whole experience influ- enced the band in any way. What Rushmore says wasn’t just smart, but it also highlights the core takeaway: making big, sometimes dumb decisions is how you make things happen, even if it means going against the grain. “It made us appreciate that the number of streams you have does not tell you how many people are going to show up in a room,” Rushmore says regarding COVID. “Just because we have to make a couple of Reels a day or something, and those numbers show well or streams show well. During the pandemic, it became this dime a dozen thing, where really what it showed us was we were excited to actually get people in a room again and really saw that as a valuable thing.” He adds, “We don’t want to do all this stuff that we had to do during COVID to keep attention. We want to get back to something that feels more valuable now than it probably ever did.” Let Alone release show. 7 p.m. doors, 8 p.m. show, Friday, July 19. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave. Tickets are $15 to $17. Grab those and other additional info via crescentphx.com. Let Alone are releasing their debut album, “Same Science,” on Friday. (Photos courtesy of Let Alone)
