Baron Lesh

Baron Lesh was formed sometime in 1986 by guitarist Charlie Schlauderaff and Vocalist Dlas Scott. By the summer of 1987 lesh had completed their first full length album titled "Nightingale" with founding member Jeff "the jaguar" Watt and was signed to Catekism Records,a small minneapolis indie label. Nightingale sold several thousand copies and had worked it's way into the regular rotation of college radio stations nationwide. In 1990 Watt was recruited by friends Urge Overkill as drummer on Urge's "Americruiser" album recorded in Wisconsin on the Touch n Go label produced by Butch Vig. Watt toured for the next couple years with Urge opening for acts like Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Rapeman, the Digits and Killdozer. Scott and Schlauderaff continued writing and recording with drummer Ryan Anderson and bassist Chad Christensen. Songs from these sessions led to two more albums "One More Daye" (an EP) and the full length acoustic album "Archway (through the thorny veil)", recorded in Minneapolis on the Oarfin Records label. However; due to artistic and "legal" differences Lesh dropped Oarfin and these recordings were released with limited press and saw only regional distribution. In 1993 prompted by their recent experience with "corpirate" music, Lesh moved to "the ranch" a thirty acre forest on the Crow River and built "Lesh Studio's", the bands own recording studio and headquarters. It was there that Lesh recorded two albums between 94 and 2000, "Look into the Sun" (featuring Pianist Timothy Schomer and drummer DeAbra Stewart ) and the very rare "Obscurities" (a retrospective sound of Lesh up to that point). Many friends/musicians were involved with these projects and the Studio vibe spawned many projects and brought in many artists during this era including Urge Overkill, Modest Mouse, All The Pretty Horses and Sam Andrews (guitarist of Big Brother/Janis Joplin). Although Watt recorded on many songs between One More Daye and Obscurities he didn't officially return to the band until 2003 for The Colorful Album, Lesh's sixth effort. With the bands core members and sound intact, Lesh's unique ability to reinvent itself has led one critic to dub them "America's most selfish prairie rock band".