Lead Spirit is a band from Omaha, Nebraska playing a straight ahead style of hardcore focused on speed, melody, and passion. Another great group carrying the torch for early 2000s-style hardcore, they recently released their self-titled debut 7” via From Within Records, which follows their 2023 demo.
Ahead of their spring tour of the East Coast and Midwest, I spoke with Lead Spirit vocalist Cameron Craig about the band's beginnings, stylistic influences, and their future plans.
Tell us how the band started and what the initial spark was.
Lead Spirit is a passion project that Wyatt and I started planting seeds for a couple years back. He had hopped on second guitar for this other band Joey and I were in at the time, and quickly we would just fuck around playing Youth Crew-type riffs while waiting for practices to start [laughs].
I’ve really learned to appreciate Wyatt’s discipline for music– I’m terrible about wanting to start some new project, writing like 2 songs, forgetting them, then doing something else entirely… but luckily he was taking the ideas from our mini-jams home, plus writing a handful of other really great ideas to sit with it.
When that band broke up, Wyatt and I were doing this punk band with Nick called Fire Sign that was making plans to record. Sorta 86 Mentality vibes. We lined up a friend to come set up mics and run the tape for us, and by now Wyatt and I had jammed out the Lead Spirit demo songs a few weeks before (with him on guitar and me on drums) and figured we should just try and track those songs while we had all the gear set up.
Blazing hot summer in a literal barn, recording to tape. Low key masochistic [laughs]. Our friend, Dave Nance, who tracked and mixed us, was a trooper for that. We recruited Joey and Nate right around then too, and have been rockin ever since.
How would you describe the style that Lead Spirit is playing?
Grew up on the classics— so there’s a lot of '90-'00s Youth Crew influence for sure. I’ve had homies say it’s like the Memories of Tomorrow comp mixed with In My Eyes or something? It’s cool tho cuz Wyatt will show up with a Midwest YC song idea, but then Joey will rip some like almost Nitro Records-sounding lead over the top.
Maybe no one else hears it like that, but to me the songs just feel authentically “us.” We all love and have played hardcore for a minute, but are very influenced by so many outside things... Like go listen to Joey’s guitar work in 'Glow,' or Nathan’s awesome solo stuff. It’s energizing to be around such a talented and diverse crew.
How did y’all link up with From Within Records for the release of the EP?
So, we’ve never actually met Carter who does the label [laughs]. In, fact we’ll all be meeting for the first time this month when we go play with his band, Statement of Pride, out east, which i’m stoked for. But straight up, there’s only a handful of labels that felt passionate and focused to showcase bands that embody a certain era.
Pretty sure the literal day we got our demo masters back, he was the first person I sent it too. He responded in like 5 minutes [laughs]. Definitely uncommon when you’re a Midwest band, but he believed in the songs and it’s been awesome working with him.
Speaking of Midwest Hardcore, what other bands from their region should we check out?
People sleep on Omaha, but when I book bands out here they leave kinda stunned [laughs]. We’ve got a really cool, special thing happening here with a new generation that’s hungry. A really cool straight edge band called Life Light just put out a demo that sounds kinda like early Outspoken— and they also play in a heavy band called Setback that’s been the new hometown heroes.
Prolapse is like Pessimiser Records type blasts that rip. David Nance is a fuzzed-out rocker that has some amazing records. Too many to list… It’s a melting pot like anywhere else, just gotta come see it for yourself.
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Pick up the Lead Spirit 7" from From Within Records.
Lead Spirit on social media: Instagram
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