Trash and glam join forces in Lord Friday the 13th. Brother-sister duo Felix and Sloane Lenz moved from the small, East Texas town of Athens to Austin in 2015 and started their musical project in 2019. Even in a city saturated with talented musicians, Lord Friday the 13th stands out. Their sound is grunge and grimy. Their performances are theatrical yet punk. Their clothing style is fluid, bold, and somewhat rebellious (Sid and Nancy would be proud). Though Felix and Sloane are not new to the SXSW stage, 2024 is the first year they will be rocking with a fixed backup band.

On their drive to perform at a DIY show in LA, Lord Friday the 13th took a pit stop in Arizona for a phone call with Off Radar, discussing their roots, SXSW, and upcoming EP.

Off Radar: You're on your way to LA right now. Can you tell me about that?

Sloane: We're going to LA for a show with the band/event production group called PSY Sound. They do DIY shows in places like warehouses or people's houses. We were in New York for the last two weeks, stopped in Austin for 24 hours, and then started the long drive up here yesterday. We wanted to get some shows out of the way before SXSW.

Off Radar: Once you're back from LA it’s SXSW…

Felix: Our first official South by was scheduled for 2020, and we were really excited to be official. Obviously, COVID took over, and SXSW didn't happen. So, every year since then, we have been official, but 2021 was online.

Off Radar: How do your SXSW sets differ from your typical concerts in Austin?

Sloane: They’re generally pretty similar, except that during SXSW, we often run from show to show, or sometimes the set is only 20 minutes. The biggest difference I can really think of is the audience, which includes people from all corners of the world. It’s a different crop of people than the usual suspects.

Off Radar: How do you think your set this year will differ from those in previous years?

Sloane: We have an actual permanent bassist now. He's great. He's from Ireland and is living in the US for the next three years. It makes a difference because we used to have a rotating rhythm section.

Felix: Sometimes, our backup band is people we’ve never actually met. I think this year will be different in that we will feel more secure.

Off Radar: I saw on your site that you were homeschooled. How does this shape your music?

Felix: It shapes everything we do. We never had hard rules put on the way that we learned and played around with stuff. Both of our parents have alternative music tastes, so we were exposed to a lot of different styles growing up. Our dad booked music and ran a venue in our hometown, Athens.

Sloane: I went through a teenage rebellion, and – our parents were into artists like Bjork and Radiohead – I was like, I love the Jonas Brothers! 

Felix: My thing was that I used to say I hated music, probably because we were fed so much of it became annoying. 

Off Radar: Can you tell me about some of your visual influences?

Sloane: We take a lot of inspiration from vintage film posters. Whenever we're trying to come up with something, I feel like we'll always refer back to a Liza Minnelli Playbill cover. When we were little, our dream was to be filmmakers. Film is still a big driving force. I feel like everything is very visually driven, the visual sometimes comes first. I guess it's kind of a different approach, but it works.

Off Radar: I saw on your “about” page that you described your music as…

Sloane: “Dollar store trash-glam-punk.” We're only glam in spirit and in the makeup department, but our sound is very much trash.

Felix: We're like glam if a glam band was on a tight budget. We make a lot of elaborate sets for music videos, but they're all made of cardboard boxes. We wanted to call our EP, which will be coming out in the next couple of months, Murder Music. Our approach to making the whole EP was barbaric. We also have a singe coming up at the end of the month, “Phantom of the Opry,” where this kind of ugliness is present. We don't take it too seriously because it's meant to be funny and fun. Our music shows that all that glitters is not gold.