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Lira Mondal was holding a bass when she met Caufield Schnug at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, 18 years ago. They started playing music together soon after, and while Schnug was giving her occasional bass lessons, he said she “musically surpassed” him within a year.
The couple formed their post-punk band Sweeping Promises in late 2019, and now share a home in Lawrence, Kansas, which also serves as a recording studio. In addition to producing Sweeping Promises’ records, Schnug has worked with local acts such as 2W33DY and Virga, as well as Memphis’ Optic Sink, another post-punk duo, and Chicago punk band Spread Joy.
“Our house is like a B&B or like a rotating door for indie bands and punk bands across the country, and even the world really, who are coming in with $300 in their pocket and making an album with us,” Schnug told KCUR’s Up To Date. “We live and work together and … it's sort of an artistic commune at times.”
Sweeping Promises’ third album, “You Say I Romantize,” was released on Aug. 14 under Sub Pop. The record is full of characters imagined by the couple, and title comes from a line in the last song on the record, “Write Lightly,” which follows a writer as they are racing to meet a deadline set by their “tyrannical editor.”
“Anytime that they want to express something that's artistic or something that's closer to the chest, this editor character says, ‘No, you're romanticizing. You're going off on a tangent that is not what I want from you.’ And so it's part of that also, that tension of wanting to reclaim the idea of romanticizing. It's not frivolous,” Mondal told KCUR’s Up To Date.
Mondal is a board member for Lawrence All Ages Music Destination (LAAND), a nonprofit organization that plans accessible concerts for all ages in Lawrence.
Joined by their touring drummer Spenser Gralla, Sweeping Promises will embark on a nationwide tour on Sept. 9, and will stop in Lawrence in the middle to play at the White Schoolhouse on Sept. 29.
- Lira Mondal, musician, Sweeping Promises
- Caufield Schnug, musician and producer, Sweeping Promises
