Brothers Lazaroff might wear the Americana banner, but don't shove the St. Louis band too deeply into that box.
"Americana fits us as much as anything," says David Lazaroff, singer-guitarist for the band. "The cool thing about Americana is that it speaks to roots music. You can call neo-soul Americana music."
But don't call Brothers Lazaroff a jam band.
"We're way too song-based for that," he says.
It's going to become harder to associate Brothers Lazaroff with Americana, as Lazaroff and his older brother, singer-guitarist Jeff Lazaroff, continue shoring up their base with drummer Grover Stewart, bassist Teddy Brookins and keyboardist Mo Egeston.
"There's drum and bass and house-type influences now after playing around on that scene," David Lazaroff says. "And we wrote more in the neo-soul vein."
People will get the chance to hear for themselves when Brothers Lazaroff opens for Sara Bareilles this weekend as part of the Celebrate St. Louis Summer Concerts.
"We're going to show the breadth of the different styles of songwriting we have," Jeff Lazaroff says. "If there's anything that's cool in the St. Louis scene, it's connecting different scenes."
The band is promoting its second release, last year's "American Artifact," recorded with Jacob Detering of Sawhorse Studio.
"That was our George Bush-era record," Jeff Lazaroff says. "There were songs on there called 'Numbing the Pain' and 'When the Bottom Falls Out.'"
The band dove into technology on "American Artifact," recording bits and pieces of songs and putting them together, David Lazaroff says. A lot of it was written on the spot.
In 2006, Brothers Lazaroff released its debut, "Pure Delight," which was produced by Asleep at the Wheel drummer David Sanger in Austin, Texas.
The brothers, who cite influences ranging from Bob Dylan to Neil Young to Sonic Youth, first began playing together when they were 15 and started writing their own material several years later. They tried on different band names before settling on the one that made the most sense: Brothers Lazaroff.
"We just felt it was time to make it Brothers Lazaroff, play off of Brothers Karamazov and play off of our Russian roots," David Lazaroff says. "Lazaroff Brothers never sounded good to us. We were in Chicago and someone yelled out 'Brothers Lazaroff' and we liked the ring of it."
The musicians are in the final stages of their next album, busy with overdubbing and cleaning it up. It's the first recording with Stewart, Brookins and Egeston. They're hoping for a fall release.
Celebrate St. Louis Summer Concerts with Brothers Lazaroff, opening for Sara Bareilles • 6 p.m. today • Soldiers Memorial Plaza • Free • brotherslazaroff.com • celebratestlouis.org
