Caution: The Lazy Dangers are Approaching

Americana, folk & fun are what make up the local band The Lazy Dangers. Starting in the deep south and then riding the wave back to the 757 area, this rockin’ gang of former drifters will be closing out the festivities for NFK Day this Saturday, July 22nd at Smartmouth Beer. This event is a free, all-day celebration of local beer, music, food, vendors, and more!

“We can’t wait to get rowdy and goofy with all our friends at NFK Day,” said frontman Anthony Gragnano. “It will probably be the greatest night of somebody’s life. Maybe even you reading this right now!”

NFK Currents caught up with him via email before their headlining spot at NFK Day this weekend:

• Allyson Keck: Vocals, Kazoo

• Rusty Painter: Bass

• Anthony Gragnano: Guitar, Vocals

• Chris Yi: Drums

• Nate Sacks: Keyboard & Mandolin

• Duf Franco: Guitar

Late in 2014 a few of us (Anthony Gragnano, Allyson Keck and Richie Howard) moved from Virginia Beach, Virginia down to Shreveport, Louisiana mostly to kill time and drink with ghosts. In early 2015, The Lazy Dangers were born as a kazoo/acoustic guitar duo and began playing shows in bars and coffee shops from Shreveport to Dallas, soaking in the Ark-La-Tex culture all the while.

Fast forward a few thousand beers later to early 2017 when, equipped with some tall tales and a handful of songs about our lives in Louisiana, the three of us moved back to the Hampton Roads area. (Allyson actually lives near Chapel Hill, NC but still drives up for Lazy Dangers stuff) and reconnected with members (Chris Yi, Rusty Painter, Kevin Moore) of our old Virginia Beach band, Pinball Locomotive. A little while later Chris’ lifelong friend Jimmy Quevedo, who was always hanging around our practices, would join the band on banjo.

We met our good friend and new electric guitar player Duf Franco at a Riffhouse pub show back in 2018. By the summer of 2019, he was such an amazing friend that he provided and drove The Lazy Dangers tour bus for us.  n 2022 he started playing guitar with us and his first show with us was actually at the Smartmouth Pilot House. We’ve known Nate Sacks, our new keyboardist/mandolin player, kind of peripherally for years through the local music scene but he agreed to get lazy and dangerous with us back in 2021 and we’ve loved having him around ever since.

Are all the members originally from the area? If not, what brought them to Norfolk?Nate Sacks is the only bonafide Norfolkian in the band, but half the band lives there currently and everyone but one member has lived there at some point in the last few years. Anthony moved to Norfolk just to be within walking distance of Naro video and then they closed down. That specific heartbreak accounts for at least a few Lazy Dangers songs

What are your favorite things about Norfolk?

• Smartmouth Beer of course!

• Del Vechs pizza

• Nothing beats a LAVA minifest

• The Naro! There’s still a naro video store sized hole in the heart of the lazy dangers.

• The Elizabeth River trail, especially the part that goes through Chelsea.

• PJ’s 19th Hole. If you know, you know.

How has your music/the band evolved in the last 9 years?We all pretty much know how to play our instruments now!! So that’s big. Also adding new instruments (mandolin, keys and synth) has helped push us in different directions. Learning when not to play or letting the space between notes help move a song has been pretty fun to learn together as well.

Got any new music in the works?We have a new EP that is very, very, VERY close to being done and we’re so excited to share it with the world. It’s at least five songs of pure Lazy Dangers goodness filtered through a cosmic moonshine after-hours jukebox. Anthony wanted to call the album “Glizzy,” but Allyson wanted to call it “Hotdog.” So we may compromise and call it “Armageddon Crunchwrap,” but nothing’s official yet. No matter what it’s called it will be coming out this year and we will definitely be playing some songs from it at NFK Day.

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