“Last time we brought the show, now we’re bringing you the fucking concert!” yelled Left For Last vocalist Reese Osborne, opening up their set at the finals for Loudest In Lou – a Danny Wimmer Presents-sponsored band battle held at The Fox Den for a chance to play Louder Than Life 2025. And he wasn’t fucking kidding! If you weren’t already a fan of the band at the beginning of their set, you damn sure were by the end. These four baby-faced guys in their early twenties ripped through a full set with all of the precision and chops of seasoned professionals, proving that not only were they ready to play Louder Than Life, but that they could also hang with any of the other 175+ bands playing it. So it wasn’t exactly a shock when the winner was announced.
So who are they and how’d they get here?
“Left For Last is an emerging rock/metal band out of the Louisville, KY/Southern IN area,” reads their band bio, which goes on to state that each band member “brings musically diverse backgrounds to the table to create a rather unique experience.” And they’re not wrong. There is something very special happening here.
The origins of Left For Last can be traced back to the very early 2020s (if not further), when vocalist/guitarist Reese Osborne and James Reed (then on drums, now on guitar) formed Operation Loudmouth (OPLM). Given that the name “Loudmouths” was coined to lovingly describe the attendees of Louder Than Life, it almost seems like it was destiny from day one that this band would eventually grace the stage at Louder Than Life.
The band began crafting their sound by writing original material that drew influence from the likes of Avenged Sevenfold, Trivium, Deftones, Bad Omens, and others. Unbeknownst at the time, the band would later share the bill with many of their biggest influences at Louder Than Life 2025. And in a bit of further foreshadowing, the band played their very first show at The Fox Den in the summer of 2023 – the same stage that they would later win their place at the festival on.
From 2023-2025, some member changes brought about the addition of James’ brother, Elijah (LJ) Reed, on bass and Jordan Johnson on drums to fill out what would become known as Left For Last.
During this time, OPLM continued to play local shows, further honing their sound and musicianship. Of particular note, in late 2024, the band played a huge show at Zanzabar opening for Mike’s Dead, a band that had played Louder Than Life earlier that same year (more foreshadowing).
In mid-March of 2025, the band began teasing on social media that something new was on the horizon. Days later, it was revealed that OPLM would now be known as Left For Last with the announcement: “Times are changing, and so are we… same music, same energy— just a name that we feel better represents who we are as a band, and where we are wanting to go.”
Around the same time, Louder Than Life producers Danny Wimmer Presents began advertising their first-ever battle of the bands competition called Loudest in Lou, and the winner would get to play a full set at Louder Than Life 2025. Bands/artists interested were to send in a performance video under four minutes long, which would be reviewed by a panel of DWP judges. Apparently not one to ignore destiny when it’s staring them in the face, Left For Last recorded and submitted a live-in-the-studio version of their then-newly released single “Grave Digger.”
Out of the hundreds of submissions, only four Louisville-area bands would be chosen to compete in the semifinals in July at The Fox Den: BenjeeHoward (post-punk/emo), Bury The Masses (aggressive nu metal), Signal The Revolution (alt-metal), and Left For Last. Each band getting to do a short set of around 20 minutes.
For those of you unaware, these are some heavy hitters. BenjeeHoward has been carving quite a name for themselves in the local music scene. Bury The Masses is fronted by rapper Berran Lee, who has had hundreds of thousands of streams between BTM and his own solo material. And Signal The Revolution had recently worked with famed producer/songwriter Kile Odell (Motionless In White, Nita Strauss, Nothing More). With only one single out and only a handful of shows under their belt, Left For Last was definitely the underdog in this fight.
Nevertheless, the band shifted their full priority towards the competition, often spending 12-hour days several days a week practicing and working on new material. “Playing Louder Than Life was seen as one of our long-term goals,” said bassist LJ Reed. “We had no idea how soon it would end up coming true for us.”
There is a great 15-minute documentary on YouTube made by LFL drummer Jordan Johnson about the experience of playing Loudest In Lou called The Manifest Web Series – Amongst the Loudest (episode 002), and it is well worth your time to watch. In it, you get an up-close and personal view into Johnson’s and, ultimately, the entire band’s mindset during the competition.
During the documentary, Johnson seemed to be rooting for the other bands as much as his own. At one point, Johnson speaks on the possibility of the band winning on their own merit, stating, “I don’t want to win against someone because they had an off-night, or go to the next round because somebody messed something up. I want everybody to be 110% perfect, so I win for being 110% perfect.”
Later in the documentary during the competition, Johnson elaborated, “I’m glad that everybody’s having their best night, that’s exactly what I wanted, win or lose.” Johnson goes on to say, “My perspective has changed a lot. Like, I want the world to do better. I want everyone to win. I feel good. I feel like I’ve already won, even if I lose.”
The band obviously succeeded in winning over the crowd during their set at the semifinals, as the Left For Last chants can be heard loudly and clearly in the documentary when the names of the finalists were being announced. Signal The Revolution was announced as the first band moving on, which drew loud applause from the audience. “There’s one more band moving on,” said the host amidst the Left For Last chants. “And that band is,” (long dramatic pause), “Left For Last,” and the crowd absolutely exploded in cheers.
For the finals, both Left For Last and Signal The Revolution were required to do full 45-minute sets. This proved a little difficult for LFL, as Johnson admits during the documentary, “We didn’t have enough music, so we had to write like a third of an album. So we wrote like four songs for the next show. They don’t even have lyrics yet. We still have to practice them.”
And practice they did, playing an impressive 9-song set for the finals the following weekend (complete with pyros).
Again, Left For Last chants erupted during the announcement of the winner, this time to the point that the host had to quiet down the audience before making the announcement. And once again, the crowd absolutely exploded in cheers when Left For Last was revealed as the first-ever winner of Loudest In Lou.
Following the win, Johnson said, “We had [a picture of] Kobe Bryant [on the set list]. The band, we were all stoked after week one, and I was the only one that was like ‘Shut up, it’s not over.’ So I played a clip of Kobe at the postgame interview [after] they had a really big win in a [series] game, and he goes, ‘What’s there to be happy about? The job’s not finished.’ So the job’s finished now, so I’m happy now,” Johnson said of the win.
Not only did the band win a slot at Louder Than Life, but they were also invited to play the official Louder Than Life Friday night after party at the Crown Plaza Ballroom, where they played 13 original songs over two unique sets to an enthusiastic crowd.
Saturday, September 20, 2025, 11:45 am, Left For Last claimed their prize; performing a half-hour set on the Big Bourbon Bar stage, which was the first set of the day at Louder Than Life. And the Loudmouths did not disappoint, showing up in force for this virtually unheard of local band. Of the experience, LJ Reed said; “We had no idea what to expect. We worked many sleepless nights and 12-hour writing sessions just to make sure this show would be the best we had ever played, and we ended up delivering something we were really proud of. We had mosh pits in our crowd, people jumping, yelling, and headbanging, and we had the best experience of our lives!”
To get hundreds of people who have little knowledge of your band, many of whom had probably never heard them before, moshing before lunchtime is a hell of an accomplishment! The band can also now say in all truthfulness that they’ve opened for Deftones, Bad Omens, Trivium, Cypress Hill, A Perfect Circle, I Prevail, Stone Temple Pilots, and the 36 other bands that played that day. And as you’re probably aware, the 2025 edition of Louder Than Life broke all previous festival attendance records with a combined 450,000 people between LTL and Bourbon and Beyond the previous weekend. Being able to say you played alongside several of the biggest bands in rock music at literally the largest all-rock music festival in the history of North America makes for a hell of an impressive band resume!
“We’re not stopping here,” said LJ Reed. “We have an EP fully written and expected to release later this year, as well as most of an LP written that we’re aiming for release within the next year.” These guys are young, hungry, driven, and determined, and we can certainly expect big things from them in the future. And I, for one, wouldn’t be surprised to see their name in the Louder Than Life lineup again before long, except higher up next time.
“We won’t stop pushing for our dreams,” said Reed. “This music is everything to us, and nothing can stop us from here!”
You can find Left For Last on Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Watch Jordan Johnson’s documentary The Manifest Web Series – Amongst the Loudest (episode 002) on his YouTube channel: youtube.com/@jordoggski
This article appears in Nov. 1-30, 2025.