Advertisement
Songybyrd Presents Friday Pilots Club - The Nowhere Tour
with Capital Soiree and Family Dinner
Tuesday October 8, 2024
Doors - 7:00 PM
Show - 8:00 PM
Tickets
Advance - $20
Day of - $25
--
Some bands just can’t agree on the merits of Primus. Some bands just aren’t meant to spend a month at a remote cabin in Georgia in an attempt to finish their long-in-the-works debut album.
Thankfully, Friday Pilots Club is both of those bands.
Formed in 2017 as a duo of vocalist Caleb Hiltunen and bassist Drew Polivick, the Chicago-based combo has grown in recent years to include guitarists Sean Burke and James Kourafas and drummer Eric Doar, whose contributions are readily apparent on Friday Pilots Club’s electrifying first full-length, Nowhere. On an album positively crammed with irresistible grooves, big riffs and even bigger choruses, its most distinctive quality might just be the varied tastes and talents of its members, demonstrating once and for all how consensus is overrated but compromise is often key.
“For me, that's what I'm most proud of,” says Polivick, who met his bandmates while they all pursued music or music-adjacent majors at Columbia College. “We used to be a two-piece, and then we were a two-piece with these three guys. They started writing with us and playing on the songs, but it still didn't quite feel like a band. We finally feel like this album is an amalgamation of what all of us like and what all of us believe in.”
Alluding to a previous dark period when Friday Pilots Club felt creatively stifled while signed to a restrictive major-label deal, he continues, “It has been a tough road with a lot of sacrifice, but I think we did a damned good job navigating it.”
Indeed, Nowhere boasts a wealth of sonic riches, from the delicious guitar line and earworm chorus of “Nothing or Forever,” the dance floor-ready first single “Vampire Disco” and the sleek soul ballad “Coffin,” which manages to weave in references both to prosecco and Egyptian queen Nefertiti. Songs often boil over into incendiary alt-rock workouts before evaporating back down to their elemental foundations as acoustic guitar and hushed vocals, with subtle production accents (Ween-esque pitch-shifted singing, nighttime cricket sounds) adding to the widescreen listening experience.
“I've been obsessed with sexy-sounding music for a long time,” admits Hiltunen, pointing to vintage favorites such as Humbug by Arctic Monkeys and Rubber Factory by the Black Keys. “But I’ve also been chasing a sound that's a little bit more intimate. There’s a darkness to it that is not sad. It’s more moody. I don't think we could have done that as well three years ago. There's an undertone of it on the album which makes me really, really, really excited.”
Advertisement
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Songbyrd Music House, 1-3, Penn St NE, Washington, DC 20002, United States,Washington D.C.
Tickets