IN CONVERSATION WITH FRIDAY PILOTS CLUB
interview by JANA LETONJA
Chicago-based rock band Friday Pilots Club have built their career from the ground up, evolving from their collegiate beginnings into a formidable live act with sold-out tours and tens of millions of streams behind them. Through it all, they’ve held onto the collaborative, DIY mentality that first defined the band. Now, Friday Pilots Club are entering another chapter. Their high-octane new single You Can’t Tell Me Nothing, arriving October 2, introduces a heavier, more visceral sound driven by guitars and percussion, while retaining the DNA that has always run through their music. With a new project, EP1, set to be announced on November 6, the band are pushing their sound into new territory without losing sight of where they came from.
all photography by ALANA SWARINGEN
You Can’t Tell Me Nothing feels like a statement before you even hear the song. Where did that title, and the attitude behind it, come from?
You Can’t Tell Me Nothing is a song about experiencing comfortability and maybe even a little bit of joy in the chaos of the world around you. Sometimes after being knocked down time and time again, you revel in the fact that nothing else can phase you.
This new music sounds considerably heavier than your earlier work. Was that evolution something you consciously pursued, or did it emerge naturally once you started writing?
We made a conscious effort to give into whatever song we were writing without putting guard rails up of what it should sound like. This song in particular started in our rehearsal space from a riff on a detuned guitar that perked our ears up. We ran with it and within a few hours we had this chaotic 2-minute bruiser of a song.
What does You Can’t Tell Me Nothing reveal about EP1 and the chapter Friday Pilots Club are entering?
We sound more like a band in a room than we ever have before. In classic FPC fashion, each song sounds different from the next, but we really explored different sonics through a simpler and more refined lens.
When you look back at your earliest days in Chicago, what elements of that version of Friday Pilots Club can you still hear in the band today?
No matter what we write as a group, it will always inherently sound like Friday Pilots Club to us. Our taste in music as individuals spans across so many genres and influences, but now it’s feeling like we are aligning on what we like and want to create more than ever.
Your music has evolved significantly, but you’ve maintained a DIY approach. What does “DIY” actually mean for Friday Pilots Club at this stage of your career?x
To us, it means we have complete creative control over all facets of what we do. We put great care into our songs, our merch, album art, music videos, live shows and so on.
As the scale of the band grows, does preserving that independence become more difficult?
It can be difficult at times. But in a lot of ways we really enjoy it. We feel like we are honing in on our vision as a band more and more. As we grow, it’s good to feel that freedom with each other and to follow our instincts as we continue to make new art.
The guitars and percussion feel especially physical on the new material. Were you thinking about how these songs would translate live while you were making them?
We don’t think about how these songs would translate live while writing them. We generally view the songs in context of the rest of the project we are making. But we always get a second wind after the fact dreaming of how fun they will be to perform.
You’ve become known for the intensity of your shows. Has playing to bigger crowds changed the way you write or arrange music?
We don’t think so. We just want to write the best songs we can, whether they are slow and sad or if they’re loud and raucous. Our focus is on creating the best body of work we can.
Rock music is constantly being declared dead, revived or reinvented. From where you’re standing, what feels exciting about guitar music right now?
We all grew up listening to bands that inspired us through their instrumentation and musicality. We love that bands are leaning more instrument-forward nowadays and we are excited to be a part of that.
With so much music now shaped by algorithms and short attention spans, is there something appealing about making music that is loud, physical and demands to be experienced in a room?
Yes, very much so. Nothing beats the experience of a live show in a room. It has always been our favorite part of being in a band. As we have grown, we have become less concerned about a song being too long or too slow. We just want to write music that we love and that means something to us. Whether it’s a 2-minute high energy rocker or if it’s a slow sentimental tune, our goal is to write the best song we can.
What did you allow yourselves to do on EP1 that you might have been hesitant to do on an earlier Friday Pilots Club record?
We have allowed ourselves to lean into certain imperfections a little bit more. We are letting things be a bit more raw than we have in the past and have been enjoying that sound quite a bit.
If this project represents a new version of the band, what are you leaving behind — and what are you absolutely taking with you?
We’re leaving behind certain expectations of what we should or shouldn’t sound like. Because of that, we are heading into an era that we feel like is authentic to who we are and what we like more than ever. We love that we can evolve as a group together and we’ve done that since the beginning and will continue to do that on our future projects as well.
