Friko On Their Classical Influences, Radiohead And Becoming A Real Band

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With an expanded edition of their debut LP and a UK/EU tour on the way, we chatted with Chicago’s Friko

In such a stacked year for music, it’s sometimes easy to forget those albums that drop in those early wintery weeks. As you look back at 2024, one album that you absolutely shouldn’t forget is Friko’s ‘Where we’ve been, Where we go from here’. Equally fresh and nostalgic, it pulls from 2000s indie rock while remaining entirely unique with its classical influences and emotional climaxes.

Now, Friko have announced an expanded edition of the record, out on 22nd November, featuring new bonus tracks, live versions and even a cover of My Bloody Valentine’s ‘When You Sleep’. Alongside this release, they are coming to Europe, visiting the UK and playing at London’s Pitchfork Festival.

Earlier this month, we chatted with Niko Kapetan, vocalist and guitarist of Friko about where they’ve been and, more importantly, where they go from here.

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Can you give us a brief rundown of how you got to this point with Friko? 

Me and Bailey went to the same high school. Bailey asked me to play guitar in their band, or bass, and I started playing with them. And then my band from high school disbanded and I just asked Bailey to play drums and they started playing with us. 

We played around the scene in Chicago for two years and then compiled enough songs to make the debut.

You were both inspired quite a lot by classical music, such as Chopin. Could you talk about how that actually appeared in the album? 

I think we kind of take from the feeling of it and the dynamics of it, and like to apply that to a rock or indie format, just to enhance the intensity of it and make it feel grand. The most direct use of it was definitely the song ‘For Ella’, because that was a piano song and I was learning some Chopin at the time and definitely was very directly inspired.

You worked with a violinist and a cellist, and I was just wondering how it was opening up your sound to these more classical elements rather than strictly indie rock staple instruments?

It’s been done in the past, for sure, two strings with a rock band, but I think it’s being rehashed in a really cool way. Macy Stewart was the violinist that we used for ‘For Ella’ and she also plays in the band Finom from Chicago; she’s just an incredible musician. We kind of had a bass part that we recorded for her, but then we just let her loose and she just recorded layer after layer. It was so cool to see someone like that just do their thing.

Just out of my own curiosity, is there a story behind that tiny little snippet of you singing ‘Ave Maria’ at the beginning of ‘Chemical’? 

A lot of this record was trying to get the live energy and that day we got that take, ‘Get Numb To It’ and then we finished the night with ‘Where We’ve Been’. And so shit was just kind of loose and I just sang it. I was thinking of before that Nirvana song ‘Territorial Pissings’ where he’s  like “come on people now!” and I was joking doing that. And then we got the take on that take and we’re like, oh yeah, this is cool, let’s keep it. 

With ‘Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here’, obviously there’s a lot of the ‘where we’ve been’, a lot of nostalgia. Do you also see it as looking towards the future?

We were never at a point where we were like “we’re making an album,” it was just constantly working at something and playing live and playing on the scene. By the time we finished, we had a full team around us, but while we were making it, it was just the band and our friends Jack Henry and Scott Tallarida who helped record it. 

It was just a culmination of years of playing together. We can hear on the record us figuring out what we’re doing and becoming a real band. From here, with the new stuff that we’re writing, we know what we are and we have a full record where the whole thing is we know exactly who we are and we’re just gonna do that the whole time.

We love so much classic music and think there will always be some classic element in it, but we’re trying to push it forward. For us, having a good song is more important than needing to innovate; if a song doesn’t need more than what it is, then just keep it that way. 

The album ends with ‘Cardinal’, which is such a beautiful track and it leaves the listener in a very specific headspace. Did you always plan for this to be the final track?  I feel like ‘Where We’ve Been’ could have also been there. 

‘Where We’ve Been’ is always one of our last songs live, but for some reason on the record, we were like: “This is the debut record. This is the song that represents us the most as a band.” We just wanted to have that upfront. So people can listen to the record from the top and that’s what they get straight out of the gate. 

‘Cardinal’ was always going to be the last, because that used to always be our last song. It was meant to feel like a live show in a way. And I think the next record is going to be that, but even more refined.

Your most recent release was a cover of Radiohead’s ‘Weird Fishes’. Can you talk a little bit about your connection to that band and why this song specifically you chose to cover? 

I remember one of my first musical memories when I was eight or nine watching the (‘In Rainbows’) ‘From The Basement’ recordings with my dad and it’s just so good. I’ve just loved them forever, it’s just really good emotional music. We would have never thought to record a cover of ‘Weird Fishes’ because it’s just such an all-timer song for all of us, but we did it live with string and we’re like “this is really sick.”

Obviously that’s one of the best songs ever written and we just want to pay our respects in any due way

I have a real emotional response to your record. There’s so much of catharsis and raw emotional release in your vocals and in the instrumentals as well. Do you still feel this kind of raw emotion when you’re performing it live, or have you gotten numb to it by now?

No, definitely, there’s certain songs that normally try to tap into that. I feel like being on tour, it’s day after day and trying to just get through it some of the time. So, the shows are more on the fun side of things, you know, than like really emotionally sad. We always play the emotional songs and they feel emotional, but they feel more lighthearted and fun live. We’ve gone through stints where I’ve been in a dark place and we’ve played shows and I’m like “oh, maybe that’s gonna make it a really good show”, but it never does.

And with recording too, it’s always when you’re on the other side of it. You need to go through that stuff, but then once you’re on the other side, I feel like that’s when good expression or good art is made. 

Can you share a little about any kind of influences for your new record, the one that you’re working on at the moment? 

I’ve always loved Talking Heads, but recently I’ve really started getting into and studying them and also just from a performance basis. We’ve been on this tour opening up for Royel Otis and we’re opening up for these huge crowds that don’t know us. We’ve been having fun like trying to engage with that.

Stop Making Sense is another one of the first musical visuals that a lot of the band ever saw and it’s just so cool to be able to put on a show that can have artistic integrity and not be corny. 

Literally on this tour, our bassist got us into Dean Blunt more and I’ve been really fucking heavy with him. Bill Callahan, I’ve gotten really into recently. ‘Jim Cain’ is just the most perfect song ever written for me. 

You’re heading to Europe soon. What can fans expect from a Friko live show? 

In the States we’ve been playing four-piece and we’ll only be three-piece in Europe. The three-piece is much more rough around the edges and scrappy. We like to keep the shows very loose and I think it’s fun.

We’re going to treat these three-piece shows more on the punk edge of things. But we’ll be in small rooms for the most part so I think it’ll just be just really fun and intimate! 

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Listen to new single ‘If I Am’ here:

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Catch Friko at the following:

Nov 2nd | Amsterdam, NL – Bitterzoet
Nov 3rd | Brussels, BE – Les Nuits Weekender
Nov 5th | Rennes, FR – L’Antipode
Nov 7th | Paris, FR – Pitchfork Avant Garde
Nov 8th | Brighton, UK – Mutations Festival
Nov 9th | London, UK – Pitchfork Festival London
Nov 10th | Bristol, UK – Louisiana
Nov 12th | Manchester, UK – YES
Nov 13th | Glasgow, UK – King Tuts
Nov 14th | Dublin, IE – Workman’s Club
Nov 16th | Weissenhäuser Strand, DE – Rolling Stone Weekender
Nov 19th | Osaka, JP – Umeda Club Quattro
Nov 21st | Tokyo, JP – Tokyo Kanda Square Hall
Dec 27th | Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall
Feb 25th | St. Louis, MO – Atomic
Feb 26th | Louisville, KY – Zanzabar
Feb 27th | Nashville, TN – The Basement East
Feb 28th | Atlanta, GA – Smith’s Olde Bar
Mar 1st | Raleigh, NC – Kings
Mar 3rd | Washington, DC – Union Stage
Mar 4th | Philadelphia, PA – The Foundry
Mar 7th | Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
Mar 8th | Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair
Mar 10th | Montreal, QC – Bar Le Ritz
Mar 11th | Toronto, ON – The Great Hall
Mar 13th | Ferndale, MI – The Loving Touch
Mar 14th | Columbus, OH – A&R Music Bar
Mar 15th | Indianapolis, IN – Turntable
Apr 30th | Boise, ID – Neurolux
May 2nd | Vancouver, BC – The Pearl
May 3rd | Seattle, WA – Madame Lou’s
May 4th | Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
May 7th | San Francisco, CA – Rickshaw Stop
May 9th | Los Angeles, CA – Lodge Room HLP
May 10th | San Diego, CA – Soda Bar
May 14th | Las Vegas, NV – Swan Dive
May 18th | Denver, CO – Marquis
May 20th | Omaha, NE – Reverb Lounge
May 21st | Des Moines, IA – xBk
May 22nd | Minneapolis, MN – Fine Line

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