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Friko has partnered with PLUS1 so that $1 from every ticket will go to Santa for a Day, a certified 501(c)(3) Public Charity who answers letters to Santa from kids in underserved communities. This two-pronged literacy component is vital to their mission: Volunteers helping, teaching youngsters the power of the pen… and then donors rewarding their efforts, by translating their wishes into reality, not only positively reinforces their nascent literacy skills, but it also helps participants author a different, more positive narrative about life, one sparked by optimism and the vision of a brighter future. santaforaday.org
When Friko delivered their debut album Where we’ve been, Where we go from here, the Chicago-based band introduced a galvanizing new voice into the indie-rock canon. Both uncompromising in spirit and thrilling in impact, the 2024 LP landed on best-of-the-year lists from the likes of Pitchfork, the cover of NME, and led to glowing acclaim from Rolling Stone, Paste, NPR Music, and SPIN (who noted that the album “places them in a lineage of great indie- and alt-rock acts…bands with prominent weird streaks, arena-sized potential, and the chops to build a bridge between the two”). In the making of their sophomore full-length, vocalist/guitarist Niko Kapetan, drummer Bailey Minzenberger, guitarist Korgan Robb, and bassist David Fuller gained a powerful new clarity on their purpose and vision while embracing an even bolder sense of abandon, exploring everything from noise-rock to avant-garde classical to ’70s-era symphonic balladry. Equal parts sonically extravagant and emotionally searing, Something Worth Waiting For ultimately locates a wildly elusive balance between the wide-eyed idealism of youth and the self-possessed grit of lived experience.
Produced by John Congleton (a Grammy Award-winner known for his work with St. Vincent, Mannequin Pussy, Mogwai, and more), Something Worth Waiting For marks the first Friko release to feature Robb and Fuller, who joined the band in the midst of their globe-spanning tour in support of their full-length debut—an endeavor that included headlining shows all over North America, England, Europe, and Asia (and achieving remarkable success in Japan, where they performed at Fuji Rock Festival then quickly returned for a sold-out show at Tokyo’s 1,000-capacity Kanda Square Hall), as well as touring with seminal alt-rock acts like The Flaming Lips and Modest Mouse. As they assembled songs for the new album, Friko mined inspiration from their endless state of motion over the past two years, arriving at a body of work that speaks to a more existential form of movement. “If the general theme of the record is transit, then the title gets at the idea of always moving toward something you never quite seem to reach,” says Kapetan. “That might sound pessimistic, but maybe the reaching isn’t necessarily the point,” Minzenberger adds. “I think life is meant to bring new experiences so that your world is ever-expanding, and not about constantly striving to achieve one particular thing.”
While Something Worth Waiting For often embodies a frenzied intensity, the album tilts toward the ecstatic on songs like lead single “Seven Degrees”—a sing-along-ready anthem born from a linguistic misunderstanding on Kapetan’s part. “For a long time I thought the saying was ‘seven degrees of separation’ and not ‘six,’” he explains. “There’s a lightness to that song but really it’s about connection, and trying to stay close to the people you care about.” Another hit of pure unbridled energy, the gang-vocal-fueled “Choo Choo” rides the line between sublimely fun and unabashedly sincere as Friko shed light on the strangeness of the vagabond life. “I’ve always had a thing with the magic of trains, and when I was writing that song I started singing ‘choo choo’ and it made me laugh,” Kapetan recalls. “It always feels good to play live, with all the slowdowns and speed-ups, but it’s also a very emotional homage to the band and how they feel like home to me.”
Elsewhere on Something Worth Waiting For, Friko bring an immense depth of imagination to their cathartic breed of indie-rock. Rooted in a lilting piano part composed by Robb, the drifting and dreamlike “Alice” soon evolved into an Alice in Wonderland-inspired message of loving reassurance to a dear friend of the band. “That’s a special song for me because the intro melody is from the first piano piece I ever wrote when I was 16,” says Robb. “Whenever I hear it I’m reminded of the crazy journey of going from being a fan of this band to becoming part of it.” A spellbinding piece of orchestral pop arranged by Jherek Bischoff (formerly of Xiu Xiu), “Certainty” hovers between fantasy and reality in its poetic narrative of longing for escape. “That’s a literal story of when I worked at a warehouse and would wake up every morning, walk to the train, then switch from the train to the bus—although I never actually got on a boat and sailed off to a wall in the sky,” says Kapetan, who shares lead vocals with Minzenberger on the epic but intimate track. Next, on “Hot Air Balloon,” Something Worth Waiting For presents a sweetly psychedelic reminiscence of an oddly charmed morning in a Cracker Barrel parking lot—a moment Friko regard as a potent affirmation of their path ahead. “We’d slept in the van and when I woke up at 6:30 a.m., the sky was full of hot air balloons because of a festival going on nearby,” says Kapetan. “It was so beautiful and so unexpected, and to me that song feels as euphoric as that morning was to us.”
Recorded at Congleton’s studio in Los Angeles, Something Worth Waiting For bears a heightened urgency that Friko partly attribute to a profound shift in their production process. “On our first record we were much more involved in the technical aspect of everything, but this time John made it clear that he wanted us to just come in and do our thing,” says Minzenberger. “I think that allowed us to let go in a way that we never had before, and because of that we captured something very raw.” And with the addition of Robb and Fuller to Friko’s lineup, Kapetan and Minzenberger found an ideal match for their viscerally attuned yet voraciously creative sensibilities. “We spend so much of our time talking about these songs and focusing on every detail,” says Fuller. “That deep love of the music is in all our bones, which makes it really special for every one of us.”
In a glorious bookend to the album-opening “Guess” (a primally explosive track completed in just one take), Something Worth Waiting For closes out on the enigmatic but ineffably tender “Dear Bicycle”—a six-minute-long meditation on stepping beyond the hazy naïveté of childhood. “One of my hopes is that by the time people get to the end of ‘Dear Bicycle,’ they feel some kind of solace or relief from whatever bad feelings they’ve been dealing with,” says Kapetan. “I hope they feel like something worth waiting for is still coming to them.” As they look toward their own future, Friko express a similar sense of promise. “There’s been so much change and growth since the first record, which I think will continue as we move forward,” says Minzenberger. “There’s usually a lot of fear or discomfort when you’re trying something different, but we’re just going to keep being as genuine as possible and keep creating whatever feels true to us.”
