Friko’s Niko Kapetan on the Band’s Upcoming Headlining Tour and Expanded Debut Album
Riding a wave of indie success, Chicago?s Friko — led by vocalist/guitarist and principal lyric writer Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger — will embark on a 40-date headlining tour beginning Nov. 2 in Amsterdam (with U.S. dates beginning Dec. 27) and on Nov. 22 release an expanded version of their 2024 debut album, Where we’ve been, Where we go from here — with 11 bonus studio and live tracks, and a cover of My Bloody Valentine’s “When You Sleep.”
The first track from the expanded album, “If I Am” — which Kapetan says was among the first songs the band played at its initial club shows in the Windy City — drops on Oct. 23.
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This past summer, Friko brought its fiery full-on sound — powered by Kapetan’s turbo guitar-playing and quavering emo vocals, and Minzenberger’s high-energy drumming — to their first festival performances at Lollapalooza, Newport Folk Festival and Fuji Rock, and they recently finished a tour opening for Royel Otis. The group’s November European dates will be their first and include an appearance at Pitchfork Festival London. Tickets are on sale this Friday at 10am local time.
Before one of Friko’s last summer dates, as the band’s van chased Royel Otis’ buses and semi. Kapetan spoke to Billboard about the the evolution of the group, its album Where we’ve been, Where we go from here, the rigors of touring and plans for the future.
For a band that released its debut album in February, Friko has really blown up on the indie scene. How did you arrive at this point?
I had a cover band with friends beginning in sixth grade, and we would play local shops or block parties or whatever. Friko started in 2019, and that’s when we just started doing lives. We played a ton of Chicago shows and in Milwaukee, Minneapolis. By the time we got through making this debut record, we had a lot of live time in our back pocket. We were releasing stuff independently and in the Chicago scene but releasing with ATO introduced us to most of the people that know us now. We’re figuring out our live show at an exponential rate, especially now that we’ve been on a tour with big, sold-out rooms with Royel Otis over the past couple of weeks. Even now, this is the first time it feels like we’re a true band, band. We felt that with the record, too, and we just keep pushing that.
You’ve said that Where we’ve been, Where we go from here was completed before you signed with ATO.
Yeah, pretty much, because we recorded it – Scott Tallarida, a friend who has an event space in Chicago with a studio in the back of it, let us record there for free as long as we were out of the way of events. It could get booked at any time ,so that’s why it took a while, but we were able to do it basically free.
Is that what you hear when you play the album now, or did you sweeten it after signing to ATO?
After we recorded at Scott’s place and then also Palisade Studios in Chicago, we basically mixed it ourselves for months as well. We mixed it with our friend Jack Henry, and it was a learning process for us. This whole first record was just us pretty much doing everything ourselves and learning how to do it. It was a good learning experience, but we’re excited to expand from that. We probably had it done at the end of 2023 — maybe November-ish. We signed to ATO before we were done mixing it, but it was all recorded and half mixed.
Did ATO come to you?
We were playing Chicago clubs, and Erik Salz from Arrival Artists — who’s now our booking agent — came to some of them. Then once we got a small team together, they were pitching labels. It got down to a final few labels, and ATO was very passionate about working with us, not just for a record, but to start our career. It seemed like the right choice.
Were you able to keep your masters?
We definitely did.
The album has a kind of do-or-die urgency to it. It almost demands that you listen to it. Where does that come from?
It’s just a natural thing. Every show feels like that for us, and we play it that way. When you’re opening for another band, and everybody’s there to see them, you need to give them a reason to listen. You need to have the songs, but then you also need to have something for people to look at. I think Mitski said that people are paying to see people go out there and believe in themselves. There’s a bunch of bands coming up now — bands we grew up loving — that just give everything they can, and when that happens, I feel like I can get lost in the music.
I read that you love Nirvana’s “All Apologies.” What other artists do you like?
I don’t listen to The Beatles as I did growing up, but they definitely informed my melodic and cord progressions and learning the basics. I love The Replacements. I like a lot of the more melodic punk stuff that just has all the attitude but also the melody. There’s a lot of cool, new bands I love. Black Country, New Road definitely blew my mind in 2020. We just hung out with English Teacher in New York. They’re super cool. We want play shows with them. Them and Stellar, East. I like the local scene in Chicago, and I like Horsegirl, Genome. There’s a lot of exciting new bands out there.
You do put on a riveting live show, and I think that’s super-important for a band’s longevity. A number of bedroom acts that were signed around the time of the pandemic have faded because they’re not compelling onstage.
I don’t want to speak to TikTok bands. We just want to do the real thing, and we want to feel like we’re doing that every night. The goal is for the show to feel as cathartic as possible. The other day, at one of our shows, I accidentally broke my guitar from going too hard. My head was bleeding. There’s a beauty to that.
What was the inspiration for “Get Numb to It”?
During the pandemic, I dropped out after one year of college and started working in a warehouse. I did that for a few years, and after one particularly bad day there, I was in the car listening to a broadcast song. I started singing along to the song with lyrics that ended up in “Get Numb to It.” The demo came together through that, but then the band started playing it and it took on even more energy.
Is it true you released “Get Numb to It” on your own before it became a Friko tune?
I started off Friko as a solo thing at the start of the pandemic. I was just releasing demos and that was one of them. I remember showing it to everybody in the band one day on my laptop, and then it came together. It was the first song that people started singing along to at the Chicago shows, so it took on a real life with the fans.
How do you and Bailey collaborate. Is it just you two or are more band members involved now?
We probably would be considered a four-piece now. Especially with the live show, we’re writing new stuff, and it has been much more of a band effort from the start of the writing process. Also, Bailey plays guitar too, so there are a bunch of guitar parts. All four of us are the best at guitar in some way, so it has been a realy useful thing.
I love “Crimson to Chrome,” particularly the lyric, “Caught on the wrong side of the shoe” — nice turn of phrase. What are your favorite lyrics on the album?
“Where We’ve Been,” the first song on the record, is definitely one of them. That song came in like an hour or so. All the lyrics just flowed out and felt so natural. It’s what you want to go for with songwriting — where something just spills out and there’s no thought in it. That feels like the magic of it.
Now that you’re about to embark on a headlining tour, will your live show change?
It’s going to be kind of what we’ve been doing on the last tour, although we’ll be playing our new music. We’re playing larger venues — sweet spots that we’re excited to play. On the last tour, we started thinking more about stage design and lighting. For Thalia Hall, which will be a homecoming show at the end of the year, we’re definitely going all out. We’re touring with just five people — the band and our tour manager — so there’s only so much we can do on the road, evening with a headlining tour. We’re going to give it our all until we can have more people along.
When you say you’re playing new songs at your shows, are these slated for the next album?
Yeah, we’re in the talks about whatever the next thing is, whether it’s an EP or an album. For us, an album needs to be a full statement. We love the classic album format. So, we’ll see, but at this point we’re trying to keep writing and see what comes.
Have you started talking about when this new release will drop?
We want it to be fall 2025.
You’re also releasing a deluxe version of the current album. What’s new on that?
There are five songs that we were working on right before the album songs started coming along, and then we kind of pivoted. We were like, these are what we need to work on right now. We’ve always been fans of B-sides, so we’re excited that they’ll see the light of day. We are also including some demos that we released before Friko was playing shows, and some live mixes from our album release show.
What are the best and worst parts of touring?
The best is definitely when the shows are great and then you can — in New York, we went out with friends both nights. That feels like the adventurous part when you’re younger and you dream of going on tour. But sometimes that results in not getting much sleep and, like today, we’re bus-chasing Royel Otis for the first time. They have like a 20-person team — very nice, good people— two buses and a semi. We’re in a van and a trailer; just the band and two managers. So, we’re all driving, we’re setting up everything and we’re selling merch. So, it’s just a different team, amount of people on the road. It’s a lot of driving, which is not the worst thing, but when it’s two 10-hour days of just driving, you get kind of braindead.
Yeah. Do you have any advice for up-and-coming artists? Any survival tips?
Yeah, you have to love the people you’re touring with. Especially when it’s small scale. That’s the biggest thing by far, and just a s–t ton of caffeine. It’s sugar free herbal lattes because it’s the healthiest that you can do. There’s no other way around it.
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