Lucky Boys Confusion's 'Commitment' Turns 10

By Katie Karpowicz in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 5, 2013 7:00PM

As this summer winds down, we're reminded of how fast time passes. We still can't believe it's been ten years since Lucky Boys Confusion's benchmark album Commitment hit local record store shelves, though.

In 2003, Chicago's pop-punk scene was blowing up. To put things in perspective, this was the same year Fall Out Boy's debut album Take This To Your Grave dropped and the Fireside Bowl was still thought of more as a music venue than a bowling alley.

In a landscape littered with power-chord-packed releases, Commitment was anything but ordinary. Or perhaps it was perfectly ordinary and that's what made it so good. Tales of just wanting to stay home to get drunk and play videos games while plotting your hometown escape were inescapably relatable and fill at least one Chicagoist staffer with nostalgia to this day.

The same can be said of Lucky Boys Confusion lead singer Stubhy Pandav who took some time to look back on the album with Chicagoist before the band plays Commitment front to back Friday at the House of Blues.

CHICAGOIST: What do you remember most about recording Commitment?

STUBHY PANDAV: All five of us were growing apart socially a little bit but as a family we were coming together and the reason for that is that we all felt like our backs were to the wall when it came to what the label wanted after the supposed fail of the previous record [Throwing The Game]. We had this "us against the world" attitude and I think you can definitely hear that in the record.

C: A lot of the songs are about growing up, do you still relate to the album ten years down the road?

STUBHY PANDAV: You know it's funny, this show's been set up for so long but I didn't really listen to the record until about two weeks ago after the first practice. It [gave me] shivers, all those memories. I was the happiest and saddest I could have been at the time. I definitely relate. If not, I remember what I was thinking at the time.

C: Well, we're glad you're doing the show. We think it will be a blast.

STUBHY PANDAV: Sometimes you just forget how much—well, at least hopefully—your music meant to people back in the day. They've moved onto other bands and probably don't talk about it every day but when I think about records from when I was growing up, I would love to see 40 Oz. To Freedom played all the way through or something from Nirvana—unfortunately all of my favorite artists have passed away. We have a chance to do this for people still even though Joe [Sell] is gone, so why not?

C: What's your favorite song to play live off of Commitment?

STUBHY PANDAV: It's weird because it used to be "Closer To Our Graves" because we always played it but now it's all the ones that we don't ever play. I'm having fun playing "Something To Believe" which we've never played live. "You Weren't There" which I don't think we've ever played live. "Beware" which we haven't played in at least six years. When you announced that you're going to play every song, you don't really have that choice not to anymore. Tackling some of these songs, I just remember writing them and arranging them and how fun that was.

C: That's awesome. It's been fun talking to you about this because we remember the time in our lives when this record came out so well.

STUBHY PANDAV: It's not what I meant to happen but it's so cool to hear other people's interpretations of what the songs were or what they were going through at the time when they listened to the record.

This one kid wrote in five or six days days ago and said, "I know this is not what the song is about but I really love "Atari" because it just reminds me of the first time I stood up to my parents and my girlfriend at the same time. I gave everybody the finger and went off to college." To me, it's not the most profound story or anything but it just makes me think that every time he hears that song he thinks about his first steps into independence which is just really cool.

Lucky Boys Confusion celebrate Commitment's 10th anniversary Friday, Sept. 6, with a show at House of Blues, 329 N Dearborn, 8:30 p.m., $20 in advance, $23 day of show, 17+