The Felix Culpa Reunite This Weekend At Wicker Park Fest
By Katie Karpowicz in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 24, 2014 7:30PM
Chicago has seen the resurgence of many cherished indie punk bands in the last year—Braid, Owls, Park—but it appears the surprises and warm returns haven't run their course quite yet. This weekend's Wicker Park Fest will serve as the official return of post-hardcore, experimental punk act The Felix Culpa, inactive since the band's farewell show at the Metro in January of 2012.
Though the hiatus wasn't especially drawn out, The Felix Culpa's mid-May announcement that they were returning with new music was a still surprise to fans, especially considering that band members' separation, both geographically and creatively.
"We had been writing and playing together since we were kids," singer and guitarist Marky Hladish told Chicagoist days before Wicker Park Fest. "It was still basically our first band and it was the better part of ten years that we had been playing together and touring and putting out albums. It just wasn't making sense with the rest of our personal lives anymore.
"We were all going through those 'middle of your adulthood' kind of things where you're starting to figure things out. It was kind of like, 'Oh man, do I really need to be worried about playing music all the time anymore?' So we were going through that interpersonally and it just didn't make as much sense. We weren't having as much fun. It wasn't as much about the love of playing and the love of hanging out with your best friends. It was more about, 'Let's see how many records we can sell and how many shows we can play this year.' So we kind of lost a little bit of the love for it."
After their initial breakup, the members of The Felix Culpa dispersed across the country. Hladish moved to Wisconsin. Drummer Joal Coan now resides in Seattle and bassist Tristan Hammond remained in Chicago. The band's fourth member Dustin Currier has decided not to rejoin and instead remain a full-time member of local band Cut Teeth.
However, it was Currier's wedding last August that sparked the idea of The Felix Culpa's reunion. The four bandmates came together to celebrate and even ended up playing a sold-out secret show at Quenchers.
"We've all still been best friends and missed it more than anything. All of us had the opportunity to go off and do other things and start other bands, but none of us really wanted to. It was a first love kind of a thing. It doesn’t go away so we thought we might as well pick it back up."
Coincidentally, not long after Hladish, Coan and Hammond began kicking around new song ideas, their No Sleep Records labelmates Foreign Tongues emailed the band in hopes that they had some unreleased material for a possible split release. Hladish one-upped their proposition by offering new music instead.
"It was really spur of the moment. There wasn't a whole lot of planning put behind it. Everything just kind of kept falling in line."
The split is out Aug. 12. The first new track "Karma City" is a barebones rock song with effortless progression. Lucky for fans there are more plans in the works.
"We have a whole bunch of music that we're working on," Hladish admitted. "I don't know exactly what that means whether it's going to be a couple of EPs or another split or if we'll have another full length by the end of the year. Who knows. We're just taking it one step at a time."
The band members' physical distance have left them resorting to songwriting via email a la The Postal Service, a process Hladish claimed has been "a whole lot easier than I thought it would be."
And, while plans aren't official yet, Hladish revealed to us that a tour is in the works.
Despite The Felix Culpa reunion's national attention, we're pleased they continue to think of Chicago as a "home base" and eagerly await the band's return to the stage this Saturday.
The Felix Culpa plays The Center Stage at Wicker Park Fest Saturday at 6:15 p.m. You can also catch their live audiotree performance on July 28.