by Benji Heywood (@benjiheywood)
During a short window between tours, Niko Kapetan is trying to catch some rest. It’s been a busy year for the 25-year-old. His band, Friko, which he fronts with Bailey Minzenberger, a fellow musical polymath from Chicago, is set to release an expanded deluxe edition of their debut album, Where we’ve been, Where we go from here, out 11/22 via ATO. Fans of late 90s/early aughts indie rock have gravitated toward the album’s infectious blend of heart-on-sleeve vocals and live-in-the-room musicality. After spending all year as a support act, Friko is about to find out just how popular they’ve become when they hit the road as headliners this spring.
Post-Trash caught up Kapetan over video call just before the US election. From a sun-blanched apartment in Ukrainian Village, the artist talks about the band’s future while acknowledging how fortunate they’ve been, Chicago’s incredibly supportive scene, and how chasing the right feeling makes for great music. Here’s our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity.
photo credit: Daniel Topete
Post-Trash: Thanks for speaking with us.
Niko Kapetan: My pleasure. I have six days in Chicago before we head to Europe.
PT: The album, which I love, has been out for ten months now, and you have an expanded edition out now, too. How have you felt about the album’s reception?
NK: Yeah, it's been amazing just seeing more and more people at different shows that actually know the songs. We haven't done a headlining tour yet so we're really excited for that. It'll be fun to meet all these new people. The most surprising part is definitely the overseas stuff in Japan and China, because that was so unexpected.
PT: Wait, you played China? I had no idea.
NK: Ha, no, we’re playing China and Japan coming up.
PT: That’s rad. How did that come about?
NK: Well, in Japan, the record blew up on Twitter and Apple Music over there. Then we played Fuji Rock this year, and it was amazing. I think China just got wind of it through us having some momentum over there and they asked us to come over! We're playing Shenzhen, Beijing, and Shanghai.
PT: Okay. So. You’re home for less than a week. What’s on Niko’s must-do list?
NK: Well, this part of the year is pretty packed. The last day on tour driving home from Seattle was Bailey's birthday, and then me and my girlfriend's five-year anniversary was this week. Then my birthday is November 4 and we're going to be in Europe, so I’ll celebrate that with my girlfriend this week. Besides that, just rest and head out.
PT: You have the expanded deluxe version of Where we’ve been, Where we go from here coming out. I understand it’s got a bunch of B-sides. I’m one of those nerds who’s always interested where the B-sides are coming from, why they didn’t make the record, etcetera. Wanna give us a little background?
NK: So, the B-sides are all from well before the record. Most were recorded in late 2019 or 2020 and then I think two of them might have been from 2021 right before we started the record. Most of them were half-mixed and then we came back to them a few months ago and remixed them to be more up to our taste now. They were songs that we had before the songs from the album came around, and then once the new songs came around, these got left behind. But these songs are very special to me; they just didn't have a place on the album.
PT: How do you stay connected to songs that are four or five years old?
NK: All the B-sides we played at some point live, and then they kind of just fell off the set list. The ones that we still play live—which are the ones that are on the record—they're just still fun to play. They’re songs that feel right to play. That's kind of all you can do. Just write the songs that can feel right for your whole life, and a lot of the songs on the album feel like that. And then when you pair that up with crowds knowing the songs, it revamps them. We’re really excited that ATO, our label, is giving us a chance to release the demos that I've made in my parents’ basement and some live stuff, too.
PT: How much do you remember about the show the live B-sides are taken from?
NK: It was our album release show at the Metro. It was my favorite show I’ve ever played.
PT: Why?
NK: We’d played the Metro once before but just the idea of growing up with that venue being the peak venue in the city, and it selling out, and there being a bunch of people there to see these songs—it was the first show like that in any place. But to have that in Chicago was amazing, after we’d been playing Chicago for so many years at so many venues. It had meaning. It felt great on stage, and it sounded great!
PT: About a year ago we were interviewing Lifeguard and when we asked them who their favorite Chicago band was, they said Friko. What is it about Chicago? Y’all are so supportive!
NK: Chicago is the best scene in the country, maybe even in the world, which, may be ignorant to say, I don't know. There definitely are great scenes around the country, and I'm very willing to hear about them as well, but there’s a cohesiveness in Chicago, in my community, that I don't see anywhere else.
PT: Why do you think Chicago has such a vibrant scene? Is it because it’s still affordable to live there?
NK: I mean, that's part of it. It's relatively affordable to rent for younger people who need to be in a city. When it gets too expensive, it kills culture. But people can find ways around that. Chicago has that going for it.
PT: Who are some of your favorite Chicago bands right now that we may not know yet?
NK: Neptune’s Core. It’s four women, two sets of sisters. They’re great and definitely up and coming, they’re going to be fucking sick. Chaepter is a band we really like. They’re great. Droney, rock vibe, but very songwriting based. Then there’s V.V. Lightbody. She’s good friends with Finom. Plays flute on their album. Really great. That’s three bands that you should definitely pay attention to.
PT: Your audience seems integral to the band’s energy. Like, I know you record a lot of stuff live, your videos always have some type of audience in them, and you’ve mentioned it in this interview how much the audience knowing the songs brings new life to the performance. Do you think true art requires an audience?
NK: I think it’s completely necessary. You can’t get that feeling without playing to a live audience. Our live show is at the core of what we do, at the core of the album, and the core of the next album. It’s not out of a purist mindset, we just don’t want to play to tracks live. We want people to see it live and then if shit goes wrong, people have forgiveness for that versus if you’re playing to tracks and your computer breaks. It’s awkward. People are like, “this is kinda fucked.” Bands like Lifeguard, there’s an integrity to their performance because it feeds off an audience and the whole thing is live.
PT: New music has always been powered by tech, but if you depend on technology, it often dates the music. I’m thinking about how Nevermind sounds versus In Utero, where one sounds like ADAT and the other like a timeless raw recording.
NK: It also depends on the music you’re making. What makes the music feel right? For us, it’s doing it live. For Depeche Mode, 80s technology made the music what it is and it’s fucking great. But it's like, you can always tell when technology becomes a crutch versus when it's something that makes the music more beautiful. For us, to feel it live, as honest and real as possible, that’s when it feels the best.
PT: How are you able to recreate that feeling in the studio?
NK: You have to simulate in some way. Everyone has to be in the same mindset playing like it’s a live show. But honestly, it wasn’t an issue with this record. There were so many dark times and so much shit built up from the last few years that it all kind of came out on the record. And Jack Henry and Scott Tallarida, who helped us produce the record, were on the same page in the control room. They knew when we were getting there and when we weren’t, even though there wasn’t an audience.
PT: I assume you’ve been writing for your next album. Are you approaching it the same way?
NK: Yea, and it’s really fun because we know what we want to do and this time it won’t take so long to record. We can go into the studio for two weeks as a band, play the songs and get it done. When you can do that in new rock music, that’s when you know it’s good.
PT: Will your expectations for what it takes to make a great album have changed by the time you record the next record? You’ll have played shows all over the world and done a headlining US tour… seems like how could they not?
NK: I definitely think they have unconsciously. There have been moments when I’ve caught myself feeling that. But we have to stay in the moment, be excited to just get in there and play. We all know that feeling that we’re chasing, it feeling right. We can depend on that feeling.
PT: What is that feeling?
NK: It might be the same general feeling for every band, just in a different way. There’s a wholeness to it. A feeling that the whole band is doing something that wraps around itself. It’s something in its simplest form that can be loose that just feels right. With this band, it should make you feel emotional, because this is emotional music. With an industrial band it might make you feel energized—like this shit’s fucking hard!
PT: Do you often find yourself feeling emotionally moved by the music that you're making as you make it?
NK: With this band, you have to be emotionally moved while making it, otherwise it doesn’t feel right.
Where we’ve been, Where we go from here expanded edition is out 11/22 via ATO. The band is touring throughout 2025.