After the dissolution of Kids These Days, the much-buzzed about Chicago fusion-jazz-rock-rap septet that split in spring 2013 just a few months after releasing its only album, “Traphouse Rock,” some of its members spent what seems like all of 20 minutes bandless.
“We were driving back from the ‘breakup meeting,’ and Liam [Kazar] asked me if I wanted to join another band,” recalled bassist Lane Beckstrom. “And I said, “Of course.'”
That band is Marrow, which includes 23-year-old Beckstrom, 22-year-old singer-guitarist Kazar and 22-year-old singer-keyboardist Macie Stewart (all KTD alums), as well as 26-year-old drummer Matt Carroll. This Friday, the band will release its debut album, “The Gold Standard,” which solidifies the band’s status as one of the most exciting new rock groups to come out of Chicago—no small feat considering the city’s rich music community.
During a recent interview with RedEye, Marrow’s members sat at the kitchen table of Kazar’s homey, eclectically decorated Logan Square duplex, complete with loads of artwork and small, antique trinkets adorning the dressers and drawers. The artist shares the space with his sister, musician Sima Cunningham, and his parents, who occupy the top unit. As the rest of the band arrives, the atmosphere becomes jovial, and pop-culture jokes abound. There’s talk of Stephen Colbert’s return to TV, horrible high school experiences and the new, just-delivered grand piano—all mundane topics that become supremely entertaining when discussed by close friends. When these four are together, the chemistry is as tangible in person as it is in the album’s collection of adventurous rock songs that deal with adjusting to relationships, growing up and heartbreak, and that feel lived in and fully fleshed out.
Marrow’s tightly woven bond isn’t exactly a shock—although they’re all still young, everyone but Carroll has spent more than six years performing together, including the time in Kids These Days. In 2009, the trio—then students at Merit School of Music in the West Loop—formed that group, which combined a range of diverse influences (Beckstrom says it began as “a weird, psych-funk jam band”) and also included rapper Vic Mensa and Nico Segal (aka Donnie Trumpet), among others. It wasn’t long before hype rolled in. “We got to skip high school for a week [in 2011] to go to SXSW, which was fun,” Stewart recalled fondly. The band’s raucous, energetic live show led to waves of attention, a major label deal, a slot at Lolla 2011 and even an astonishing 2012 “Conan” appearance.
Yet after the band released its Jeff Tweedy-produced debut in fall 2012, Kazar realized he wanted something different—having seven competing voices and a democratic, free-for-all approach to making music wasn’t working.
“I had the crisis of, ‘What do I want to do? Do I want to be some less-talented John Frusciante, or is being a songwriter and singing songs the most important thing?’ That was for me, and Macie felt the same way,” Kazar said. “I met with Vic, and I just felt like I didn’t want to just be in his way anymore.”
Just like that, one of the city’s most promising young groups was over.
“It kind of just happened,” Beckstrom recalled of the breakup. “Things happen, and then they’re done. It was that type of vibe.”
Any group disbanding on the cusp of breaking out would feel some tension, but Stewart says all has been resolved, noting, “I think it all happened the way it was supposed to.” Then there was that conversation on the way home, and Kazar, Beckstrom and Stewart suddenly had something new. To make a full-fledged group, they called Carroll, who Kazar knew through his sister, Sima. “I was so eager to work with songwriters,” Carroll said.
Read our album review of “The Gold Standard” here.
They sat down to jam and began to flesh out Stewart and Kazar’s back catalog, including songs that would make the record, such as “Quarter to Three,” “She Chose You” and “Leave Grounds Stay.” Kazar explains, “Half of ‘The Gold Standard’ was written while Kids These Days still existed. Some of these songs are about five years old—predating even the recording of ‘Traphouse Rock.’” “Paulson,” the lead single off “The Gold Standard,” was even performed by Kids These Days in its heyday.
Whereas too many cooks sunk Kids These Days, Marrow has struck the perfect balance of “letting the songwriter steer the ship,” Kazar noted.
Stewart added, “Generally the way it happens is I’ll come in with a song almost fully written or Liam will come in, and we’ll try to play it and see where it goes. Sometimes it changes a lot, and sometimes it’s exactly the same.”
“There’s no moment where I’ve ever thought that it’s my song and we have to do it my way,” Kazar said. “There’s definitely a director for each song but no dictatorship.”
In 2013, the band released “Two,” a promising EP that hinted at what would come next.
In May 2014, when Marrow started recording “The Gold Standard” at Foxhall, the studio in Kazar’s basement, Kazar joined Tweedy, the family band boasting the father-and-son combo of Jeff and Spencer. Stewart split her time with Homme, an art-rock duo she formed with Kazar’s sister, while Beckstrom occasionally tours with the Social Experiment and has his own beat-making project.
“The reason I’m able to do a whole bunch of musical projects is I’m really bad at business stuff, so there’s always someone else in the band to take initiative there,” Stewart joked. Kazar also said that because the record wasn’t out yet, the rest of the band could take time to branch out.
Marrow’s members even played on “Surf,” the excellent album helmed by Donnie Trumpet and his band the Social Experiment, featuring Chance the Rapper. “I don’t know if it made the record, but a little bit of ‘Surf’ was recorded at Foxhall; [producer] Peter Cottontale works down there a lot,” Kazar explained. “They would text us, ‘OK, bring your instruments and play something.’ It was clear they had this whole thing mapped out in their head.”
“I think that none of us really knew what was happening when we were playing on ‘Surf,’” Stewart said, laughing about the secretive recording sessions. On the final product, many standouts have the band’s fingerprints—specifically, Beckstrom contributes a tasteful bass line in “Go,” and Stewart’s voice is easily picked out on “Windows.”
Even with these other responsibilities, “The Gold Standard” wrapped up recording late last year, which led to a sizable gap before its eventual Sept. 4 release date. “It got very antsy,” Kazar said of the drawn-out release process. But now, it’s ready, set, go for Marrow. “We play Lincoln Hall Nov. 27, on Black Friday,” Kazar said loudly into a recorder as a joke PSA for the release show. “The Monday after that, we start recording the next record.”
In concert: Nov. 27 at Lincoln Hall
jterry@redeyechicago.com, @joshhterry
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