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We rarely get to sit and reckon with an album with the influx of music being released of late. Luckily, our tardiness here let us sink into Fai Laci's album, Elephant In The Room, on multiple occasions, truly becoming the soundtrack to our messy, busy summer. The ten songs bestowed in the album are the proper range of emotions and tempos you need to have an tracklist worthy of trauma bonding – at times the right amount of optimism, others rhythm-driven fury, ending in rock n roll completionism. Time to revisit the architect of this great work, on a summer day a few weeks back:

OnesToWatch: Why are you an artist? 

Fai Laci: I love creating, man and I found it in many avenues throughout my life – the first one being an engineer. I mean, that's what I thought I was gonna do for the rest of my life. I went to college for it. I just love building things. I love technology, problem solving, and then, I found my love for music. I played guitar when I was younger and I was even in a band for a very short period of time. I hated my voice at the time, and so I literally completely stopped playing. Then I found GarageBand right before I went to college and I started recording myself, playing guitar, and making stupid little loops. Then it got more complex, and I was like, I should put my voice on it as a placeholder as well right now. Soon, music became my favorite avenue of creation, emotional expression, and relief. As I worked on it more and more, I realized that I could make some decent stuff. Then, other people actually enjoyed it as well. That got me really into it. I'd say that's probably the biggest reason I’m an artist now, is sharing it with others. Playing live right now has been our main focus, we just got back from 45 days on the road a day or two ago. We're gonna be on the road this entire summer into the fall. We're playing as much as we possibly can. Being an artist in this AI, digital world, the most important thing you can do is do it in front of people live and in-person. 

Well put, well put. You seem very committed to your craft. Did you have a plan B? Was there an alternate course of action?

No, I mean, ever since I quit my job, there was basically no turning back. I don't think I could do anything else other than make music now that I've become fully immersed with it. It’s the best thing that's ever happened to me, we can't go back. It's not the healthiest form of commitment sometimes, but I think it's one of the biggest reasons certain bands succeed and fail; if it's the only option, then it's probably the best option, right? 


Let's get into your process a bit. You already mentioned the exuberance you get from sharing your creativity with strangers. How long have you been writing with the intent of sharing it with complete strangers? 

I started putting music out by myself on Spotify my first year of college, which was seven years ago now. I basically immediately put my music on Spotify as soon as I started messing around with it, because I was like, why the hell not? A lot of that stuff that I put on at that time is not on the internet anymore. Then the stuff that I put out 4 years ago, was the stuff that really started picking up. I hadn't promoted it at all. Spotify just started recommending it to other people, and our monthly listeners were skewing up, and that was when I was like, oh, people actually really do like this, and I... I got much more serious about it.

Have you always had a process, and if so, what is it? Is it melody? Is it top line, ideas? 

Forever changing, especially with the band now. We've been a full band for a little over 2 years now. Since then, my process has changed drastically. Everybody in the band is extremely creative themselves, and that's why I chose everybody. These aren't just players. 
Everybody in the band is capable of writing and creating at an extremely high level. So the process starts with ideas being generated in various ways. Melody, basslines, lyrics. There's not any set way that we do anything. The most abnormal thing for us is sitting at a table with an acoustic guitar and writing a song. 

In the collaborative songwriting mode, I imagine surrendering a little bit of control or inviting a little bit more chaos from alternate creatives is what makes it great, but it probably is also frustrating. How have you dealt with that? How have you tempered that? 

It is a massive learning experience for all of us. Figuring out the times to shut your mouth and the times to insist on something is a terribly hard process. We’re minimizing the impact of our own egos; the most important thing is realizing that this is a collective effort and that's why it's gonna be good. 

Feels like the perfect time to pivot to the record. I have to ask, who or what or is the elephant in the room? 

One of the elephants in the room is the amount of derivative music that is out there right now. Everybody's trying to be somebody else and I just hate that so much. We tried to make an album that sounded very different and didn’t follow any rules. We always let the music go where it goes. We're not trying to be anybody. That's just one of the things that's super annoying right now in the current industry – how everything is focused on making hits. I think that's really fucking bad for art. 

It's definitely not good for art, but trust it's not unique to this time period. I'm a little older than you and it has existed in prior scenes. I really do think that things are headed in a good direction. As someone who listens to a lot of music, I thoroughly enjoyed your record and I think you're hitting your marks in many respects. 

Appreciate it. 

Getting into the record. How old are some of these songs?


It's very spread out. It's basically material from the last 2 years. The oldest song on there is “Toad Song,” the last song on the album. It's a special song to us. The fact that we recorded it is both hilarious and very meaningful. It captured the moment of that afternoon that we'd spent just in the basement, as a band. The whole thing came together within 2 hours, the lyrics and everything, and we basically just played the song several times, figuring it out as we went. It was just a really funny time, a funny experience. It holds some sort of magic to it, it's my dad's fucking favorite song. 

I'm still trying to figure out what it means. Say no more, though. I'm always fascinated by editing going into an album.
It's so hard to cut things. 

One thing that’s interesting about us is that oftentimes we'll spend months on a song, but take very long breaks between working on it. Oftentimes I'll just go on my computer and record a verse. Then the chorus gets written a year later. “Cure Upon the Hill” is one of those songs, where the verse, chorus, and outro were all written months apart from each other. It's a really interesting way of doing things. The parts sound very distinct, but they work well together. 

How many tracks were you pulling from to get to the final tracklist?

We probably had a list of 40 songs that we could have done. 

What decided what made the cut? 

I think it was just our favorite stuff. What created cohesiveness between all of it was the fact that we went to a studio. We went to Dan's studio and recorded it within a 2 week period.
If you listen to the demos and they sound very, very different. I remember someone describing it like as long as the song has good bones, it will work out, but we also felt we needed to record them all at the same time. That’s the blood, right? We’re building the organism as one. That's something I'm really, really grateful for with this record deal with Dan, because we wanted him to produce our album. That was the best decision we could have ever made. Without that deal in place, we wouldn’t have recorded all this music at once. We would have done EPs, and it would’ve sounded awesome, but to have a longer project that has a cohesiveness to it is so important, especially nowadays, with the focus on singles and attention span being so short. We wanted this project to take you on a journey, and that wouldn’t have happened without Dan. He kept our momentum going – it was such an incredible learning experience.

That’s amazing to hear. Do you have an ambition for the record? Or are you happy to let the art speak for itself? 

I think it will either way, but we're gonna do everything that we can to promote the hell out of it. We want to go on tour and we want to sell out the biggest venues that we can and play in front of the most amount of people that we possibly can. Our record doing well is gonna be a big factor in that. So we're gonna promote the hell out of this thing. Either way, I believe it will get to the right people and the right ears, and it will spread itself, but we're gonna do everything to push it alone. 


I love that. And I trust it will too. I would love a non-music recommendation, first, and then I'd love a music recommendation, and finally to end on your words.

My non-music rec is to go swim in some rivers. Rivers are the best thing in the world. We were really lucky on tour, and we played our last show in Sacramento and then had a couple days off before we had to get to Kansas City. We went to Yosemite. I disappeared from the group, and I walked half a mile up the river, got in, and basically floated, and it just took me down half a mile. It was the best thing that I've literally ever done in my life. Nature, man. Nothing beats it. 

Love it. What’s a music rec you can give us? 

I found this album the other day when we were in Davenport, Iowa. It was playing in a record shop, by a band called The New Eves. Man, it's a freaky ass album and it sounds like nothing else that I've ever listened to. It's almost like culty. It’s rock and roll, but they got violins and stringed instruments… it's an intense listen, and it's fucking sick. 

I'll definitely look into that. Lastly, let’s end on anything you want to end on. 

We just finished the 45-day leg of our tour. We just got home and I've been sleeping till one p.m. every single day. I'm just completely surprised because I wake up at one and I'm still so fucking tired. We're about to go hit the road again in 2 weeks and we're basically gonna be on the road this entire summer. I hope to see as many people as we possibly can on the road, at our shows, everybody in the band wants to meet you guys, share this music, and have a wonderful, wonderful summer. We hope to see you guys on the road. 

You're playing some pretty legendary venues, too. 


We're very excited about it.