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Beneath the hum of the disco ball, the classic creaks and angles of Cleveland’s Beachland Ballroom, the magnetic energy of Fai Laci’s Elephant in the Room radiates. The Boston-based five-piece released their 10-track debut album to please thick-of-summer June party-goers, indie rock enthusiasts, and body shakers alike. 

They’ve spent the summer touring, supporting Dogpark and Winyah on the first leg, then adding more dates through October supporting Dice and Schur. The electric group brings a welcome sort of subversion to the revival of indie rock–drawing from classics, blues, and their bedroom beginnings to create something fresh out of the familiar. 

OnesToWatch met with Fai Laci to learn more about their fall tour, recording with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, and of course, their own personal moments to watch moving forward. 

OnesToWatch: I would love to get some more background on you as an artist. Have you always been super drawn to music? Was this something that you always saw yourself pursuing? 

Yeah, I mean, I loved music my entire life. I played a little bit when I was younger. I played a little bit of guitar, and I was in a band for just a very brief amount of time, but then after that, I was horrified by the experience of playing in front of people, and I completely stopped 'cause I hated my voice at the time so much. 

It's just funny, I was just a younger kid, squeaky voice. I didn't play music or anything for a long time, but I always studied it. I always was listening very closely, and I love music. I grew up listening to a lot of classic rock. Like, Grateful Dead was always playing during the summer whenever we were having parties at our house, that all stuck with me very deeply. So there's a lot of influence from that, and then, as I grew older I really fell in love with all different types of music. I don't really define myself with any. 

And what do you want people to know about you as an artist? 

Yeah, that's one thing we're finding out ourselves as well, but there's a couple things that we hold really close to us–and that's the sense of community and celebrating and spending time with each other. Live music right now, I really think, is one of the most important things we got going for us. With all of the AI and algorithms and everything being so curated too, it's taking away so much human input and interaction between people. 

I think our music and our shows, and even what we're trying to do on social media, is to create that awareness and really drive home people going out and being together. There's just so much bad shit going on in the world, and the fact that people aren't out and about spending time with each other. I mean, people still are, but the problem is there's so much time that is spent online, you know, interacting with all the algorithm and AI shit. It's just taken control over society. I mean, I really think it has, and we want to retreat from all of that shit, and make something bigger that's more human. 

I think live music just creates such a beautiful connection space and community. I appreciate that that is something that is really important to you guys. 

We've been playing live for such a short period of time. We've gone on three big runs of shows. And I think we've played, in total, around 70, 75 shows together. Which, in the grand scheme of things, is like nothing. And, you know, us still getting comfortable on stage every night, we feel the improvement that we're making, and it's fed back to us by the crowd. So it's so exciting that we're at such an early stage with it, that we're feeling how much our set is improving every night, and the energy, it's kind of like an undefinable thing, but I don't think it can be overused in the sense of live music and performance. Every night has been getting better and better. Those Dogpark shows had the biggest audiences we played in front of. It was so awesome, like, that Cleveland, Ohio show was so much fun. And then we played Toad's Place in Connecticut, which I grew up in Connecticut. It's just one of the coolest things to go play one of those venues. And we played the Stone Pony down in Jersey, and those audiences were just so into the music and not nervous to dance around and yell and clap and all of that. 

I’m sure that feels so amazing and surreal. 

It is, it makes everything worth it. All of the BS that tour brings and the fact that we're just struggling to try to break even; we’re not turning a profit here. I think we will very soon, but until then, everything that we've got is going into that show and making it as memorable as possible. 

We've been thinking about that so much, you know, we have ACL coming up, and we're playing our first major festival. 

How does that feel? 

We're so excited, and we see it as an opportunity that we just need to make the best of. It's such a cultural thing. You know, whenever a major festival happens, that's all you see on the internet for, like, two or three weeks, and we want to do some shit that has people talking. So we've been thinking really, really hard about that, so definitely stay tuned. 

That's so exciting. Going back to tour a little bit, if there's anything else that you want to share about it, what was it like? 

We're gonna be down south a lot. Then we're getting Chicago for the first time, which we're super excited about–Chicago's long overdue, and it's one of our top cities on Spotify. When we're on tour, that feels like we're doing the most that we could be doing. 

Being in front of people every night and spreading that energy. We're totally, totally dedicated to this touring life. And then we'll have our off time this winter where we can get heavily back into writing and producing some new stuff. With the summer and fall, our heads are completely geared towards touring, our live act, and making that something that really is special. 

Okay, I'm gonna switch gears a little bit. I want to talk about Elephant in the Room. What are the main things that you want listeners to take away from it? 

I think just that we're finding our sound, and this album, specifically, has songs on it that are quite diverse. And they were brought in from different members of the band, and we all worked on them together, but the one thing that we found was a cohesiveness between all of them, and we had never gone to an actual studio to record before. 

Everything that we did was just in our bedrooms; all the music out before that album was done in our bedrooms.

What was the experience like recording in the studio? 

It was incredible. I don't know how much you know about it, but Dan Auerbach from the Black Keys produced our album. He had found us. We probably would not have done any other record deal than not working with him, just 'cause we love what he's done and going and meeting him in person, we knew he'd be the ideal person to work with. We love producing ourselves, and that was a big decision for us to have [him on] our album, but it worked out better than we could have ever imagined. 

He taught us so much about how to work together. He knew what made us special and he was able to take that and amplify it and he did an incredible job of bringing the best out of all of us. We put really every single thing that we had into that album. 

How long was the process beginning to end? 

We’ve been writing just so much over the last few years. We had probably listed at least like 40 songs that we had on the chopping block, and we boiled it down to those 10 on the album. We recorded 15 songs; two of them we put out as singles that weren't on the album, and we have another three that are still in the chamber, ready when the time makes sense. They’re some of my favorite songs; they just didn't make sense to go on the album, but they will see... 

They'll see the light of day? 

Yeah! It's been a crazy experience for the last, like, two years, and I quit my job doing engineering…

You were in engineering? 

Yeah. It’s been a little over two years since I quit my job and I’ve been doing this.

Was that a really scary leap? 

Yeah, it was, but when I get obsessed with something, I get obsessed with it, and I always was obsessed with music. I had one or two people hitting us up from the industry; I don't know, it didn't take much to be, like, ‘oh, someone believes in me, I am gonna do it.’ I just needed a little kick in the ass to go out and do it, and a very supportive family. 

Oh, that's amazing. That's everything. 

‘If that's what you want to do, go do it.’ And I was like, yeah, I'm gonna give it a shot.

How do you feel that your sound has evolved and changed since your earlier releases? 

It was all done in the bedroom. It was tracking each instrument one by one individually. This album, we recorded everything as a full band; we would all record together at once. And so it'd be drums, guitars, keys, bass all at once, and vocals, and then we would just add more to it. We would do overdubs, and usually do a final vocal take after the fact, but one of the big differences is that it sounds like it's being played by a real band, 'cause it was. I think there's just, like, a completely different energy with the new sound. 

Do you feel like your influences have changed slightly? 

For sure, yeah. I've gone very much back into my classic rock obsession. Just like older music in general. Throughout high school and college, I got into rap music, and more of that kind of sound, that's kind of made my way back to classic rock, and punk and that kind of stuff. I think that's probably the type of music that we're gonna keep on leaning into. 

It’s very evident, the influences, and you guys do it so well, that it feels nostalgic in a way, but also very modern, which is really refreshing. 

[For our shows,] we choose to play “Folsom Prison Blues.” 

We took this song, we made it our own song. And that's why I enjoy playing it. You know we also played “Come Together.” 

Yes. Loved both. 

That's more similar to The Beatles' version of it, but we just simply haven't had time to go into depth with that one, and we definitely will. I really want to do something similar to what we did with “Folsom” with that song. 

For sure. Okay, I think that I just have one question left. Who are your current OnesToWatch?

You know, I love the Winyah boys. I love those guys–their live show is incredible.

I've not seen them live, but I would love to. 

They blew me away. I haven't seen a show like that in a long time and it really got us thinking a lot about our set. 

I love Dog Park too. Seeing them live as well... really, you know, when you see a band live, it paints a completely new image. And I feel like, after seeing Dog Park and Winyah, I have a newfound love for both of them. 

Aglow with their early tour days and driven by the momentum of Elephant in the Room, Fai Laci challenges what it means to be a modern alt rock group. The group cultivates the sense of community that concert-goers are desperately reaching for—bringing a sense of familiarity and intimacy to the grit of classic rock. Fai Laci introduces a live act reminiscent of 2010s indie, establishing a sound that is palatable, fresh, and raw. Whether you’re a seasoned supporter or shining in the face of a revelation, they are certainly OneToWatch.

Listen to Elephant in the Room below: