Interview: Fai Laci Examine the ‘Elephant In The Room’

Left to Right: Michael Goldblatt, Zachary Putnam, Luke Faillaci, Cal Hamandi & Anthony Cervone (Photo by Jamison Wrinn)

When a band or musician’s first album is released, there’s a litmus test that occurs. The grand introduction is immediately met by people’s reactions, which can be negative, mixed, or positive depending on what’s being presented. For Boston rockers Fai Laci and their debut album *Elephant In The Room* that came out on June 26, it’s promising to be the latter. This is due to a blend of rambunctious energy and melodic sensibilities creating an array of tunes that possess a distinct variety. Following the release of the full-length, the band is going to be embarking on a run of shows starting with back-to-back nights at The Gaslight in Nantucket on July 14 & 15.

I recently had a talk with frontman Luke Faillaci about how the new record came to be, getting connected with one of today’s top rock artists, his thoughts on the Boston scene, and what he hopes people take from Elephant In The Room after giving it a listen.

What was the vision you all had going into the creation process for Elephant In The Room and what was the experience like making your debut?

This is a culmination of the last two years of all the creative work that we’ve done. We spent a lot of time making demos, which was when the band fully got together. Before, it was just myself, then some members joined and we’ve basically been working on stuff since then. We poured everything we had into the making of this album and then we got connected with Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys, so we were so pumped about that. We went down to his studio, and he just made everything come to life.

We’ve never done a studio album before, everything we’ve put out has been done in our bedroom, so it was an entirely new process. Dan was able to capture our sound as a band playing live and I think that was the most crucial thing that we got out of it. We laid down all the tracks, played them all together, and then we overdubbed stuff while adding the cool things you can do in a studio that you can’t do live. We took a lot of the techniques and stuff that we had done on our own and we applied them on this album. Dan and everybody else who worked at the studio really knew what made us special, so they made sure to preserve that.

They really only brought out the best of us and there’s nothing that we got jipped out on. Everything was so productive and inspiring.

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I know along with Dan being the producer, he released the album via his record label at Easy Eye Sound, so how did this connection with Dan come to be in the first place?

Our manager, who randomly found us from our music on Spotify before we put in any effort into promoting ourselves, told us that we should take this seriously and our sound is the direction rock & roll needs to go in. That was when I said, “Holy shit! We can maybe do this full-time.” I quit my job a week later and our manager had connections to people at Easy Eye, so he passed along our music. It took a bit before Dan had the chance to listen to it, but when he did, he was like, “‘We gotta get these guys down to the studio.” Then we got a phone call from our manager saying that Dan wanted to meet us and we were down in Nashville the next week.

The recording process came along several months later and we got to go down there and write with him and everything. That was pretty incredible and two of the songs that are off the album were written with Dan, those being “Headlights” and “Beautifully Boring.” We wrote with another writer named Daniel Tashian and he was super creative as well, it was a wonderful experience. Just getting to meet Dan and becoming friends with him, it’s been a blast.

That’s wicked cool. Leading up to the release of Elephant In The Room, you guys released a few music videos with the most recent one being for “She Knows.” It has you guys performing in the middle of a forest somewhere and at one point you’re singing on top of a car with Michael Goldblatt playing guitar, so who did you making this video with, where was the filming done, and who had the idea to have it in this particular setting?

It was shot in Lincoln, Massachusetts, which is pretty close to Boston. Michael’s family’s house is there, so there’s a bunch of woods and the genius behind it all is our videographer and director Isaiah Saunders. He’s incredible and it’s been an awesome collaboration working with him. We usually come up with ideas together through brainstorming and for this one, we wanted him to basically take control of all the visual elements. He and his crew are amazing people to work with, and I don’t think we could have gotten luckier. Working with a group of people who are able to amplify our message so well and Isaiah is just super creative.

He did all of the videos that we’ve put out for the album with his crew and they’re just incredible people.

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I think a bunch of them came out great and I’ve really enjoyed watching them over the past few months. Being a Boston band, the city’s music scene has a rich history when it comes to rock music with the likes of The J. Geils Band, Aerosmith, Buffalo Tom, The Pixies, ‘Til Tuesday, Dropkick Murphys, Speedy Ortiz, Passion Pit, and many others cutting their teeth there. Through coming up in this scene, how has it been being involved in a very vibrant and historic community?

It’s hard to say because I feel like it’s less vibrant than people think once you’re in it. It’s a tough scene to break into and Boston has a culture that’s somewhat corporate with a nine to five energy, but there are pockets, especially in the Cambridge and north of Boston area, that are more into the arts. I think live music in general right now is on an up, but over the past couple of years after COVID, it’s really, really hurt the scene. We’re doing everything that we can to bring it back and we’re trying to build as much of a community as we can. One thing we’ve been doing is hosting secret shows where we have a list of people on our text chain who we’ve invited out to these shows that we’ve been hosting in various locations.

Our last one was at Redbones Barbeque off of Davis Square in Somerville and I think those are the things I feel are bringing the sense of community and the importance of the music scene back. It’s really difficult right now and COVID screwed up a lot, but I think people are craving it so badly right now. When they come out, they party, and they sing and dance at the shows, it feels like it’s a very good direction that things are heading. People want it and oftentimes they’re not even aware of what’s going on in the scene, so just making awareness around it and doing everything we can to promote it, that’s a big thing for us right now.

That’s a great initiative to have and it’s cool that you’re doing it on a DIY level through having these secret shows. When people check out Elephant In The Room if they haven’t already, what do you hope they take from it? Also, what are your thoughts on this upcoming tour you guys have going on in support of the full-length?

We’re a very diverse band, we take influence from generally all types of music, and I think we’re very accessible to any type of listener. The album has high energy, there’s low energy, and there’s everything in between, there’s definitely something for everybody. The same goes for our shows, the type of people and the age demographic that come through is all over the place. There’s literally everybody that you could imagine, everybody’s getting along and it’s fantastic, so I think the message is that this is for everybody.

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Cover Artwork for Fai Laci’s “Elephant In The Room”

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