Latest Super Happy Fun Club album finds Stubhy Pandav in a better place
When Stubhy Pandav sat down to write the songs for Super Happy Fun Club's untitled new album, due out later this year, he found there was no shortage of material.
"A lot has changed," he admits of the time since the release of 2013's "All Funned Up," the sophomore effort from the "little supergroup" made up of graduates of Chicago's rock school, including Treaty of Paris, Swizzletree and Lucky Boys Confusion.
It was not a particularly happy time. Though the band was on a career high after touring Europe, it was a difficult time personally for Pandav, who was going through a divorce and processing the death of Joe Sell, his former bandmate in Lucky Boys Confusion, who passed away unexpectedly in the spring of 2012.
"There's so much self-loathing; there's not a happy song on there … even if the music sounds upbeat," Pandav discloses, calling the 10 tracks on the last album largely autobiographical.
Three years later, Pandav, who grew up in Downers Grove, says he's "in a good place" and admits Sell, "his best friend and brother," again took his attention as he found his way back to his storyteller roots.
"There's one song I'm really proud of," he says of "Sneaking Out the Fire Escape (Or Gangs in the '50s)." It finds Super Happy Fun Club rehashing their piano punk roots and will be among material they debut at a show at Beat Kitchen Saturday, June 13.
"The song is about a kid who lost his brother and his memories of him," he says before pausing. "I guess I just tapped into my feelings of processing Joe's death and the guilt of not being sad all the time and just moving on."
It was a feeling all of Lucky Boys Confusion grappled with; though the pop punk band, formed in the VFW Halls and YMCAs of the western suburbs in 1997, had been on a writing hiatus since 2006, they continued to perform live. Yet on the day Sell died, "I think the words 'I don't want to play a show again' were uttered," says Pandav. "We didn't want to bank on his death."
Eventually it was something the remaining members became more comfortable with and the wall built up between Pandav and bandmate/co-songwriter Adam Krier (who has his own successful side project AM Taxi) started to come down even more. A year ago the two decided to start writing Lucky Boys material together again; four songs were teased at a recent gig at Fitz's Spare Keys in Elmhurst, and there's hope for a full-length in the future.
If time heals wounds, growing older has also helped Pandav keep them closed. "There's been so much growing up and a priority shift," he admits of maturing beyond the Chicago scene he was a part of in the 1990s and early 2000s that produced bands like Plain White T's, Mest and, later, Fall Out Boy, which was mired in the world of constant college shows and house parties.
"We don't even really have a connection to the college world anymore. We've graduated to bars," he jokes. "We have mortgages to pay and have to work during the week."
Pandav himself now lives in Chicago where he works in the financial industry. Though times have changed and certainly the industry that once supported them has changed - Elektra dropped Lucky Boys Confusion in 2004 - there has never been a doubt that Pandav still wanted to continue making music.
"On some level I'll always want to do it. Still being able to get up on stage and play for people that like what you are doing, there's an excitement there. And let's be honest, I'm a miserable human being when I don't write music."
Super Happy Fun Club
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 13
Where: Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago, (773) 281-4444 or
Tickets: $12
Info: 17 and older show