Within a year of those first rehearsals they’d found a foothold in the Chicago rock-club scene. “Our senior year of high school,” says Omori, “we played all of those venues, the Bottle and Schubas and all of those places.” But the band quickly learned that this was cutting them off from potential fans even as it exposed them to new people. “We were under the impression that if we were offered shows at these venues and we played all the time, we would get a following,” Omori says. “And that’s not true at all. So now we play one big venue show a month and we play house shows because I think either . . . no one really has money to go to shows, or the people that we want to have at our shows don’t have money for shows, so it’s kinda the best way to do it.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Most of Smith Westerns was recorded throughout the winter and early spring in Kakacek’s basement. As Kakacek and Omori, the group’s primary songwriters, came up with the material, the band would put it to tape; sometimes they’d lay down a basic chord progression first, then use that to help them write the rest of the tune. (On both the single and the album the Smith Westerns are a trio—everyone takes a turn on drums—but they’ve recently added a permanent full-time drummer, 18-year-old Hal James of Teenage Dream.)
