Couch Potatoes// Living Room Songs

COUCH POTATOES//LIVING ROOM SONGS PRESENTS: FILLIGAR

(for slow connections turn HD off or watch on YouTube here)

The day of our session, Filligar picked me up in their big red touring van outside of McCutcheon Elementary School. Their van—plastered with mementos and paraphernalia from their US tour—was the closest thing they could think up to a living room.

See, Filligar was started a decade ago by the Matthias brothers: Johnny, Teddy and Pete (Pete and Teddy are twins, a fact which I was oblivious to until someone pointed it out to me about a week after our shoot; in fact this whole they’re-brothers thing, generally, was totally lost on me even though with 20-20 retrospect, it’s pretty easy to see the family resemblance) and their buddy Casey Hampton. The four were crazy-talented kids at the time. They’re now crazy-talented undergrads and post-grads. And even though they enthusiastically proclaim themselves Chicago musicians, their relatively-normal-if-not-for-the-rockstar-thing lives scatter them across the country for the greater part of the year. 

Anyway, this was all good news for me because it meant that I got to be picked up for our session, a singular and welcoming change from the usual pilgrimages to strange neighborhoods in snowy weather. 

It turns out that in addition to being musically-talented, Ivy-League-style smart as hell, and (I’ve been told by more than one CP//LRS staffer) totally crush-worthy, Filligar are also really genuinely sweet and interesting guys. Our session was a riot and the guys did their best buskers imitation— turning their van into the world’s tiniest rock concert. 

—jack