On the Rise
This House is Creaking

The Chicago band is an amorphous entity molded by the relationships, frictions, and lessons of your early twenties, the kind that quietly set the course for the rest of your life. The creature stumbles through everyday anxieties and small victories, drawing strength from its community to keep moving forward.

It’s easier to call THiC “experimental” with a few words about their “pop sensibilities” than try to force them in an industry-curated box, lest the seams give way, oozing whirly sample packs and saccharine riffs. They’re big fans of feeble little horse and Water From Your Eyes, who similarly trace a faint lineage to past eras of computer music.

Growing up, Miller was fascinated by 2010s dubstep and began producing with whatever tools were available on his family computer. As a gift, his parents bought him a keyboard that came with a free version of Ableton, and down the rabbit hole he fell. Nauman grew up “obsessed with the guitar” and has played in bands his whole life.

Though Nauman on guitar and Miller on computer started as fairly cut‑and‑dry roles, they’re now fluent in each other’s workflows and have begun crossing into one another’s domains – Miller picking up guitar, Nauman diving into the computer after previously using Logic to record drums and guitar. “I was never able to really crack proper production until Micah got me into Ableton. Watching him is the best way to learn.” Now, Miller writes guitar parts, and they play live with three guitars.

Mutual friends and the built-in tightness of Chicago’s music community pulled them into the same orbit. “We were always adjacent to each other, not even in terms of music, just as friends,” Miller explains. When they began writing together, songs poured out, which Miller describes as “noisy experiments.” While they were reading a list of songs nearing completion, they realized they had an album’s worth of songs. If they had an album, they had a band.

Scene politics and social media trends seep into every city and subculture, but Chicago’s leisurely environment lets artists build, experiment, and converge without the financial and social pressures they might face in New York or Los Angeles. “I don’t work well in competitive environments,” Nauman confesses. In recent years, Chicago has become a hotbed for music that doesn’t fit neatly into industry-crafted categories, in large part because the musicians’ livelihoods don’t depend on algorithms and streaming numbers.

Unburdened by the shackles of high costs, clout, and a monolithic circuit of venues, artists, and promoters, the duo relishes the freedom to explore new sounds and methods on their own time alongside collaborators they meet first as friends. “The rat race isn’t as much of a thing here. I feel very relieved of the pressure to conform to a timeline like I might in another city. That’s why I decided against going to music school,” Nauman explains. Miller nods in agreement.

“There aren’t a huge number of people who are out to get something from you all the time,” Nauman says. Both members see the reduced competition and limited options of a smaller city as freeing rather than restrictive. The unlimited choice of musicians, bills, and venues in larger cities can feel like no choice at all. “It’s almost like there are so many people to choose from that it’s hard to play. Here, anybody who’s available is more than happy to hop on your bill.” 

The city’s relaxed pace lends a casual, freewheeling approach to songwriting, giving each member the freedom to bring whatever idea they want to the table. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, no big deal. Their eccentric and fearless sound reflects the city’s cross‑pollination, something that becomes inherent in such a close community. In a tight four minutes, a song may meander through frizzled electronic glitches, whoopee cushion fart sounds, and grounding guitar riffs. 

“A song is just a song. It’s so unserious, and there’s an infinite amount of songs to be made, so why get attached to any one thing? We’re big advocates for trying random shit out and seeing if it works. Inspiration will come from all sorts of things,” Nauman says about the duo’s healthy degree of detachment to ensure they’re not spending so much time on a song that it becomes impossible to finish, because as Miller says, “it’s as much an art to write a song as it is to know when to stop writing it.”

Their live band now includes three guitars, thanks to contributions from Hunter Borowick and Peter Schutzle, members of fellow local band Tuff Sudz. Now that they’ve evolved from just using vocal pedals, they can breathe new life into songs they thought were previously finished. “The nature of translating a song from that computerised production to a live performance breathes new life into it every time. The harmonies evolve, the riffs change slightly, and it keeps things fun for us and for the people who come to our shows,” Miller says.

Reflecting on the band’s early days, Miller recalls the time when they first moved in together. “My rent was mad cheap, and I only worked three or four days per week, so we had so much time to write.” That abundance of unstructured time yet another perk of Chicago’s artist-friendly living conditions. As a result, a significant part of the band’s nomenclature comes from things they say when they’re simply hanging out.

To maintain an endless stream of inspiration and creative leads, the band “always follows small seeds,” including the most unexpected ones. For context, their friend Brandon has been sitting behind them on the call this whole time. According to Nauman, “he’s often here when we’re working on something, and he’ll just randomly yell shit out.” He recalls a moment when they were working on a song and “Brandon yelled some shit from the bathroom. Micah and I looked at each other and knew that was the line.”

Earlier this month, they released a new single, “There’s A Stench In The Air”, another notch in their string of lightbulb moments. While Miller was working on the track, Nauman was playing Snake on the computer. When they realized the game’s noises were in the key of the song, Miller recorded the laptop and finished the track with those sounds in mind. The track name is derived from one of their latest grievances, “the stench in [their] god damn pipes,” which occurs when the temperature swings. “It’s unlike anything I’ve ever smelled before. It’s not from this planet,” Nauman chimes in.

Sputters from computer games, inside jokes that would take too long to explain, and other shared slices of everyday life form the backbone of THiC’s creative ethos. On the origin of their name, Miller says, “Our old house would make really, really crazy noises. It would always sound like it was breathing, moving, or creaking. One day, one of us was like, ‘Man, this house is really creaking!’ and the other thought that would make a great band name.” Neither member can recall who said it first or who suggested it should stick.