About The Young Fresh Fellows
For a band approaching its fifth decade, the Young Fresh
Fellows have never sounded less interested in nostalgia. If Loft feels like it exists slightly outside of time-part
document, part reinvention, part living, breathing experiment-that's because it
was born from motion rather than reflection. The record did not emerge from a
carefully planned writing cycle or a deliberate attempt to commemorate the
band's past. Instead, Loft arrived the way so many of the Fellows' most
enduring moments have: unexpectedly, collaboratively, and with an almost
stubborn insistence on forward momentum.
The story of Loft
begins, fittingly, during another anniversary. In 2024, Scott McCaughey, Jim
Sangster, and Kurt Bloch took the Young Fresh Fellows back on the road to
celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest, touring behind a newly remixed edition of their
1984 debut. With drummer John Perrin stepping in for longtime bandmate Tad
Hutchison, the tour was both a tribute and a transition-a reminder of what the
band had been and a test of what it might still become. Night after night, the
Fellows proved they were not interested in embalming their catalog. These were
living performances, sharpened by decades of shared instincts and newly
energized by Perrin's presence behind the kit.
Somewhere between show load-ins, long drives, and the
physical wear that comes with touring, the idea of recording again emerged-not
as a plan, but as an opportunity. On the band's lone day off, they found
themselves at the Loft in Chicago: Wilco's recording studio, rehearsal space,
and vast warehouse of instruments. The Loft is the kind of place that invites
music simply by existing-a maze of guitars, keyboards, amps, and half-forgotten
sonic possibilities. With no gear of their own in tow, the Fellows plugged into
what was available, picked up instruments they didn't overthink, and began
recording.
What followed was a full album tracked in roughly eight
hours.
At first, the intention was modest. McCaughey arrived
with a folder of half-formed songs-lyrics scribbled in notebooks, melodies
preserved as phone voice memos, chord structures waiting to be tested in real
time. The band assumed they might cut a handful of tracks, maybe enough for an
EP. Instead, once the tape started rolling, the familiar Fellows momentum took
over. One song led to another. Ideas crystallized as soon as they were played.
Decisions were made instinctively and rarely revisited. By the end of the day,
they had recorded eleven songs, most of them captured in one or two takes,
always using the final pass.
That initial session became the first incarnation of Loft: a raw, in-studio document released exclusively at three
Pacific Northwest shows in April 2025. That version-sometimes referred to as Loft: Stage 1-plays like a cinéma vérité snapshot of a great
band operating on muscle memory and trust. Sequenced in the order the songs
were recorded, it preserves the arc of the day itself: the tentative early
moments, the tightening groove, the gradual exhaustion, and the quiet beauty of
its final piano-led track. It is unfiltered, unadorned, and unmistakably alive.
But Loft did not stop there.
Once that live document existed, it freed the band to
imagine something else entirely. If one version of Loft could serve as a snapshot, why not create another that
explored how far the same material could stretch? This second version reveals Loft as something closer to a stage production than a
standard rock album. It opens with an "Overture," closes with "Exit Music," and
even includes an "Entr'acte" to close out side one. These cinematic flourishes
are not affectations so much as extensions of McCaughey's lifelong habit of
filtering inspiration from films, books, and cultural detritus into his
songwriting. The album unfolds like a performance, acknowledging its own
artifice while still grounding itself in the sound of a band playing together.
Musically, Loft may be
one of the most expansive records the Young Fresh Fellows have ever made. It
moves effortlessly from sharp-edged punk ("I'm a Prison") to hushed balladry
("Books Don't Burn Twice"), from jazz-tinged waltzes ("Harpoon in the Hay") to
deeply personal meditations ("Before the Deluge"). While the band's garage-rock
roots remain intact, they are no longer a boundary. Instead, Loft embraces elegance, restraint, and unpredictability in
equal measure, mirroring the way the Fellows have always approached the stage:
nothing is off-limits if it feels right.
That sense of openness extends to the album's personnel.
While the core band provides the spine of the record, Loft features an unusually rich cast of guest collaborators,
many of them longtime friends. Jonathan Segel (Camper Van Beethoven), Neko
Case, Morgan Fisher (Mott the Hoople), Peter Buck (R.E.M.), John Stirratt
(Wilco), Jenny Conlee-Drizos (The Decemberists), Steve Berlin, and others
appear throughout the album, adding strings, horns, harmonies, and textures
that broaden the emotional palette without overwhelming it. Crucially, these
contributions never feel ornamental. They are woven into the fabric of the
songs, enhancing rather than distracting from the band's chemistry.
That balance-between polish and spontaneity, precision
and looseness-is at the heart of Loft. Some
tracks retain demos recorded on McCaughey's famously out-of-tune piano. Others
feature lush string arrangements or layered harmonies assembled remotely and
stitched together later. Yet even in its most ornate moments, the album still
feels like it was made by people in a room together, reacting to one another in
real time. That sensation is anchored by the original Loft sessions, whose live backbone remains audible beneath
every subsequent overdub.
Loft also
marks a turning point for the band's rhythm section. With Tad Hutchison
stepping away after decades behind the kit, John Perrin makes his recording
debut with the Fellows here-and immediately sounds like he belongs. A lifelong
fan of the band and a former member of NRBQ, Perrin brings a lighter, more
nimble touch that subtly reshapes the group's feel. On tracks like "Harpoon in
the Hay," his interplay with Jim Sangster explores rhythmic territory the band
has rarely ventured into before. Sangster, meanwhile, remains the album's quiet
anchor, his bass lines guiding songs with a sense of patience and purpose
earned over years of playing together.
Kurt Bloch's contributions are nothing short of
remarkable. Despite battling illness and what he later described as "total
brain fog and misery" during the session, Bloch delivered some of the finest
guitar work of his career-often in single takes he barely remembers recording.
His lead parts throughout Loft are varied, melodic, and
deeply intentional, whether cutting sharply through punk arrangements or
drifting gracefully alongside strings and piano. Bloch even expands his role
further by contributing saxophone, most notably on the reimagined version of
"Harpoon in the Hay."
At the center of it all is McCaughey's songwriting, which
feels both restless and reflective without ever tipping into self-conscious
retrospection. Songs like "Before the Deluge" stand among the most emotionally
resonant he has written, while tracks such as "Three Gasconading Saints" revel
in linguistic curiosity and surreal imagery. Elsewhere, Loft showcases McCaughey's ongoing willingness to reshape his
own work-rewriting lyrics, reassigning vocal leads, and allowing songs to
evolve across formats. "Destination," sung primarily by Neko Case, becomes the
first Fellows recording to feature a non-member as lead vocalist, not as a
marketing move but because it simply sounded right.
Even the album's visual presentation reflects this
philosophy. The Loft cover art deliberately echoes the band's 1985
album Topsy Turvy, released exactly 40 years earlier. But rather
than a pristine recreation, the homage is faded, weathered, and imperfect-an
acknowledgment not of decline, but of lived experience. The resemblance is
there if you look for it, but the message is clear: the Young Fresh Fellows are
not interested in preserving their legacy in amber. They honor it by continuing
to work.
Ultimately, Loft is
less a statement than a process made audible. It captures a band choosing
creation over commemoration, curiosity over certainty. In an era dominated by
metrics, algorithms, and endless digital content, the Young Fresh Fellows
remain defiantly uninterested in chasing relevance. They release multiple
versions of the same album because it amuses them. They sell records at shows
because that's where their community lives. They make music because, quite
simply, they still love doing it.
That love is audible in every corner of Loft. It's there in the rough edges left intact, the
unexpected turns, the quiet confidence of a band that knows exactly who it
is-and doesn't feel the need to prove it. Forty-plus years in, the Young Fresh
Fellows aren't looking back so much as looking around, picking up the nearest
instrument, and seeing what happens next.