Distracted

BY: ALLIE RUSSELL AND AMY SCHWARTZ

Chicago-based artist Chan Fuze has been steadily carving out his space in the indie scene since his early singles in 2022, but his relationship with music goes back much further. Growing up surrounded by music and theater, he didn’t immediately see songwriting as a career path. That changed when a group of college friends encouraged him to record the songs he was casually writing in his dorm room.

“I was just fiddling around with some songs that I made, and my friends were like, ‘Dude, you need to go record that,’” he recalled. “It was just fun to me at first.” His debut single, Pasta, has since been pulled from streaming, but it marked the first step toward a professional career that has already spanned an appearance on The Voice, the pandemic halt, and a steadily growing catalog of music.  

His first full-length release, Can I See U L8ter?, came together in the aftermath of the COVID-19 lockdown. His best friend, and now musical partner, Tommaso, has been writing songs with him since the very beginning. The first intentional song they ever created was Can I See U L8r?. “We didn’t even think it was going to be good,” he laughed. “But then we were like, ‘Oh, this is actually really good. This could be something.’” That “something” became the title track of his debut album.

Written mostly during the recovery period following the COVID-19 lockdown, Can I See U L8r? is a pop-driven album that introduced Chan Fuze to the world. While Can I See You L8r? came with its own set of successes, there were clear changes he knew he wanted to make as an artist heading into his sophomore release.

That sophomore project, Boyhood, set to release on September 5th, was born in a whirlwind five-day cabin session in Indiana, where he and Tommaso worked nonstop, disconnected from outside distractions. “When you’re stuck in a cabin for five days, you don’t really have any concept of time,” he said. “You’re just waking up whenever, you’re going until whenever. We fell in love with that process.”

Drawing from the artists he liked in high school, such as MGMT, Phoenix, and Empire of the Sun, and tapping into the energy of modern rock staples like Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes, Boyhood became a reflection of entering a new chapter of adulthood. Both sonically and lyrically, it explores the tension between holding on to pieces of the past and figuring out which baggage is better left behind.

The range of singles leading up to Boyhood shows off that balance: songs that pull from nostalgic influences while also moving forward into new territory. Track four, It’s Never Gonna Last, was one of the first songs written for the album, the song that gave them both the “this is the one” moment. It remains one of his personal recommendations for new listeners, alongside the album’s 8th track Way Out.

Of course, we couldn’t let the conversation go without asking about My Best Friend’s Wife, one of the most attention-grabbing titles on the tracklist. He burst out laughing before telling the story. A casual night of hanging out with his fiancée, his best friend Tommy, and Tommy’s wife turned chaotic. Guitars came out, the vibes were right, and “everyone started showing their tits.” Out of that chaos came the song title. “The stars aligned for that moment to happen, and we capitalized on it when we saw it,” he said, knowing that a title like that would make anyone stop and listen at least once. What started as a raunchy joke between friends turned into an unsurprisingly memorable single that’s already resonating with fans.

As Boyhood nears release, he admitted this is the first project he’s felt both nervous and excited to share. “Normally, I’m kind of depressed in a weird way when something comes out, like, it’s not mine anymore, it’s out there for everybody to judge. But with this one, I’ve been waiting in anticipation. I haven’t really felt this way about any other release. I think that people, when they listen to Boyhood, they’ll understand the triumphs, the low points, the celebrations of growing up,” he said, “It’s a big graduation of sound and personal growth.”

With new songs, shows, and more music already on the horizon, Chan Fuze is far from slowing down. If Can I See U L8r? introduced the world to Chan Fuze, Boyhood marks the moment he stops arriving and starts taking off.