Indie Rockers Pet Symmetry Go Big on New Album

Pet Symmetry. Credit: Courtesy of Pitch Perfect PR

The guys in the Chicago-based indie rock trio Pet Symmetry initially thought they’d just have some fun jamming together in the garage. After all, they played in other successful bands and didn’t really need yet another musical outlet. But they had so much fun together after just one jam session that took place some ten years ago, they realized they were onto something special and they’ve been recording and touring together ever since.

Next month, Pet Symmetry will release their new album, Big Symmetry, and the band performs on Sunday, May 11, at Mahall’s 20 Lanes in Lakewood.

“We came up together in the same DIY scene in Chicago and played the same basements and shows,” says drummer Marcus Nuccio via phone from his St. Charles, IL home. “[Singer-bassist] Evan [Weiss] was just starting [the indie rock band] Into It.Over It., and me and [guitarist] Erik [Czaja] were in a band called Dowsing together. Dowsing played a show, and Evan saw us and mentioned he had been writing new songs and had Erik in mind as a writing partner because of how Erik wrote.”

After getting to know each other, they realized they had shared musical interests not only when it came to punk rock but also when it came to pop music.

“I think we are all fans of music with a strong melody and a strong beat,” says Nuccio. “We are fans of different eras of pop music. Erik will write the chord progressions and bring them to us. He’s just a fan of ’80s pop. He loves Duran Duran and Flock of Seagulls. We all come from a punk background too and listen to Against Me, the Promise Ring or pop-punk. We are all music nerds. We listen to a lot.”

For the band’s first EP, Two Songs About Cars. Two Songs with Long Titles,” Weiss drew on personal experiences.

“Evan writes from a place where he draws on experiences and memories,” says Nuccio. “He’s a big storyteller. In the Two Songs song about a guy riding a bike who smashes his window, he didn’t go find the guy. It’s a fantasy, but it’s a song from a place of frustration.”

On the basis of its high-energy live shows and well-craft tunes, the group quickly found a following in Chicago and beyond.

“When you’re a band from Chicago, you write from a place with a brutal winter. It’s a hard knocks city. I see that through line in many of the bands. We all grew up on Alkaline Trio and Lawrence Arms and Smoking Popes. We just love playing shows. We came from this DIY scene. Friends would throw shows in basements and art spaces. We were starting to go on tours where we played those kinds of spaces in other cities. Going on tour and meeting folks and offering them a show is how we built our network.”

For Big Symmetry, the band went into isolation to write songs that had a deeper meaning.

“This record comes from a place of us growing up together and now that we have been playing with each other and our other projects for over a decade, we have all these experiences and we are starting these big chapters in our lives as we become adults,” says Nuccio.

The group went to a cabin in Makanda in Southern Illinois outside of Carbondale. It was early COVID time, and they carved out a week together to work on new music.

“We did that and wrote 17 songs in the first couple of days,” says Nuccio. “We went through ideas that Erik brought and music we love. We refined those ideas. While we were there, our friend Mark Michalik started recording. We did the drum tracks. That was in 2021. We have adult lives and jobs and situations. We went back to them and then chipped away at the songs in our studio on nights and weekends. We took our time with it to be. We wanted it to sound big.”

“Big Steve,” a song that escalates with swirling guitars and cooing vocals, pays tribute to the late Steve Poponi, a figure in the New Jersey emo and DIY scene.

“Evan grew up with Steve, and they were close,” says Nuccio. “He was like a mentor. He passed away in 2023. Evan wrote the song not that long after he passed. It was a big moment that happened in our lives.”

“Big Engagement,” a song that effortlessly starts and stops as it recounts a personal story and captures the anxiety associated with it, is another highlight.

“It’s a song about Evan proposing to his wife Alex and the experience of doing that in his living room and asking someone to marry him and be with them forever,” says Nuccio when asked about the tune. “It’s yet another big moment.”

While the songs on Big Moments are nuanced, Nuccio describes the band’s live show as “a force of nature.”

“It’s three boys who look exactly the same going all out,” he says. “We like to play really loud and fast and we like to laugh a lot. We will laugh at and with each other. Hopefully, everyone else is laughing too. We want it to be a positive fun, place. You have to go on tour every four years. The last four year cycle was pretty fucking weird. Our perspective is, ‘The world out there is nuts but for an hour, let’s laugh and fucking rock.’”

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