Standing in front of the Ramova Theater, I found myself clueless. I was assigned to cover a show for Black Dice Records at the Ramova Loft.
Everything online indicated that I had to barge my way around to find it. I stumbled into the establishment “Off Hours,” a bar owned by the Ramova Theater, looking like a fish out of the pond. After a few awkward minutes of searching, I reached the loft. An unsuspecting space occupied by a spattering of band members and concertgoers. A feeling that would persist by the end of the show.
The show I was attending was a four-band bill that consisted of acts Wingwalker, Lake Shore Drive, mail., and Naomi 10 Million.
As the show commenced, I was bombarded with an assortment of high-level musicianship consisting of post-hardcore, emocore, noise rock, and everything under the punk umbrella. If you stumbled upon this show unknown to these bands, you would have thought you were at a raucous hardcore show, created and played to cherish the genre—until Naomi 10 Million hit the stage.
Donning sweater vests, ties, and even a cowboy hat, the members resembled more like English student teachers rather than punk disciples. A stark contrast to the ripped jeans, band tee shirts, and anti-establishment moxie that the previous acts showcased
Aesthetics aside, the band found themselves upon the stage facing the eager crowd. Guitarists Henry Madden and Adrian Correa started the set with simple downstrokes of a single chord. With each hit becoming more potent than the last, bassist Caden Shapiro joined the ongoing crescendo as each hit of the strings brought the audience to the edge of their seats.
All of this culminated into a beautiful chaos of hammering snares and eloquent strings supported by drummer Samara Savine and violinist/percussionist Nia Quiñones. The passages of their music delved into a frantic madness of noise, accompanied by Correa’s vocals—a range supporting solemn whispers to utter vexation.
Madden brought his baritone vocals to the group’s most bubbly and stripped ballad of their setlist, “Clip My Wings.” Replacing the ferocity of their previous music with a more hopeful and open tune. The whiplash of experiencing Naomi 10 Millions at its peak culminated as they ended with their first released single, “Cowboy.” A colossal performance that reached its pinnacle when the winding guitars, drums, bass, and violins came to a halt.
In a cadence that felt like a murderer giving his confessional, Correa spoke into the mic as if he were addressing the audience as if they were a jury, judging every chilling line he delivered. You could hear a pin drop in the room as he stopped his tirade, and in a moment’s notice, the guitar came back in, and you were transported back into Naomi 10 million’s domain.
At the finale of the show, while the guitars were scorching with feedback, cymbals were being thrown to the ground, and the piercing violin was cutting through all the bedlam, I stood there absorbing everything I just witnessed. Prior to the show I thought to myself, “How can I describe this band to someone who is completely unaware of them?” I could describe how they reminded me of windmill acts such as Black Midi and Black Country, New Road, or even spit out buzzword genre names such as avant-jazz, prog, art rock, Latin, post-rock, or any combination of words championed by pseudo-intellectual music posters. But as the final bell rang and the band exited the stage, I turned to my friend who accompanied me to the show. With awestruck eyes, I muttered to him, “This is the best band in Chicago.”
This is my conversation with Naomi 10 Million.
INTERVIEW:
Q: What are your thoughts and vibes about the show you just played?
Shapiro: It was fun; I liked it!
Quinones: It was fun; I was nervous.
Shapiro: I was nervous too; I dont know why.
Madden: It felt like it really fast; it felt faster than a lot of these shows tend to go, like with a 4-band bill
Savine: As a drummer, I find myself, like, sort of at ease because I’m hiding behind everyone else. But that always goes away when I’m playing on an elevated stage, and I was like, “Oh no, people can see me.”
Madden: We’re used to playing on the same level of the audience, like basement floors.
Savine: I like playing on stages!
Madden: Everyone likes it, ehh… I think?
We were moved around by the venue’s security, and eventually a friend of the band’s, Jimmy, was put on the spot to give an elevator pitch of himself.
Jimmy: Oh, I’m interviewing? I play everything that anybody…. Nobody plays instruments in Naomi; I compose. That’s a great way to put it. I compose, and I’ve been doing this since the beginning. The moneymaker.
Savine: Stop, stop, stop, just stop.
Q: I was wondering, how did you guys all meet and start making music together?
Madden: We’ve met through friends; really, it’s through friends of friends.
Shapiro: Truthfully I met two of them through Josh—a friend of the band—and Adrian through a high school friend; we went to the same high school together.
Madden: It was kind of a revolving door for a little bit, until we kind of settled on the people who had stuck around.
Q: How did you guys land on the sound you all wanted to make? Did you already have a plan in mind of what you wanted to make?
Savine: It took us a while to find our sounds. I think it’s because we have a very wide range of influences and I feel like all of us kind of came from a different background
Madden: I think it’s good to be constantly kind of writing anew. And we’re always gaining new songs, sounds, and things that influence us. It’s a little amorphous and I like that.
Q: The band released new singles that came out recently, “Two Sugars” and “Cowboy.” What was the recording process like?
Savine: We recorded at Palisade Studios.
Madden: Most of it was recorded in one day at Palisade. Then we did a lot of overdubs and stuff, both at the studio at DePaul and at our personal practice space, and some just wherever.
Savine: We recorded them in October of 2024. So it took a while.
Shapiro: Then there was a random Palisade session again, where we were in the studio again. I played just a big bass note for, like, 10 minutes, and that pretty much was the extent of what I did.
Madden: Honestly most of it was done in a very short amount of time.
Correa: There were some things that made it so we couldn’t finish it. But the actual cumulative time working on it wasn’t that long. It was just spread out a lot.
Madden: There was a lot of preparation that was done prior to the session so that we could be as efficient as possible with the very expensive studio time.
Q: So I noticed that there’s a connection between the single’s two artworks, a copy from the KGB training manual? Is there a connected theme there? Is that something we will see come up in future releases?
Shapiro: Not really; it was a cool image I found on the internet. And I found that there’s a PDF of the KGB training manual because the Soviet Union is no longer a thing. So it is not copyrighted! And that’s a cool hack for any band out there. If you find stuff from a dead country, you can just use it.
Madden: Honestly, the process of the single’s art was very last minute. We ended up actually changing, slightly, the art for “Cowboy” a few weeks after it was released, because we thought that we weren’t allowed to have texts on it. Then we found out with a different distributor that we could have text, so we switched it on. But all of it was very goofy. It was because we wanted to release it on specific days, which is a horrible idea. A word of warning to any band that’s looking to release and record music too: don’t set a date for things before everything is done. Because it’s just going to be a horrible nightmare. So that was kind of a learning experience. But I think what we ended up settling on with the album art, we all really liked it.
Q: What should we expect from you guys in the future?
Madden: We’re going to record more; we’re touring in January.
Savine: We’re in album mode.
Quinones: I realized I havent said a single thing.
Savine: (To Quinones) What’s happening with the band?
Quinones: Money!
Whole band: A lot of money!
Savine: How are you feeling right now?
Quinones: I’m feeling cold.
Savine: How’s that apple you’re eating?
Quinones: The apple is really good! I don’t know if you’ve been hearing it. It’s crunchy.
Q: Fan-submitted question: What’s the best color Gatorade?
Shapiro: Yellow.
Madden: Incorrect by the way, orange.
Quinones: Red.
Correa: The cucumber one.
Savine: It all depends on the alignment of your chakra.
Whole band: Stop it!
Savine: I find yellow the most hydrating; red is best when you’re sick.
Shapiro: No, no, no, because if you’re sick and you drink it, you throw up red, and it’s scary.
Savine: Blue Gatorade makes me emotional. Cucumber one is kind of goated. Okay, they used to have this clear Gatorade, and I was really into that.
Quinones: Cucumber lime is slept on.
Shapiro: The one I drink on Hanukkah is the green one.
Madden: There was no reason for this question to last this long.
Q: Anything you want to say to anyone who’s reading this?
Savine: Arm trans women and love yourself.
Madden: Thank you, Chicago. NXM out.
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