The conversation below has been edited for clarity.

5/1/24 @ The Beat Kitchen

Can you all introduce yourselves a little bit?

I’m Sebastian, the guitar- lead gui-tar, I guess, for Laikaa.

I’m Baron, the keyboardist. I also do a lot of stuff behind the scenes.

I’m Josh. I’m a guitarist and I sing.

I’m Diego, and I’m just the bassist.

I’m Gabe, and I play drums.

Where do you guys get the band name Laikaa from?

Josh: I fell down a rabbit hole googling things, space-related things. I came across the story of the Russian space dog Laikaa, the first dog shot into space.

How does being from Chicago influence your music?

Josh: Going to local shows sparked “Oh, they do this weird sound? We should try.”

Baron: Josh and I have birthdays that are close together. Last Hal-loween it was Daundry, Fishman Dracula, and a couple of other bands. After seeing that show, we went home and recorded a bunch

of stuff. Seeing the scene do things is encouraging.

Gabe: That first show we played with Polly on the Wall is the only thing I think of because when we first saw them play, I was like, “damn, let’s lock-in.”

Sebastian: I think just going to shows and seeing the different styles of bands here that play and seeing what they are doing is pretty inspiring. We saw Lundsurk, they are really good. We saw them at Archies and they were awe-some.

Is there a message or theme you try to put out in your music?

Josh: A lot of the music is me vent-ing or describing how I felt at that time. It’s nice to put it out there and hope someone can relate.

How do you get song ideas going?

Josh: For the most part, I have an idea or a vision, and I tell them what I’d like and what I want them to do. There have been a few songs where we were just playing and jamming – we didn’t even say anything and a song came out of it.

Is there a strong sense of commu-nity in the scene?

Josh: People are so supportive. It’s crazy how supportive they are of local music. It’s really cool.

Sebastian: The scene is great. Ev-eryone I’ve met is super nice. Just now, someone was talking about maybe doing a show.

How do you view social media when it comes to getting your mu-sic out and about?

Josh: Such an easy platform to have and just share. It’s easy ex-posure. When we first started-

Baron: Are you going to talk about the TikTok?

Josh: Yeah! (laughs) We posted a TikTok of us playing Weezer. He was ranting (Baron) and we played Weezer over his rant.

Baron: The rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist saw it. The one that does the “Hip-hip.”

Baron: I think it has over 5.5 million (views).

Josh: We got so many streams on Spotify off of that.

Who should people check out in the DIY scene?

Everyone we played with tonight was great: Sunshy, The Courts, and Daundry. All people we have been fans of for a while, this was a must-do show for us.

Laikaa: Joshua Parra, Diego Helms, Sebastian Nord, Baron Slater, Formerly; Gabe Torres

Interview: Shaye Rosengarden, Matthew Hocutt

Words/Photos: Shaye Rosengarden