Update your indie-rock playlist with Pajama Day, the not-your-average high school band
Pajama Day guitarist and vocalist Louis Van Houtven performs at a Pajama Day concert on Friday, Feb. 21, 2020.
When asked about the themes behind Chapel Hill band Pajama Day's music, lead singer Louis Van Houtven didn't miss a beat.
“I write about three things: being sad, sleep and girls,” he said.
While at least one of those is a serious subject, the trio of bandmates and friends laughed at the remark.
That answer, and its response, embodies the up-and-coming band Pajama Day. They take their music seriously, touching on serious topics, but are also a group of best friends in high school who are simply just having fun.
Consisting of three high school juniors, Ali Gotelli; Louis Van Houtven and Milo Vaisey, Pajama Day is a rift-driven indie rock band — well, sort of.
“We like to think we are sort of straddling the line between really straightforward indie rock with a little bit of emo influence,” Van Houtven explained.
Pajama Day drummer Milo Vaisey, 17 performs on Friday, Feb. 21, 2020.
Van Houtven, as the lead singer of the group, is also the primary song writer, with Vaisey on the drums and Gotelli on bass.
The group formed during the summer of 2018, before their sophomore year. Gotelli and Van Houtven had previously been playing music together for about five years.
“We always wanted to start a band or play music together in some setting,” Gotelli said.
They needed a third, so they called on their fellow elementary school friend: Milo Vaisey.
Vaisey was a good friend of the two others but didn’t fit the drummer requirement the group was looking for, Van Houtven said. Van Houtven and Gotelli didn’t really care — they were just looking for a friend to round out the trio.
“When they contacted me, I didn’t even have a drum kit,” Vaisey said, “They were like ‘Milo, you can play drums right?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah!’.”
After a few “throw downs” in their garage and a recording session at a friend’s house, the group released their first track “Ocean Song” on SoundCloud. The track reeled in 22,000 streams.
“We were not ready for that,” Van Houtven said. “It was really great.”
Soon after, the group performed for the first time at a Chapel Hill High School talent show. Despite only performing two songs, the band felt more legitimate than they ever had.
"Everyone got out their phone flashlights and did the wave thing,” Vaisey said, recalling the moment. “That was the moment for me where I was like, 'Dang, people like this.'”
After their first gig, the boys decided it was time to hit a real studio, or the closest thing they could afford, and make an EP. Studio sessions are different for Pajama Day, because they are busy high schoolers with a simple setup. For their debut project, Pajama Day worked with music producer and mixer Drew Coble. At Coble’s in-house studio, the group spent about eight hours across two days and recorded the entire EP, Coble said.
Ali Gotelli, 16, of Chapel Hill, plays the bass during Pajama Day's set on Friday, Feb. 21, 2020.
"We get in, we have a goal, we try to do it as quickly as we can as well as we can," Vaisey said.
Coble first reached out the group, hoping to capitalize on the talent he felt Pajama Day had. Coble, a professional music producer, respected their studio presence.
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"You could definitely tell they were high schoolers,” Coble said, “but I really enjoyed working with them — they were really professional.”
The members of the group echoed this goal.
"We don't want to market ourselves as a high school band,” Vaisey said. “We want to feel pretty established.”
After Coble finished mixing the EP, on Sept. 21, Pajama Day released a five track EP entitled “The Taste.”
"We felt pretty good about it,” Vaisey said, “But we really want to get back in the studio, because we feel that since then we have improved a lot as a band.”
Van Houtven and Gotelli agreed. They said the group feels closer than ever and is ready to create something they can be super proud of.
With the release of the band's EP came an EP release show at Van Houtven’s house. Despite playing several gigs before, the EP release show was Van Houtven’s favorite performance. It was the group's first time headlining a show.
“Everyone was there to see us,” Van Houtven said. “That gave me a whole level of confidence.”
Another highlight for the band came from their performance at the popular Carrboro venue: Cat’s Cradle. The band played four songs as part of the venue’s annual “Be Loud!” concert. To perform on such a popular and well-known stage was a big moment for the band. They were by far the youngest group there, but they felt they held their weight alongside more well-known and established bands, Gotelli said.
"I felt like we weren't in the do-it-yourself mentality anymore,” Gotelli said. “It's like 'Wow, I’m really up here — I’m doing what I love.'"
Pajama Day, despite being a trio of goofy high schoolers, wants to be taken seriously. And with almost 50,000 streams across Spotify and SoundCloud, they have lived up to their expectations — and are still rising.
For now, the band is focusing on booking gigs as much as possible and looking to put together an album by the end of year.
“We tend to play at any place we get,” Gotelli said. “Not to sound totally desperate.”
On April 4, Pajama Day will be performing at 2nd Wind, a bar off of East Main Street in Carrboro.
