“Don’t you know blood’s thicker than wine” when it comes to these siblings?
Teal-blue hair, blonde streaks, bolo tie, and a red mane.
The Footlight District light up my laptop screen with their colourful energies as we sit down for our chat.
Hailing from Chicago, Illinois, TFD is a five-piece self-proclaimed “garage band” with a serendipitous shared affinity for music.
BB: Walk me through how the band came to be. How did you decide to start making music together?
TFD: We were born from the same parents. (chuckles) Well it was, we kind of got into music at a really young age. We’ve always been very into playing music and when we were little kids we would always put on plays and stuff and torture our poor parents and all their friends. Any guest that would come over was subjected to our latest production.
Looking back, oh, man, we feel so bad for them. But it kind of started there. And then we ended up doing “kids’ music,” because we were all kids ourselves. We were kind of doing like “kid-dy Rock” as they call it. And then as we got older
we all kind of fell into our own instruments. As we grew up, we went from just you know, putting on plays for our parents and their friends and stuff to picking up our own instruments and one thing led to the next and here we are. It’s all downhill from here.
One can be sure the latter statement is meant in a sarcastic, humourful manner, as the band’s been sharing their talent with the public since 2017, starting with their self-titled debut album. Their most recent single, “War Paint” was released in 2021. They’ve also done a number of live performances, from backyard open mics to festivals like the Hong Kong Pizza Party in Plano, IL. (Hong Kong Pizza Party is a Rock’n’Roll infused weekend, filled with local band performances.)
Each sibling brings a sort of uniqueness to their songs, as their preferred genres of music influence their performance. By merging them together, they create the eclectic sound that is The Footlight District.
Whether it be Sarah’s affinity for gospel music (FUN FACT: her first performance was at a funeral) and admiration for vocalists like Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane, Hannah’s love for 80s music since the tender age of 12 for the theatrical, energetic performances, Cecil’s big two centering on the White Stripes and Nirvana, Faith’s praise for Queen and specifically Freddie Mercury, or Grace’s passionate defense for The Who’s (in her opinion) underrated drummer, the late Keith Moon — the family’s tastes fuse wonderfully in every song-writing session.
TFD: So a typical writing session? Well, each song is kind of different. So like sometimes it’ll be a matter of us just like practicing and then we start jamming and like something comes out of that or we kind of like go from there. Other times it’s been like, I don’t know just one of us sitting down with kind of a cool riff or a cool lyric, and we bring in everybody else. So we’re kind of eclectic about that. It’s really like a melding of all of us. Someone may come with more of a filled out idea like “oh, hey, I have a song, this is the verse, the is the chorus” and “oh yeah, well, I’ve got this to add to it.” Before long, you can’t remember who wrote what. You may pinpoint one solo where it’s like “Oh this is a Cecil play” or “Oh this is Faith” and you can kind of tell a little bit, but after a while you kind of just forget who put what into the song.
BB: And how did “War Paint” come to be?
TFD: I think it started with the riff right? (siblings proceed to air guitar, and vocalize the melody, laughing collectively as they do it) and the chorus was built after that, and then the lyrics just started flowing. We actually do the song a little bit differently live. So, the solo would play as kind of just a recording and on stage, Gracie keeps playing drums and then Cecil and Faith will like take off their guitars and hand them to a member of the audience. And then we usually just kind of go crazy during that performance, and smear warpaint on the audience.
The siblings released the music video “War Paint” in February 2022, one which they comically coined the “baked potato music video.” The reason for them naming it so was because the video was filmed at home, in true DIY fashion, inside a silver papered wall, resembling a tinfoil wrap.
Everything about the video resounds with the song. Dramatic eye-makeup on the members’ eyelids to resemble the “war paint,” a smokey, fog-like atmosphere to allude to the “smoking gun,” and the occasional appearances of vocalist Sarah’s kids — adding to the element of family that echoes in the song (from the sentence “don’t you know blood is thicker than wine” — also known as the famous phrase “the blood of the covenant is thicker than wine.”)
BB: How do you reconcile being bandmates and siblings? Do you find it harder or easier?
TFD: I think it actually, for us, it actually works, it’s easier (being siblings.) Because we all know that we have the same goals and the same idea. And so it’s easier, especially for scheduling, we all actually live in one building together. So with scheduling rehearsals, we’re all like “I know you’re home!” And we all get along really well. And so having like the same goal and ideas and dreams, it really helps to keep it cohesive and together. We all know we have each other’s back.
BB: And Cecil, what is it like to be the only man amongst four women?
CS: I mean … (Faith interjects comically: “HE LOVES IT!” which leads the bandmates to all burst out in laughter) It’s really great, I think cause since we’re all siblings, it actually works out pretty well. I mean, we all still share our clothes and stuff.
TFD: Obviously, we have our individual interests as well. We’re not like complete a complete cult. But like on the main day, we all agree we’ll find a way to bring out all of our different interests into one main thing. That’s like our main goal.
BB: And how did the name “Footlight District” get chosen?
TFD: The name kinda came about because, so we’re both (Faith and Cecil) really big fans of Black Ops, zombies video games (Call of Duty: Black Ops — BO3 Zombies) and there’s like, a place that’s referred to as the Footlight district. And we were like, well that’s got a nice ring to it! And it works because you know, a foot light is what they would put at the bottom of a stage and we’re very theatrical on stage!
BB: So you guys have a new song coming out this year, but contrary to your previous singles, this one is featuring a new voice: Russel Marsden of Band of Skulls. Of course there are notable differences between writing with family members and writing with another person. So what would you say are the pros and cons of both?
TFD: Oh, it was really cool. It was kind of a different perspective. And because obviously, since we’ve written together (as a family) for a while, we all kind of have like a certain way of doing it, but it was kind of neat to have a different influence. We’d be talking with Russel and be like “Okay, here, take this, what we’ve done. What do you hear?” And then we would have all our instruments and then we would just kind of like, “oh, why don’t you try this when you try that when you drop this or add this in?” The only downside was that we couldn’t actually do it in person. It was mostly done over zoom. Like basically wrote the song over zoom, and then recorded stuff here (in Chicago) and sent it over to him. We already have bits and pieces of it recorded already. But we had to add some more stuff. So we did some vocal stuff here, and then he did some more instrument stuff in his studio, and he just kind of “Frankensteined” it together.
That’s the best way to describe it.
BB: Can you describe it in a few sentence, so your listeners know what to expect?
TFD: Spooky, haunting, and definitely something that belongs on The Witcher‘s soundtrack.
Make sure to keep an eye (and ear) out for The Footlight District’s newest single, set to come out at the start of summer, around June.
Follow them on their socials to stay updated!
Busybee's Playlist 
Leave a comment