Footballhead at Douglass Park 2025-09-21T12:00:00
Footballhead is a Chicago-based alternative rock band headed by Ryan Nolen. At its heart, the band is a vessel to toil forward through internal and external insecurity. It also serves the unrelenting spirit of new-millennium Midwestern youth, with MTV and skatepark dreams in the core of their memories. By blending pop structures with alt and emo sounds, Footballhead channels the frantic, dramatic, and anthemic to map the pressure points of existence. It’s outcast music, revitalized in search of a modern, blissful awakening.
Nolen was a skate kid from the western Chicago suburbs; the one who only kicked it with older neighborhood kids. The punkish attitude of late-90s and early-aughts alt-rock galvanized Nolen, from the infectiously fun music down to the fashion. A teenage relocation to Palm Springs, CA coincided with Nolen inundating himself with all the music he could: Warped Tour, 411 videos, Limewire and the like. The Footballhead ethos comes from this comfort zone of pop impulses and raucous energy, carried by a DIY spirit that grants Nolen the autonomy to facilitate honesty and reflection.
Joined by Adam Siska (The Academy Is), Liam Burns, and Robby Kuntz, Footballhead crafts supercharged rock songs like brief, open secrets. However weathered one is from their struggles and mistakes, this music offers unbridled fun as a reprieve, and salves for the shaken. These are your old friends inviting you in to commiserate, elevate, and believe.