SICK DAY
AND BIRTHDAYS
Photos by Tracey Conoboy
Words by Kora Elms Fleming
“Damn was it really that long ago?” “Five years sounds about right,”
Oliva Wallace, lead singer of Chicago’s Sick Day, giggled as she sipped her Old Style. I revealed I scrolled to the beginning of Sick Day’s Instagram, trying to timestamp the birth of the band itself. With Wallace’s slightly hesitant confirmation, we settled on June being Sick Day’s unofficial birthday.
Perched onto two wobbly bar stools, fiddling with our coasters and the label on my high life, Wallace and I talked about upcoming projects, vulnerability, the music scene, and of course, birthdays.
Sick Day is a Chicago indie band in all of the right ways. They’re raw and rocking with perfectly coy lyrics, bringing a rosy flush to your cheeks and a stream of Wallace’s words stuck in your head. With lyrics like, “Take a little of my soul from me/It’s worth a lot/But I’ll give it to you for free,” Wallace spins her lyrics together delicately and intently. Each line plays off the other in a way that reminds me of getting a drink with an old friend or lover and realizing you’re right back to where you left off.
Wallace explained she has to be in a specific headspace to write. “I try to be really honest in my songwriting…honest and artful at the same time.” There’s a soft fragility that oozes out of every song, placing the listener in the exact moment. Taking a pause for her thoughts, Wallace said, “It has to be very from the heart.” Sick Day’s songs orbit around vulnerability, mood, memory, and community. Each track is stained with heart, in the best way. Yet, when playing their songs Wallace doesn’t always feel vulnerable, “only when crowds talk over the music.” Wallace explains, “I’m pouring my heart out, are you listening?”
Sick Day is currently working on two albums. One more alt-pop record and a folk centered album where Wallace is revisiting old songs of hers and breathing a new life into them. Wallace described the folk album as “super raw and acoustic” with friends coming in with cellos and violins. It’s a love letter to growth and a wave to the past.
I asked Wallace how she felt revisiting these songs, if they brought up different feelings, reopening the wounds of your nineteen year old self. Wallace with a smile said, “I feel there's a tendency to kind of shrug off past versions of yourself and be like, ‘Oh, that's not who I am now.’ But, it always kind of ebbs and flows and comes back.”
In recording this upcoming album, Wallace kept her community tight. Friends of hers surrounded her in the studio, offsetting the heaviness of revisiting herself, “A lot of the themes in that album have to deal with loneliness. Having this group of people singing with me is very powerful.”
Wallace was nineteen when she first started writing music. We laughed about what our nineteen year old selves were thinking, issues that seemed like the biggest thing in the world, but not even remembering them now. “I don’t even really remember the context around the songs. It’s cool to revisit the songs as purely songs. I don't have a story attached to them anymore, Wallace said. This new album is gearing up to be a twisted scavenger hunt with Wallace’s songs as the treasure.
Still, Sick Day isn’t playing for the hopes of a sold out arena tour. “I used to feel like I had to put out music on a certain interval and play that whole game,” Wallace said with a shrug, “I’m never going to do music in the traditional way.” This grassroots approach has led them away from the jaws of Instagram and TikTok’s endless stream of “POV: You found the song of the summer” posts.
The path hasn’t always been smooth. Being in the music industry now is a constant back and forth of emails and promotions, with not a lot promised in return. “When I was putting out Overexposure, I emailed a hundred labels,” Wallace said, “I don’t even know if anyone ever actually opened my email or read it.” This frustration within the music industry–its expectations, algorithms, and endless postings, brought Wallace into Substack and newsletters.
These spaces allow Wallace to really explore and write freely about art, music, and spirituality while sharing bits of photography and what’s to come from the Sick Day universe. At first, Wallace was hesitant, “I didn’t think anyone would read the newsletter.” I joked with her saying it’s always a “if you build it they will come” scenario. Wallace agreed saying, “People are really into it. It’s been so cool.” These more underground ways of promotion lend themselves to Sick Day’s music and ethos. It’s a launching pad of creativity focused on what brings her back to the music in the first place.
Now back to Sick Day’s birthday. If they were a cake they would be “a chocolate cake with coffee frosting.” Why? Wallace said simply, “Because I like that.” And if Sick Day had a dream birthday party? It would be filled with Elliott Smith karaoke, pizza, and art projects, in a beachside glass building, with no liquor license. Like Sick Day, that party would be packed full of love, crafty pieces, and all the people who have stuck around for their journey.
Wallace has called basically every Chicago neighborhood home. From Logan Square to Bridgeport, to Little Village, but these days she’s living up north in Edgewater, dreaming of an apartment right on the lake. Through it all Sick Day keeps transforming. Edgy and fuzzy in one project, indie in the next, to folk in the other from bedroom writing sessions to studios full of friends and cellos, there’s no stopping them.
“I’m always trying to make something catchy.” “To make songs people will enjoy listening to,” Wallace says. “I never want to be boring.”
When Sick Day comes up on my playlists, I never skip it, I sing along with a smile on my face and blush on my cheeks. You will too, I promise.
Follow Sick Day on Bandcamp and Instagram!