Friends in Real Life by Friends in Real Life
Album Review
Album: Friends in Real Life
Artist: Friends in Real Life
Released: February 21, 2025; Low Capacity Music
Friends in Real Life, the Band is really a family affair featuring seemingly fresh out of retirement folk punk “legend” Patrick “Pat the Bunny” Schneeweis, Micheal Schneeweis is a huge player in the DIY music scene in his own right, and also features their father Charlie Schneeweis. The album Friends in Real Life is billed as junky pop/folk music and that description I think is a fair one. It provides the the same earnest-heartfelt vibes that fans of Pat would expect, but also a maturity in sound, production, and tone that is refreshing.
The first track on the album is “You are the Ocean” and I feel that it really does a great job setting the tone for the entire album. It offers rather chill vibes and a smooth sound for essentially being about dealing with lose. The imagery provided by the lyrics, I feel, are rather beautiful. The first line is “I’ve been singing sad songs again” and than continues with a surfing metaphor that implies that eventually all that sadness and grief from the songs you’ve been singing can be dissolved in the ocean. The the song moves to a similar metaphor this time its skating and rage resentment and how you need to bury those things to properly move on. At the end to each metaphor there are notable lines. For the first line it’s: “You are the ocean, my friend” and the second line it’s: “I’ll be the dirt, my friend”. This further ties these two metaphors together in a way that says, you can’t get through this without friends and support. Last it poses the question, “How do we move on?” and answers it by the suggestion that we should try making things that pay homage to what and who we have lost. It is a great song crammed full of more symbolism and wisdom that has any right to exist in the confines of a minute and 20 second long song. AND that trumpet. I have always considered myself a horn dog so its not hard to buy my praise with a little brass but damn that trumpet picking up in the mid point of the song firmly separating the sorrowful first half and guiding you into the more hopeful conclusion, just hits. Purely inspired.
“Advice” is perhaps my first real introduction to Micheal Schneeweis. I have had really great people suggest his work to me and for the most part I am ashamed to admit that other than briefly listening to a track or two of his older stuff I never got around to it. I really like the tongue and cheek delivery and message of this song. Changing yourself is indeed a struggle but it is never too late to start.
“Retirement Plans” is absolutely my favorite track on the album. It’s talks about how life rarely works out the way people want and that sometimes the things you love sometimes aren’t actually good for you so it’s best to just let them go. I look at it like a autobiographical explanation of what, at least in part, brought Pat back out of retirement and also hopefully a mission statement for the rest of his music career. The drum machine and synth are definitely the stand out musical components in this song. The way the synth comes in through out the song as each verse ends as if you are punctuating each turn of happenstance as the story progresses. I like it. It’s neat. This is an aside to the record, but since Pat brings it up in this song, I will just say that I personally would love to just have a chat about computers and tech with Pat, but I’m that specific kind of weird little nerd so I will leave it at that.
Friends in Real Life is a record myself, and I assume most fans of Pat, have hoped for, but certainly never expected to happen. Now that it has happened, I can honestly say I couldn’t be happier. I have always felt that the majority of Pat’s music was him struggling to force himself to be the type of person he really wanted to be. It is nice to see that this album is more about accepting yourself for who you are and life for how it is in the moment while striving for better. This is a very welcomed addition to Pat’s discography and for me at least a great introduction to Micheal as well. It is a must check out for any fans of the Schneeweises or people who just like folk inspired indie music with some synth bits thrown in for good fun.