Debut Albums and Life on Tour - An Interview with Worry Club

Chase Walsh photographed by Sophia Ragomo

Based in Chicago, Worry Club is a band best known for blending elements of punk, indie-rock, and Midwest emo - to name a few - to create expressive music riddled with deeply emotional lyricism. Starting as a personal project for lead singer Chase Walsh in 2020, Worry Club now includes Gabriel Clements, Dominic Gould, and Kris Herman as part of the full band. Six years later, Worry Club has released three EP’s and just this year, their debut album, I’m Freaking Out. The record is an honest and unique display of emotion, specifically the way anxiety can take over a person. After missing New Jersey on their 2026 headlining tour, Worry Club performed a special show at Crossroads in Garwood, NJ, and I had the pleasure of speaking with Walsh about the album and tour life.

Your debut album, I'm Freaking Out, was released in February. Congratulations. What did the process of making your debut album look and feel like? 

[Chase] It was pretty messy. I make everything in one room, all by myself. And also whenever I have time, I'll just make a little bit of something and finish it a little bit the next day. I made like fifty or sixty songs, and over the course of three years I kind of just whittled them down to twelve songs. When it was time to release the album, I was like, “These are the twelve songs, let's do it.” So, some of those songs I made three or four years ago, and some I finished a week before the album came out just to fit the vibe. 

Starting as a solo project and now six years in the making as a band, what are you most proud of with your growth? 

[Chase] I'm most proud of the touring because that wasn’t in my mind when I started putting out Worry Club stuff. I didn't think that we were gonna play shows at all because it was just me making beats. Once I met everybody, though, we started playing shows, and they started getting bigger, and people started coming back to the shows, and we recognized people, and they knew the words. It's really freaking cool. And the fact that we played this festival yesterday in Worcester with thousands of people there. Just the fact that we are able to be on a stage in front of thousands of people is super cool. People trust us to put on a show for thousands of people. It's really cool. 

Photograph from Sophia Ragomo

What is the process of adapting something that starts just in your room, by yourself, bringing it to the other members, and then bringing it to a live show? 

[Chase] That's what the whole Worry Club system is. I'll send the guys a song or a demo, and they'll start learning their parts and come up with cool ways to play them live. There's some kind of synth solo or something, and Dom has to form his pedals in a specific way to make that sound. It's been really fun, and we like to speed songs up or slow down or make them much louder than they are on the record. I get to figure out how to take 60 vocal tracks and choose which one I want to sing on stage. It's been really fun. 

What is the driving force of your passion for making music, touring with this band, how you interact with the crowd, and playing shows like this? 

[Chase] Being inspired by rock bands that I listened to growing up. I remember saying from a young age that I just want to rock. Whatever that looks like. If it's just me alone in my room making rock music, then that's cool. But seeing bands like Lincoln Park and Rage Against the Machine back in the day, just straight up rocking, that's literally all they're doing, and that's what I want to do. 

What is your favorite band or concert you have seen?

[Chase] It’s funny because nobody believes me, but we just saw Joyce Manor like two weeks ago, and it's my favorite concert I've ever seen. Like this late in my life, that's my new favorite one. 

So you recently completed a headlining tour, and you'll be going on tour again with The Wrecks this fall. What's your favorite part of touring, and what are you most looking forward to touring with The Wrecks? 

[Chase] I've never met them before. I'm super pumped. We actually played a show with them back in Chicago. We didn't get to meet them because they were doing their Riot Fest Aftershow, and it was also maybe the tenth show of our lives. So we were like, “Should we say hi to them? Should we not?” And we didn't, which I kind of wish that we did, so I'm excited to play with them again because their fans were awesome. We were very well received at that show, and that was the first time we opened up for someone coming through town. Their fans really liked us, so I was like, “Damn, I hope we get to play a show with them again someday.” It’s a full circle moment. I think my favorite thing about touring is just hanging out with everybody in the band, and we have Sophia now who runs TM stuff and merch, and she's a freaking legend. Everybody's got friends in different cities that they put on guest lists, and we all get to hang out or stay at our friends' houses across the country. It's really fun. 

Off of this album, what's your favorite song to perform live? 

[Chase] Ooh, I would say “Drinking Problem” is the most fun because it’s nice and fast. 

The entire album sound matches the idea of the title, but I feel “Drinking Problem” displays I’m Freaking Out the best. 

[Chase] Yeah, I agree. I think I made that song after I decided on the album name. So I was like, “What else am I freaking out about?” And then I just kind of checked it off the list. It's also a song that when we played on the headline tour, it surprised us that people knew all the words to it. It was really early in the set of the first show of the headline tour, and we were like, “Holy shit. People know all the words to this one.” It's been fun to just keep playing it, and we didn't get to hit New Jersey on our headline tour, so this is like an extra chance to play that set again after a couple months of not playing it.

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Cover photo by Sophia Ragomo