Over the past decade and a half, Ryan Rumchaks has grown into a prominent figure in the Chicago music scene. Perhaps best known as the bassist and backing vocalist of Chicago pop-punk and emo band Knuckle Puck, he also fronts the alternative band Homesafe and is part of the emo-pop-punk trio rationale. Yet it’s his solo material that highlights both his range as a musician and his voice as a songwriter.
As Chicago’s drawn-out winter briefly seemed to loosen its grip, a light snowfall dusted the sidewalks of Wrigleyville on February 21. Inside Gman Tavern, a dive bar and independent music venue, fans, friends, and family packed into the back room for Rumchaks’s first hometown solo show in years. Behind the main bar, a 14 by 8 feet stage somehow held Emanuel Duran on drums, Austin Royer on guitar, Alex Rackow on bass, and Rumchaks on vocals, guitar, and piano.
The set opened with “No One Sleeps,” followed by “Tell Me How You Are,” a bright, jangly tune evocative of the late ’70s and early ’80s mod revival spirit of The Jam. “Tell me, just who did you think I was?/ A chap you could string along to weave yourself/ Well, my kind is gone / This I know/ So you’re shit outta’ luck,” Rumchaks sang as he marked the rhythm with his foot. While these and other songs, like the newly released “My Old Wallet,” feel built for performance by a full band, it’s striking to realize they were first imagined, layered, arranged, and produced almost entirely by Rumchaks alone.
Speaking with the Maroon before the show, he noted that the solo music exists on a separate creative wavelength from his other projects. “Total freedom is the best way to put it. I’ve always done my own thing, even previous to the bands that I was in, so it’s always kind of lived in me somewhere.”
That “somewhere” takes listeners on a melodic and lyrical journey, from angsty pop-punk anthems to folksy, stripped-back rhythms and hushed, lullaby-esque songs like “Three Steps Back,” which Rumchaks performed on piano. Though he now plays guitar, piano, bass, and organ, the first instrument he learned was the drums. “It all started with drums,” he said. “Before that, it was pots and pans on the kitchen floor. I remember banging across pans with spoons and asking when I could get a drum set.”
Rather than quieting the noise, his parents leaned into it and got him a kit. Music, it turns out, is a family language. “My mom’s the musical one—that’s my music side,” he said, noting that her brothers also play guitar. His brother Mike (who contributed mandolin, lap steel, vocals, laughs, and whistles to Rumchaks’s 2023 album Around the Corner in the Near Future) is also a musician. His dad, he added, allegedly plays drums—“but I’ve never seen him play,” he laughed. Many of these relatives were scattered across the room. Between songs, he quickly scanned the crowd. “I just wanna look at you real quick, I think I saw my dad [over there]. Cheers to all of you!”
The setlist also included a hauntingly beautiful cover of Wilco’s “Misunderstood.” It was no surprise, then, that when asked about his inspirations, Rumchaks quickly pointed to Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy. “[He] has been a huge influence on me. The last year and a half I’ve listened to so much Wilco,” he said, trailing off. The list of artists he grew up on continued: “Bob Dylan, Neil Young—my mom loved Neil Young, she loved The Rolling Stones, and dad loved Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.”
But these aren’t just passive influences for Rumchaks. Whether it’s the raw performance style of The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan’s constant reinvention, or the emotionally charged grit of Neil Young’s guitar riffs, these references come through in his catalog. “I don’t like to do the same things over, that’s boring. That’s not why I do this. I want to keep it fresh for me.”
For the final portion of the set, Rumchaks swiftly got up from the piano, adjusted his mic stand, and slung his guitar back on without missing a beat as the band launched into the yet-to-be-released punk anthem “4545.” This song was the shining star of the set, energizing the room from beginning to end. People stomped to the drums, losing themselves in its early-2000s skate park beat. The energy was so palpable that Rumchaks joined the applause at the end, as if thanking the audience for meeting him in the moment.
It is clear that growing up in the Chicago and greater Midwest music scene has given Rumchaks a widely supportive community. The people onstage with him, the opening act (Pat Egan, whom he’s known for over a decade), the friends passing him drinks mid-set, and many longtime fans pressed near the front all pointed to a momentum larger than a single show. Almost immediately after wrapping up, a crowd had already formed around him, attendees eager to shake his hand and share a few words.
Reminiscing on the impact of growing up in this collective, he said, “You know, playing shows in the South suburbs, playing in bowling alleys… just scrounging up your friends to play the songs that you want to play and doing it because you love to, and it doesn’t matter if people show up. The yearning to just want to play music has never left me.” When asked what he hopes the audience walks away with after the set, he paused. “I just want them to feel something, you know? That’s the goal.”
