Chicago roots rock band The Empty Pockets celebrate the rare joy of never tiring of the people you love on “I Never Get Sick of You,” a jubilant, full-bodied love song whose playful theatricality and palpable chemistry make devotion sound as exhilarating as it is intimate.

Stream: “I Never Get Sick of You” – The Empty Pockets

Spending nearly every waking hour with the same people should test the limits of anyone’s affection.

The Empty Pockets make a gleeful case for the opposite on “I Never Get Sick of You,” a playful, full-bodied love song about the rare kind of closeness that can withstand cramped vans, long days, bad moods, boredom, and repetition and still come out grinning. Life may exhaust our attention, but the right people keep giving us reasons to marvel at our luck.

Things don’t hold my
attention like they used to
It’s hard these days
to hold my piece of mind
All my thoughts round back;
my brain is a horseshoe
Time to move on from the daily grind

Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “I Never Get Sick of You,” the jubilant new single and official music video from Chicago quartet The Empty Pockets. Arriving September 25 ahead of the band’s forthcoming album Dear Billionaires, out October 23, the song brings the record’s most intimate relationship into focus: The marriage between guitarist/vocalist Josh Solomon and keyboardist/vocalist Erika Brett, and the deep kinship they share with bassist Nate Bellon and drummer Adam Balasco. Together, they make devotion sound gloriously alive – loose enough to laugh, big enough to burst into song, and deeply grateful for the people who make the daily grind worth sharing.

The premise comes straight out of the unusual life these four people have built together. Marriage, friendship, work, travel, and music overlap almost completely for The Empty Pockets; much of the year is spent in the same van, on the same stages, moving through the same exhaustion and exhilaration night after night. For Solomon, “I Never Get Sick of You” grew from recognizing just how improbable it is to share so much of yourself with the same people and keep wanting more.

I never get sick of you
I jump in double quick for you
It always does the trick, it’s true
I really get a kick from you
And then it hits me like a truck
I often marvel at my luck
That I love you through and through
And I never get sick of you

“‘I Never Get Sick of You’ is my love letter to Erika, my bandmate and wife, but also our full band and team,” Josh Solomon tells Atwood Magazine. “Riding in the van, being on tour, day after day, all over the world… it’s a dream come true, yes, but it’s also a lot. Nobody gets into music to get rich… we all do it because we love it, we do it to have fun! And so finding a group of people that you can travel with, put on a show together every night, be exhausted, overwhelmed, happy, sad, angry, depressed… everything really… and STILL have fun. That’s amazing. That’s something to hold on to.”

The music carries that push and pull from its first lines.

The verses circle through distraction and frustration – a mind that keeps doubling back on itself, a daily grind begging for escape – before the chorus springs outward with infectious conviction. Its sudden lift has the immediacy of a thought arriving before anyone has had the chance to tidy it up.

“Songs are funny things, and I think all songwriters do it a little differently,” Solomon reflects. “I write songs almost every day, and I’ve found, for me, that I write my best stuff when I don’t judge as I’m going, I don’t think about what’s reasonable, or marketable, or what ‘people’ might like and enjoy. I’m not saying that mindset is the right way to do it, I know some amazing songwriters who can sit down and write more intentionally. ‘I Never Get Sick of You’ came out of me super organically, jamming on the hopeful, joyous chord progression of the chorus and contrasting it with the melodic minor verse. Many of the lyrics were improvised early in the session, which I find often leads to words that ‘sing’ really well.”

Its looseness gives “I Never Get Sick of You” some of its funniest and most revealing language. Solomon runs through everything that has lost its luster – the weather, work, possessions – before landing on an image strange enough to stop the song in its tracks:

I’m tired of the rain, I’m bored of the sun
I’m done with my work, I wanna have fun
I’m unmoved by the house, I’m over the car
I’m a terrarium mouse in an undersized jar, but

The line is absurd, claustrophobic, and instantly legible: A tiny creature pacing the edges of a world that has become too familiar. Solomon knew its oddness was part of the point.

“It’s a super strange one,” Solomon says. “I feel like Erika was not immediately sold, and it’s a big part of our writing process that Erika edits and approves all the lyrics. In years of touring and chatting with our buddy Al Stewart (‘Year of the Cat’) I think I’ve internalized some of his philosophies. In this case, ‘use words that other songs haven’t already used.’ I’ve never put ‘terrarium’ in a song, and I can’t think of many songs that have. In the verse, I’m done with everything, nothing is making me happy. I’m feeling stuck and restrained, it feels like everything is holding me back. And then we get to the chorus and the truth comes out… everything might be holding me back… everything except you.”

The final pivot is the architecture of the entire song. The verse contracts; the chorus breaks open. Solomon leaps from restlessness into a playful run of rhymes – “quick,” “trick,” and “kick,” followed by “truck” and “luck” – until the joke gives way to an uncomplicated declaration: I love you through and through / And I never get sick of you. Its theatricality comes from the size of that release, but the emotion underneath stays wonderfully ordinary. Brett hears a choice inside the recurring revelation.

“I love that lyric too,” Erika Brett shares. “It describes passionately falling in love again and again, and choosing each other every day.”

The performance needed the same sense of spontaneity. The Empty Pockets recorded “I Never Get Sick of You” live in Abbey Road Studio 2 without instrumental overdubs, preserving the quartet’s give-and-take in the performance itself. Brett remembers the room reshaping the song in a way they hadn’t anticipated.

“The pianos at Abbey Road are legendary,” Brett says. “The song wasn’t working for us until we got to Studio 2 in London. There was something missing, the groove wasn’t quite right. I noticed the Challen piano was in the corner and was curious why it was turned around against the wall. When I asked if I could use it, they said it had a small buzz on one key, but it sounded good to me, and the engineers jumped into action setting it up. There are burns on the wood at the end of the keyboard – from Paul and John’s cigarettes. That piano has magic in it. It’s literally my favorite instrument in the world, no question – knowing the icons who’ve touched those keys definitely makes for an extra special experience in the studio. I adore the way the keys bounce off the strings. You can hear those famous songs the second you plunk out the notes. So unique – it dramatically changed the way I played. With the Challen, I was inspired to take a more rhythmic, springy approach that affected the four of us in equal measure since we tracked all at once. We used the second take with no edits. The Challen’s timbre also really serves the songs, ‘Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone’ and ‘Queen of LA’ – it sounds instantly nostalgic.”

The official video strips the concept back to the source: four musicians in a room, playing like they mean it and clearly enjoying one another’s company. Filmed at The Hideout in Chicago, it brings viewers right up to the bandstand, framing The Empty Pockets beneath string lights and in front of gold curtains as Brett works the upright piano, Solomon sings with open-throated gusto, and Bellon and Balasco hold the groove steady behind them. The best moments come from proximity – Josh and Erika leaning back-to-back, smiling their way through the performance, the whole group locked close enough for their rapport to read instantly on camera. “I Never Get Sick of You” is a song about gratitude for the people who keep showing up; this video makes that gratitude visible.

Placed inside Dear Billionaires, that affection carries an even larger purpose.

Much of the album directs its attention toward extreme wealth, working people, and the forces outside an individual’s control. Against that scale, “I Never Get Sick of You” brings the record all the way back down to the people sharing the van. For Brett, that intimacy speaks directly to the album’s larger question of how we live through a world we cannot fully control:

“The whole album revolves around the idea of what we can and can’t control in this moment on earth,” Brett explains. “Love is certainly an antidote to some of the darkness we’re facing. Community is another antidote. And this song is about commitment to one another, especially when the world feels complicated and unsteady.”

For all its easy grin, “I Never Get Sick of You” carries real weight.

The Empty Pockets let boredom, irritation, exhaustion, and devotion occupy the same life because, of course, they do. Familiarity can make the world look smaller; the people we choose can keep opening it back up.

“I Never Get Sick of You” arrives September 25, with Dear Billionaires following October 23. Watch Atwood Magazine’s exclusive premiere of the official music video below, and dive into our full conversation with The Empty Pockets as the band talks friendship, Abbey Road, working-class solidarity, the strange joy of writing “terrarium” into a song, and the people who keep making all those miles worthwhile.

After all those miles, all those hours, and all that repetition, The Empty Pockets still sound thrilled to be in the room together.

Oh, oh, oh, oh
And then it hits me like a truck
I often marvel at my luck
That I love you through and through
And I never get sick of you

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:: stream/purchase I Never Get Sick of You here ::

:: connect with The Empty Pockets here ::

:: stream/purchase Dear Billionaires here ::

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Stream: “I Never Get Sick of You” – The Empty Pockets

A CONVERSATION WITH THE EMPTY POCKETS

Nate: The Empty Pockets is a band of close friends making music the old-fashioned way. There’s no tracks, no AI, no flashy gimmicks or glitzy distractions, it’s just four musicians jamming it out and creating music the same fundamental way it has been for millennia. There’s a lot of power in the connection that is forged between musicians creating music and the audience experiencing it, and we live and thrive on transmitting and utilizing that energy, both in records and in live performance. When you listen to us, and experience this energy and joy along with us, it fulfills a very basic need deep within all our souls in only a way that art and music can. That, I think, is the very basic crux of The Empty Pockets: Fulfilling a promise to humanity in only the way that humans can.

Nate: Oh man, one of the benefits of being an older act is that we have a deep back catalog filled with a lot of different styles and thoughts. We’ve always refused to be pigeon-holed into a sound, whether by a record company or by ourselves, and it’s none more apparent than when perusing through our older albums. Some of my favorites that I think combine together to give a decent overview of our musical stylings are “Leaving Jackson” from The Ten Cent Tour, “The Bubble” from Voices, “Fill It Up” from Tanglewoods, and “Hold Your Lamp Up” from Outside Spectrum. But of course, I always say we’re really a live band, so spending time on either of our live albums, Live in Seattle, or Live in Buffalo featuring the always amazing Elliot Scozzaro on saxophone will definitely yield tasty results as well. Is it too much to say I’m in love with our entire catalog?

Erika: “Asleep on the Subway” from Tanglewoods is one we rarely play live. It came from a short story I wrote when Josh and I were first falling in love. The lyrics are full of magical realism – I imagined Josh in the rice patties of Vietnam, one of his favorite places, and when I see him – later on the subway – we touch and instantaneously I fall asleep in love and safety.

Adam: I think bands agree, most of the time, on what their band is and sounds like, but some disagreement among members regarding direction or vision is reasonable. It’s natural with group projects, and the Empty Pockets experience it too. So what excites me about this album, is that it seems to be the most naturally cohesive thing we’ve made. We all hate billionaires, definitely. But the music also came together smoothly and without resistance. We weren’t trying to make a concept album, but this whole album feels deliberate and true to our band.

NORTH STARS: The Beatles, Ben Folds Five, The Band

Nate: The great part about the cats in The Empty Pockets is there is a varied stew of musical influences that we all sup upon at the table of performance, and with thoughtful synthesis and respectful listening and reacting, we’re able to use a lot of those different flavors while creating something together. For instance, I’m a big Tower of Power fan, with their funky syncopation and tight horn lines, but you can clearly see that we’re not a horn band (although Josh and I did both start our musical lives as trumpet players.) However, I think we manage to capture the real juice of some Tower of Power vibe when we’re weaving in and out of rhythms together and hitting unison lines together, in a way that is both homage-esque but also unique to our own particular sound and feel.

NORTH STARS: Tower of Power, Jamiroquai, Blues Traveler, Bad Company

Erika: Our sound continues to evolve and we’ve been really committed to serving the songs, rather than worrying about where it fits in the music industry. Something that I love about this album is that it captures a literal live, human moment in time. Every song on the album was left as it was performed – with no instrumental overdubs. Now that AI is being used nefariously to create fake artists, it’s more important than ever to lean into music made by real people in real life.

NORTH STARS: Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, Buddy Holly, Carole King

Josh: The band is called The Empty Pockets for a reason. We spend a lot of time together, riding around in a van. Conversation almost always leads back to the way our world is structured in favor of the rich and how income inequality is the root of our biggest problems. There are just over three thousand billionaires in the whole world, which is a striking fact. When we were growing up in the 1990s, it seemed like the world admired and almost worshiped the billionaire class. The tide has changed and people seem to be realizing how destructive it is to have a small group of people hold SO much wealth, influence and power. I think the world is finally ready for this album and finally ready to say enough is enough.

Nate: We identify very deeply with working people, because that’s what we are at our very base. Not only do we work very hard fulfilling nearly every aspect of what it means to be a live band, a record label, a recording studio, a merch fulfillment company and every other thing we touch, we’ve also all had a multitude of other jobs before we started doing this. Among the many jobs we’ve each done, Erika has worked as a bartender, waitress, and school teacher, Josh worked in IT, carpentry, and ran his own theatre company, Adam delivered packages for UPS and tutored school kids, and I’ve been a farm hand, a construction worker and an auto mechanic. Heck, Josh and I recently helped our tour manager Brian put a roof on his garage. I feel these experiences have greatly informed how connected we feel to the people in this world who do the actual work, the people who are oftentimes unrecognized. It’s this sort of mindset that we are constantly in, the mindset of working to get things done without an eye on amassing huge amounts of wealth, getting rich quick, or taking advantage of our fellow human beings. Perhaps it’s a little corny, but I truly feel we’re a very humanist group and we believe in the power of all of us, together, making the world a better place for everyone, not just a select few.

Josh: “I Never Get Sick of You” is my love letter to Erika, my bandmate and wife, but also our full band and team. Riding in the van, being on tour, day after day, all over the world… it’s a dream come true, yes, but it’s also a lot. Nobody gets into music to get rich… we all do it because we love it, we do it to have fun! And so finding a group of people that you can travel with, put on a show together every night, be exhausted, overwhelmed, happy, sad, angry, depressed… everything really… and STILL have fun. That’s amazing. That’s something to hold on to.

Erika: The whole album revolves around the idea of what we can and can’t control in this moment on earth. Love is certainly an antidote to some of the darkness we’re facing. Community is another antidote. And this song is about commitment to one another, especially when the world feels complicated and unsteady.

Josh: Songs are funny things and i think all songwriters do it a little differently. I write songs almost every day, and I’ve found, for me, that I write my best stuff when I don’t judge as I’m going, I don’t think about what’s reasonable, or marketable, or what ‘people’ might like and enjoy. I’m not saying that mindset is the right way to do it, I know some amazing songwriters who can sit down and write more intentionally. “I Never Get Sick of You” came out of me super organically, jamming on the hopeful, joyous chord progression of the chorus and contrasting it with the melodic minor verse. Many of the lyrics were improvised early in the session, which I find often leads to words that ‘sing’ really well.

Erika: I love that lyric too. It describes passionately falling in love again and again, and choosing each other every day.

Josh: Ha, yes! Thank you for highlighting this lyric, I love it, but it’s a super strange one. I feel like Erika was not immediately sold, and it’s a big part of our writing process that Erika edits and approves all the lyrics. In years of touring and chatting with our buddy Al Stewart (“Year of the Cat”) I think I’ve internalized some of his philosophies. In this case, ‘use words that other songs haven’t already used.’ I’ve never put ‘terrarium’ in a song, and i can’t think of many songs that have. In the verse, I’m done with everything, nothing is making me happy. I’m feeling stuck and restrained, it feels like everything is holding me back. And then we get to the chorus and the truth comes out… everything might be holding me back… everything except you.

Erika: The pianos at Abbey Road are legendary. The song wasn’t working for us until we got to Studio 2 in London. There was something missing, the groove wasn’t quite right. I noticed the Challen piano was in the corner and was curious why it was turned around against the wall. When I asked if I could use it, they said it had a small buzz on one key but it sounded good to me, and the engineers jumped into action setting it up. There are burns on the wood at the end of the keyboard – from Paul and John’s cigarettes. That piano has magic in it. It’s literally my favorite instrument in the world, no question – knowing the icons who’ve touched those keys definitely makes for an extra special experience in the studio. I adore the way the keys bounce off the strings. You can hear those famous songs the second you plunk out the notes. So unique – it dramatically changed the way I played. With the Challen, I was inspired to take a more rhythmic, springy approach that affected the four of us in equal measure since we tracked all at once. We used the second take with no edits. The Challen’s timbre also really serves the songs, “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” and “Queen of LA” – it sounds instantly nostalgic.

Adam: We consider ourselves a live band, so we approach recording like a live performance. We want to be ready and relatively rehearsed so that we can feel comfortable and loose during recording. That looseness leads to tightness, you know? Being in Abbey Road Studio 2 gave us a very nice setting to play through everything we’d been working on. We did two or three takes of each tune and just kind of settled on a final one. We were relaxed enough and having fun. At one point Erika changed which piano she was using, and I think that ended up being the take. We were just having fun and enjoying the studio while we could.

Nate: An astute observation, I think. Certainly, the question of who we can rely on is something we bandy about on the album, but I think the album also answers that question fairly definitively: we can rely on us as a functional whole. When we gather together, putting our energy in the same place and pulling forward to create momentum, the things that we can achieve are truly astounding, and I mean that both from a very narrow perspective as The Empty Pockets, but also from a much more grand scope of all of humanity. We are capable of amazing, incredible achievements when we come together and pool our resources, knowledge, and effort, and drive forward toward a common goal. It’s this sort of optimism for our future that balances out our pessimistic view of billionaires and extreme wealth hoarders, who seem to only have the goal of enriching themselves in the pit of their soul, and it’s the way in which, I think, we can eventually defeat these rapacious dastards and make the future brighter for all of us.

The Empty Pockets: Fans who are familiar with us may already know some tunes from our live shows, and they definitely know where we stand on wealth inequality. If you don’t know us, here’s what you’ll find: We hate billionaires and the ultra wealthy. We have multiple lead singers and feature wonderful three-part harmonies. The band is kind of bluesy, but I think some of the lyrics, arrangements, and harmonic qualities stretch beyond blues. The rhythm section is tight and shuffles all over this album. It’s too structured and way too tight to be jam music, but it’s too jammy to be pop. We recorded it live, so it basically sounds like a well recorded version of our show. You’ll love it! Or not.

Erika: Most of us are just ordinary people searching for love, freedom and meaning in a world we did not build and cannot control. Billionaires have changed the way our economics function and have far too much control, but what can we do about it? Our solutions? Make an absurd joke, fall madly in love, start a revolution, eat some pie and gaze at the conifer trees. Because laughter, love, community, and returning to nature make us human and no one can take that away.

The Empty Pockets: Local (Chicago) favs: Makaya McCraven, Spare Parts, Joanna Connor, Todd Kessler, Lynne Jordan, Howard Levy, Joel Patterson

Other favs: Larkin Poe, Ratboys, Turnstile, Laufey, Tedeschi Trucks Band, NOBRO, Bob Schneider, Martin Sexton, Jane Monheit, Chase Huna, Brendan Lanighan, Haley Johnson, Ellis Bullard, Gaby Moreno, Rainbow Girls, Sam Greenfield, Shallow Alcove, Lisa LeBlanc, Gabe Dixon.

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:: stream/purchase I Never Get Sick of You here ::

:: connect with The Empty Pockets here ::

:: stream/purchase Dear Billionaires here ::

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Stream: “I Never Get Sick of You” – The Empty Pockets

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