Liam Kazar

The path that Liam Kazar took to leading a band of his own was neither straightforward nor short, but the extended journey has paid off in soulful rock songs of experience and something akin to wisdom. Kazar grew up in Chicago, loving the tunes of Frank Sinatra so much he would don a fedora to sing them. He was an early Wilco enthusiast. As a teen, he started playing guitar and writing songs, though he soon started touring with a string of heralded bands—first, his friend Spencer Tweedy, followed by stints with Daniel Johnston, Kevin Morby, Waxahatchee, and, very recently, Jeff Tweedy’s “& Friends” road show. It was actually Tweedy who prompted Kazar to focus on his own numbers, to think about what he wanted to sing rather than writing like he would forever be a sideman for someone else’s songs. “When I made the decision that I wanted to make a solo record, it was like this huge confrontation with myself,” he told The Big Takeover about his 2021 debut, Due North. “It took me a long time to figure it out.”

Kazar seems to have figured it out for 2025’s warm and fetching Pilot Light, a Sam Evian-produced album that chronicles the stages of a protracted breakup but refuses to wallow in it. With its classic Stax guitar lick and twinkling keys, closer “Next Time Around” is the first song Kazar wrote for this record. Its hard-won tenderness and sweetness became the templates for the country ache of “Holiday” and the indie rock bounce of “Mission,” numbers that aim to chart heartbreak with understanding and care. An instinctual hook writer, Kazar understands the world is bigger than his hurt, as evidenced by “Day Off.” A song about blowing off the economic rat race for a “picnic packed and a parlor guitar,” it’s an infectious tune about having fun with the one chance you’ve got to do that.