Los Angeles punk band FIDLAR have just released their impressive debut album, we weren’t treated to an appearance from them as expected in The Academy 2 on February 22nd, but they have rescheduled their show for The Academy 2, Dublin on June 12th 2013. Tickets are €14 and on sale now.
Here we spoke to bassist Brandon Schwartzel about the new album, and band life in general
So your debut album has been released recently and I believe you produced it yourselves?
That’s right. We recorded and produced it at our house. We actually had to build the studio in our house.
Why did you decide to do that instead of going to a proper studio?
Well we started this band as a DIY band and we did everything ourselves, so that way we could do whatever we want. And it’s cheaper that way. We didn’t have any money. We booked our own shows, set up our shows at our house, made our own t-shirts and everything. So when it came to the time to make the record we said let’s just make a studio and make it ourselves.
Listening to the album there’s lots of drug references throughout. Was that deliberate or did they just come out naturally in the music?
I think when we writing a lot of the songs for the album, a lot of them were the first songs we had when we first started the band and we were just partying a lot because we were young kids in Los Angeles, so you know a lot of the songs are about things that happened at the time. So it wasn’t intentional to talk about drugs and things, it was just what was going at that time.
What bands influenced your sound?
I think as far as the album was concerned; we were listening to a lot of Creedence. But really it was kinda done on a song by song basis. Like ‘Cheap Beer’ has a lot of Dead Kennedys guitar playing and then ‘Gimme Something’ has more like a rolling stones Creedence kinda vibe. Then ‘Blackout’ is kinda Black Lips, a little bit more surf-y. So I think we were listening to all that stuff, and then it came out on a song-by song basis, but we didn’t write songs to sound like anything, it just came out. We were subconsciously influenced you could say
Where are you going to go from here?
Right now we’ve been touring non-stop any time we get a chance to be home or we get together we always try to write, we try to write on the road and we’re always thinking up the next thing. Always moving and trying to work on stuff. Hopefully we’ll get some time to record again, write some more, get back into it. Hopefully we can get another album at the end of this year, or at least an EP.
You were saying you write songs on tour, do you find this challenging?
Well, there is a lot of time just driving around and being in a van and waiting at venues. We have all these stories that are happening from nights on tour. So it’s just giving the premises for songs, and ideas for songs, and then when we get home we’ll mess around with them and whatever.
How are you feeling about the feedback you’ve received so far?
It seems like we’ve had a really good response. I mean there’s always a couple of people who won’t like it, but that’s good too. If everyone liked it I’d feel there was something wrong; not everyone’s supposed to like it.
You seem very close as a band, do you normally tend to get along or are there flashpoints?
Well we were all friends before the band, we used to hang out all the time and me and Zac are roommates, so we live together even when we’re not on tour. Max and Elvis are brothers, so they know each other really well, and we’re all brothers in a way. But there are times on tour when you need to give each other their space. We’re all pretty comfortable with each other and can tell when someone needs to be left alone and we haven’t had any major problems and that’s good.
I wanted to ask about the origin of your name; FIDLAR, Fuck It Dog Life’s A Risk. It’s a skating term I think is it?
Yea, it came from this group of skaters who were in LA at the time. Zac used to live with them, and they would always say it in regards to skateboarding and be like “I don’t know if I should do this” and they’d say ‘Fuck It Dog Life’s A Risk’, like go for it. And we thought that was kind of cool, so we took the same idea to our music, like let’s just do what we want, and not care what anyone thinks and do it all ourselves. We adopted that attitude and when we were trying to think of a band name and it just made sense.
The do-it-yourself ethic seems like a big part of your band’s manifesto, and I think it’s a pretty cool concept to have.
Yea, you know, it’s so easy, especially in LA, to just get trapped. There’s so many famous venues and record labels in the industry that want to get you, but we did it all ourselves, until those people came to us. Even when we were signing our record deal we got it in our contract that we can still do whatever we want.
Well that’s about it, do you have any outrageous stories to tell before you go?
I think the most recent story we have, is when we were in Paris, and it was our first time there and we were busy all day. And I really wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, because we were in Paris. Well, we were filming this TV show, and we had to sit there all day and it was really boring, so we finally asked this lady at the station if we could get some drinks. So she got us a bottle a wine, and a bottle of whiskey and a bunch of beer, and we instantly drank all of it because we were so bored. But then we played this TV show, and I don’t even remember playing it, we were pretty drunk. Then we got back to the hotel and I was like “does anyone want to go and see the Eiffel tower?’” So me, Max and Elvis and I had a bottle of wine in my hand and we were just stumbling round the streets of Paris looking for the Eiffel Tower. We eventually found it and it was awesome, but it took a little longer then it should have, we got mixed up on the train.