Weekly > Interviews
Fanfarlo
The brilliantly odd-ball Fanfarlo are a bandwe have a hell of a lot of time for here at The Beat Surrender. So the chance to interview them was both a little daunting (just what kind of interview were we going to get) and too good a chance to turn down (we like them and we genuinely wanted to find out a bit more).
I caught up with them just before the self-release of their album Reservoir, which follows on from the double a-side single release Drowning Man / Sand And Ice.
Your album Reservoir is being self released in May, why have you chosen to go down that route?
The short answer is that labels are becoming obsolete and expect way too much in return for something that you can just do yourself.
This is how I put it the other day: http://www.fanfarlo.com/2009/05/08/making-records
We’ve been getting a lot of encouraging words for choosing to go about things this way which is lovely.
How would you sum up the album if you had to describe it someone who hadn’t heard your music before?
It is a bunch of stories and poems about small towns, flying saucers, cancer and time machines, to the tune of orchestral folk disco.
We want people to think of our album as a bible and literally live their lives by these songs. At the same time we refuse to take any responsibility for anyone’s actions or offer any clarification as to the meaning of the words. This should remain the subject of endless theological debate.
Before the album comes out you have a double a-side release, what can you tell us about those two tracks?
Drowning Men is a song we wrote the week before going into the studio, whereas Sand & Ice is a pretty old song, so it was interesting to release them together. I think people will talk of a ‘before’ and ‘after’ this double a-side was released.
The instrumentation you use isn’t just your regular guitar drums and bass, it seems anything that can make a noise of some kind may end up on a Fanfarlo record if it fits, is that a core part of what makes the group so special?
We definitely get off on using a wide range and amount of instruments both on record and live. It’s not really something pre-meditated though, I think we just have a slight aversion to the standard straight-up guitar band lineup, and I think for our next record we’ll try and push it a lot further. For instance we plan to introduce a new format of our own invention, to complement the CD-disc andvinyl-record. It consists of a rectangular plastic casing with a type of magnetic strip running between two spools. We haven’t come up with a name for it yet…is “volvo” taken?
How does your sound and performance cross over from record to the live arena, I guess you need to make some adjustments don’t you?
They are two different ways of thinking about music of course, you can’t (and shouldn’t) do the same things live and in the studio. I think we really raised the bar for ourselves by recording an album though, and we go through quite a lot of trouble on stage living up to our own ambitions… there’s a lot of instrument swapping back and forth, and we use a lot of channels when we play live. Sometimes we envy bands who can just plug into their amps and start playing, but it’s all worth it.
Weblinks
Add to favouritesYou lost a band member earlier this year through ‘musical differences’ what exactly happened with Mark?
Even though ‘musical differences’ is a cliché that is actually exactly what it was about. When you spending weeks on end putting your songs under the microscope in a studio, you start realising if you have the same vision of your music. It was a totally mutual break though.
You along with most of the record industry were out at SXSW recently, how was the whole experience and any good stories to tell us from those days?
It was fun but stressful. We crammed in so many shows, interviews and acoustic sessions in such a small time. On the last day we went out to this ranch which belongs to the family of a friend of ours over there. We spent all afternoon building an assault course in their garden and trying to beat each other’s times running it… then we went swimming in a very muddy river.
As well as playing live there you¹ve also played with Snow Patrol, how did you find those dates in comparison to your own headline dates?
Cushy! It’s so much easier and more stress-free to play big arenas, cause everything is taken care of. We’re used to play small, sweaty places where something always goes wrong and you’re lucky if you don’t get electrocuted. We definitely prefer the intimate shows where you can connect with the people watching you, but of course it’s pretty massive getting up on stage in front of 20,000 people.
What does the rest of 2009 hold for Fanfarlo?
In our free time we are building a mountain. We figured if there’s one thing missing in the UK it’s a big mountain we can go skiing on. We will build it and put the Fanfarlo flag on the summit.
Have your say...
Comment Guidlines
You must be logged in to post a comment. Go Login or Register first.
We waffle on enough without letting you lot do it too. Comments are limited to 300 characters.
Try and keep on topic if you can and no insulting the contributors. All hate mail can be addressed to Kev.