News Fear Of Men

Fear Of Men’s recent relative rise to prominence has been a steady yet impressive one. After uploading a few rough (yet excellent, it’s important to add) demos to Bandcamp at the turn of the year, the band soon found themselves putting out a cassette with the increasingly-revered Sex Is Disgusting label, which in turn found itself selling out in next to no time.

A few months down the line and the four-piece - split between London and Brighton - have been blogged about in all four corners of the internet. Having just released their first single (‘Ritual Confession’, out on the even more impressive Italian Beach Babes), their feet somehow remain firmly rooted to the ground.

“We’re very much at the start of the project,” lead singer and songwriter Jessica Weiss tells us. “We really value the fact that some people are already paying attention, but we have a long way to go.

“We are our biggest critics,” she says. “Any attention we’ve had hasn’t really affected the way we see the band going in terms of the fact that we always want to keep challenging and pushing ourselves.”

Jess also thinks that, away from the songwriting process, there is more to come: ‘I don’t think we have found a studio and producer where we’ve been completely happy, and that have captured the feel of what we did with the home demos for the first cassette.”

On the topic of their sound, Jess cites bands like The Shins and Grouper as major influences, as well as 90s acts Neutral Milk Hotel, Nirvana, and The Breeders. This vast mixture of ingredients blends brilliantly, and Jess’ vocals are the icing atop their fuzzy-pop cake – though she’s unsure where certain presumptions in the press come from: “People compare us to C86, but I don’t think we’ve ever listened to a band from that era.”

For the future, they certainly seem ambitious. Jess says the band “want to record and release a really good album.’ Although for lots of bands, the hype never really comes to fruition, it seems like Fear Of Men might just be The Real Deal and, whenever this album might be, we certainly can’t wait to hear it.

Fear Of Men’s new single ‘Ritual Confession’ is out now via Italian Beach Babes.

Taken from the Autumn 2011 issue of DIY, available now. For more details click here.