Interview FIDLAR: “Just do whatever you want. If you wanna try it, fucking try it”

Going to work with Joyce – whose production credits cover everything from Emmylou Harris to The Wallflowers – may not have been the obvious choice for the band, but that was exactly what they loved about it. “The closest thing he’s done to us is Cage The Elephant, which is not that close!” he laughs. “It was something that I was so for. He’s kind of considered the ‘weird’ producer in the pop country world, so a lot of people go to him for the edgy sound because pop country is so slick-sounding. He’s definitely a very interesting, eccentric dude.”

Working on ‘Too’ was all about thinking outside the box. Whether that stemmed from leaving the comfort of their own homes (“It was like camp or something,” laughs bassist Brandon Schwartzel. “We’d make lunches for the day and all have our backpacks and walk to the studio”) or just messing around with different means of instrumentation, this record was all about trying what they hadn’t been able to before.

“The experimental stuff,” explains Zac, “came with stuff like adding a toy piano, or mellotron.” Or the piercing realistic ring of a telephone, which signifies the frantic start of ‘Sober’. “When we recorded it, one of the engineers was just like, ‘Fuck that thing! That’s my telephone ring!’”

“I think that’s what was important about working with a producer,” Zac offers. “We’ve never experienced that. The first record was about turning knobs and plugging shit in. This time, for me, I wanted to experience letting someone else produce us. It’s kinda scary but it worked well. I mean, there are interviews with us early on where I’ve said, ‘We will always record our own stuff, blah blah blah,’ but sometimes you get caught in that world and you get trapped and don’t wanna let anyone in. I respect people who do that but at the same time, there’s no room for growth doing that.”

One thing that hasn’t changed all that much is the intense honesty held within their lyrics. In amongst the chaotic guitars and satisfying punkiness lurks a brutal honesty which Zac claims to be his own means of therapy. “This record is basically - for the songs that I’ve written on it - about how to deal with life without drugs and alcohol.” Scan the tracklisting and it’s not so much of a surprise; ‘Sober’, ‘Overdose’ and ‘Bad Medicine’ all lay the themes out bare. “Every song has its own story. It’s almost like the first record is about being on drugs and alcohol,” he starts to chuckle, “and the second one is trying to figure out life without those.

“For me, I write songs completely based on what I’m going through. It’s personal and more of a therapeutic tool. It’s a very emotional record. Even the first record, if you turn the guitars down and slow the songs, those songs are all really depressing. The chord progressions are very basic, three-chords, four-chords. [There are] these happy chord progressions with sad lyrics and you’re listening like, ‘What? Wait a minute…’ I think that just explains our characters to a fucking tee!”

A means of both therapy and experimentation, ‘Too’ may have been a challenge - “it’s the sophomore slump thing,” says Zac, “where now a lot of people know who you are. You have all your life to make the first record and then you have a year to condense a record and make it” - but it seems to have been worth it.

“Well, it’s like…” he continues, on what it is exactly that the band would hope their listeners take away from ‘Too’. “It’s just that really anybody can do this. I want to encourage kids to write music. It takes practice and you just gotta keep doing it and keep doing it. Mainly it’s like, I always had this image in my head of some kid just in his room, listening to music, being pissed off and trying to figure it out, except that I’m 27 years old doing that. Yesterday, before the show,” he diverges, “I went on a little jog and went across the bridge and to the London Eye and then my iPhone died and I had to go through the crowd. I almost had a full-on anxiety attack which is crazy because if you have music and you do that, it doesn’t fucking affect you at all. I kinda just believe in that whole therapy of music thing. It’s important to people, it’s important to kids. Also, we kinda went from a garage punk record to a weird, experimentally pop record, so it’s also about not putting yourself in a box or a scene.”

“It’s about not being scared to try things and to not be okay being comfortable,” adds Brandon. “It’s a lot harder to be uncomfortable and make something different, but you’re gonna grow from doing that. It goes with the whole ‘Fuck It Dog, Life’s A Risk’ thing. If you wanna do something, it doesn’t matter if it’s not this or that, or what you did before. Just do whatever you want. If you wanna try it, fucking try it. Get weird, get experimental.

“I mean,” finishes Zac, “you’re always gonna be pissing somebody off and I think it wouldn’t have been fair to the fans and to us to just make the first record again. I think it’s important to have that change.” He turns to his bassist. “As he was saying, it is our name...”

Taken from the August issue of DIY, out now. FIDLAR’s new album ‘Too’ will be released on 4th September via Wichita Recordings. Photos: Phil Smithies / DIY.

Tags: FIDLAR, From The Magazine, Features, Interviews