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 I first became aware of Southampton’ trio FNY, when I caught the last half of ‘Hollywood bowl’ on my radio.
I instantly needed to know more about them, so here I am talking to Emma, Russell and Matt, in a Battersea pub, nearby a recording studio... |
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Florence: ‘Hollywood bowl’ is totally exquisite, is that your new single?
Emma: It hasn’t been released in the shops, just as a download and on i-tunes.
Russell: It’s kind of become our theme tune!
Florence: You’ve had an EP out already, and some singles, so what’s next for you.
Russell: We’re in the process of making our debut album. We needed a piece of work that was complete and coherent, with a beginning and an end. It’s the first chance we’ve had to do that, and we’re gonna try and do it the best we can. That’s why we’re in London today, we need to spend some time in the studio, putting some finishing touches to the LP.
Right now, everything revolves around the album. All our time is spent in the studio, gigging as much as we can in England and playing the new songs.
The last 6 months have been all about writing, recording and gigging.
Emma: This LP is like a shiny gold nugget!
Florence: When do you plan on releasing your album ?
Emma: Next year, probably next summer, we want to release a couple of singles first, carry on gigging to built our name some more. Get more people interested, spread the word.
Russell: We need to put on as many shows as we can, all over England and maybe for the first time, get out to Europe.
Actually we want to go to Aix-en-Provence (south of France). it’s very young with a very hungry energy. |
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Florence: FNY is just a 3 piece, but do you all write ?
Emma: Yes, as we share a common goal. We’ll all come up with ideas for songs and structures. We all help with arranging.
Russell: Some stuff is chucked in the middle and we’ll all participate to turn it into a good song we all like.
Sometimes it’s very difficult, because a song is so personal, but I trust Emma and Matt, to work on something I’ve got and vice versa.
Sometimes one of us only has a piece of a song or maybe half a song and is unable to finish it off, but between the 3 of us, we can see it to completion.
Emma: ‘Hollywood Bowl’ is the ultimate example, where we all had part of a song we decided to join together, and it easily came together as one piece.
The changes in moods and rhymes are different ideas from one of us.
Russell: ‘Hollywood Bowl’ and ‘Ha Ha’ were born from this idea of fitting different parts together. So you’ve got some funk, a ballad in the middle and some jazz. it’s only 3 minutes long but it works and we like to do that. We also like to challenge ourselves.
Emma: It does capture people’s attention and it’s fun to play live.
Russell: Different rhymes are like a shock tactic, it’s like playing tricks on people.
Matt: We try to make it unpredictable.
Florence: ‘Hollywood Bowl’ is certainly unpredictable and that’s the beauty of it. Do you think that you’ve found your own winning formula ?
Russell: Hopefully or maybe it’s just a gimmick!
On the album we also have a lot of ‘verse-chorus-verse-chorus...’ and that can seem quite shocking as well !!
Florence: You are from Southampton, which was put on the map thanks to the Delays. Is there such a thing as a Southampton’s scene ?
Emma: In Southampton it’s a lot of different, small areas of activity.
Different groups of people, bands, kinds of music, clubs, in different parts of town. People don’t go out together, walking in the same direction.
Florence: So it’s not like the Manucian scene or Bristol, with some sort of unity ?
Emma: No, it’s absolutely not like Sheffield or Manchester, but it’s still very interesting. It’s a lot of Indie or Rock bands, and you’ll have some strange acoustic sets going on. People just mingle and pop out of the woodwork, trying to discover new bands, it’s very nice.
Florence: ‘ Fleeing New York’, ‘Hollywood Bowl’, hum, I can see some sort of theme here, probably not intentionally, but is America somewhere you look to, for inspirations, musically or culturally ?
Russell: Musically, of course as English bands don’t seem to offer us so much, maybe because they are too close to us.
English artists have always turned to America, at some point, for inspiration. Also it turns out that most of our favourite musicians are Americans.
Ironically, we don’t quite know what America stands for nowadays, it’s a weird paradox where we don’t really know what is going on.
Emma: I would like to go out there, for us to play there and see what their response is. Obviously, we’d love one day to be able to play the Hollywood Bowl.
Florence: That would be so symbolic that you’ve made it !
Over the next few weeks, you’re got a few live dates in London, is there such a thing as making it in London, the way every successful English band dreams of making it in the States ?
Russell: Yeah! I think it’s an initial thing. Every band from outside London will start by touring the clubs and pubs, usually around Camden.
You’re first on the bill, at 7 pm, the room is almost empty, but every band has to do that to start with, and we did it a few years ago.
You play for no one.
Florence: So not a very pleasant experience, but not bad enough that it’s off putting !
Russell: It’s absolutely horrible but new bands don’t have a choice.
Emma: It’s horrible how every one is very judgemental, and they can always expect more from you even though you’re already giving it everything you’ve got!
Londoners have quite a high expectation, they need to go ‘Wow’ all the time and it’s really difficult for new bands. Specially being first on the bill, when 4 bands are playing that night and nobody has heard of any of them.
There are so many bands in London, it’s really difficult to stand out.
You feel such an outsider, it’s terrifying but eventually you will fit in. You need to keep at it, keep working and doing the gig circuit then slowly you build up, either supporting bigger bands or even headlining , and you get more of a following which really helps.
Most bands playing London are from London, they’re seen as cool and being in their home town they’re very confident and have a lots of supporters.
Russell: Before we used to play London a lot but now we have the luxury of not needing to be here week in week out.
We’ll only come once in a while, and we’re guaranteed a bigger crowd.
We’ve worked really hard to get to that point, but now when we play London it’s more on our terms.
Emma: It’s more of an event now.
Florence: You’ve started getting some radio play, I guess that’s a major stepping stone ?
Emma: Yes! And radio is very powerful. You don’t actually realise how powerful until you do a show, and you hear that some of the audience turned up because of a couple of plays on the radio.
So we are very grateful.
Russell: It also depends on which DJ is playing your record.
Florence: DJs can be like mini Gods, and can make or break a record.
Influence the interest in a band or number of sales.
Matt: It can also be a very dangerous game. A DJ can say ‘this is the greatest band you’ve ever seen’, and your popularity will just sky rocket, very quickly, and if you’re not ready, that’s not necessarily a positive thing.
Russell: Not being ungrateful, we just need to be accepted by a few key DJs. We’re happy to build up slowly, by word of mouth and let it snowball.
Florence: Over exposure is never good, and without naming anyone, I can think of a few instances where a single is played every hour until you can’t stomach it anymore. By the time they announce that the album is out you’ve totally lost interest.
Emma: Too much airplay does get to people. They will associate a song with their own feelings at the time, and maybe think ‘well this is ok actually’ and go out, buy the record. Saturation shouldn’t be the way to sell records.
Russell: We’d rather put the work in, tour around the country, so people can make a connection :’oh! they’ve played in my town, I saw them at this gig or that one, and now they’re on the radio’.
It just seems more logical to us. We don’t want people to hear our song on the radio and think that we’re coming out of nowhere.
Maybe if you work hard, you stand a better chance of lasting the distance.
Florence: How important is the Internet for a band like yours, at the level you’re at now ?
5 or 10 years ago let’s say, before the internet had such a wide reach, it must have been so much harder for a new band to spread the word. Now in seconds, a track or video could be in a Japanese or Australian household ! What an amazing tool !
Somehow we’re a very lucky generation.
Russell: We’ve known that for quite a long time, and we’re very lucky to have people help us with the web-site.
About 5 years ago, someone bought me the domain name ‘fleeingnewyork’ , as a birthday present and I thought ‘what am I gonna do with that ?’. But now, of course I totally appreciate such a gift !
Our site is doing very well, we’ve had so many hits, and from all over the world. It’s an amazing space where you’re not restricted by anything, whether it’s a record company or geography. Something like ‘myspace.com’ has worked very well for us.
Bands like ‘The Arctic monkeys’ are the proof of how powerful the net is.
Emma: A lot of bands, specially new ones use ‘myspace’. You can go and listen to so much new stuff, it’s amazing !
Russell: Unfortunately the sound is rubbish and could never replace live shows. But regardless of sound quality ‘Myspace’ is like young people have highjacked the net, totally taken over.
Florence: As far as critics are concerned, FNY is often mentioned in the same breath as, or being compared to some seriously classic bands like ‘The Pixies’, ‘The White Stripes’, ‘The B52s’.
Is that the biggest compliment ever or a bit of a hindrance ?
Emma: We can’t take any notice of that. Journalists need comparisons as it’s very difficult to describe a sound without mentioning another band you sound a ‘bit like’.
We really appreciate some, but others......like we are the new ‘White Stripes’!.....really we’re not....
Russell: Well we have a girl in the band !
Emma: And there is a little bit of Blues in there....Really we can’t let it affect us. We can’t think ‘Oh my God, how are we gonna live up to this?’, we just need to carry on with what we do.
Matt: The beauty of music is that people can make their own interpretations. If someone is reviewing a gig and they want to associate us with another band, well that’s their take on it. Music is so free and everybody is entitled to their opinion...as long as they enjoy it.
Russell: Gig reviewers will compare us to ‘such and such’ and funny enough ‘such and such’ are bands or songs I’ve never heard of, something 20 years old !!
We have no intentions of ripping off the ‘White stripes’ or ‘Pixies’.
Eventually you get found out and it’s humiliating.
We’re just a gang of mates from school, we’ve finished college and there is no real plan....
Emma: Apart from the fact that now we really want to do this for a living.
We need to earn money off what we do.
Russell: We can’t not do it.
Florence: You’ve invested so much time, I guess it’s too late for a U-turn.
Russell: Also, being a musician is an important job, you can touch so many people. Nothing’s nicer than someone saying they really love this song, that song means so much to them, or couples saying :’this is our song’. You think ‘how moving’ and you can’t get money for that, it’s so much bigger than that...
Florence: So far the bands you’ve been compared with are not the bands who have influenced you, so who are the main offenders ?
Emma: I like a lot of hard-core noise stuff, punk rock and a lot of strange, odd American bands or also old Jazz and Blues, that’s what I grew up with. So various influences but mainly a lot of noise and shouting!!
Russell: I like quiet music!
Emma: We couldn’t mix our record collections.
Russell: I like voices. I like to listen to other singers and analyse what’s going on. I think that maybe you could buy a guitar sound but you couldn’t buy 10 years of what makes a great voice.
I don’t try to emulate other singers but I am really interested in how the sounds and tones are endless.
To me the singing is always more important than the music.
I really love Chet Baker, the sound coming out of his trumpet is almost an extension of his voice. I like Bjork, because she’s always trying interesting material.
We’re doing a song called ‘Little hearts’, and I am trying to be crooning Frank Sinatra style.
It’s amazing to think that there are as many voices as there are people.
I believe that more people should sing. Yet if you ask someone if he can sing he will say no, if you ask ‘can you walk ?’ it’s always yes.
I think that everyone can sing.
Matt: I like a lot of culture behind music and I like learning about the bands, musically.
Often the greatest thing about bands is the mystic, what you don’t get to know about them. That really applies to the late 60s and the 70s, before music videos, and bands like Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, the Who....Because you didn’t know much about their lifestyle, you created it in your head and it was probably more interesting than real life...
Florence: That was before media overload and the world of ‘celebrities’ we live in right now....
Matt: Now everybody wants to give away everything about themselves, but I like it a lot better when I don’t know too much.
The least you know about someone the more interesting they seem.
I get a real kick out of that period, because there was real mystic, a real buzz about the music, you could hear the music on the radio but you didn’t see the band much, you didn’t really know what they looked like.
Whenever you caught a glimpse of them or into their lives, it was important to you, but now everybody is on MTV showing their homes.
I can see where the biggest stars in the world take a shit! I’d rather not know, keep it pure and about the music rather than the colour of their carpet!
So I have a lot of respect for late 60s and 70s bands.
Emma: Tom Waits is the best at protecting himself and creating a bit of mystic. Tom has released so many albums and yet no one really knows everything about him. In interviews he always makes up about where he was born, where his parents grew up. He spends more time talking about his influences and musical passions, than his life, and that’s brilliant. We all adore him.
Florence: What are you listening to right now ?
Emma: At the moment on my CD player there is....a lot of Nick Cave, the Birthday Party, Iggy Pop, some David Bowie, DOA , the Coach Whips , very early Raptures...passionate people who mean it, try to make a statement and don’t really care about the industry. Also some newish people like Liars, Go Grandma....
Florence: So Russell, what’s on your iPod this week ?
Russell: How do you know I’ve got an iPod ?
Florence: Ok! What’s playing on your popular branded music player ?
Russell: On my small white music player there is Arcade Fire, that would normally be too fashionable for me but it’s really good, Tom Tom Club, Talking Heads...I am a big fan of David Byrne, I love his voice, it’s very one-offish, it’s the only voice I know that can do that!
Florence: What’s playing on your personal stereo Matt ?
Matt: I work in a kind of Rock’n’Roll club, where they churn out the same stuff every time I’m there so at home it has to be really relaxing, calming stuff.
Russell and I went to see Alabama 3 the other day. They are a great band.
Russell: I couldn’t name you any of the songs yet as soon as they started playing I recognised everything. A lot of the time you don’t put them together with the music, and yet you’ve heard the songs before, somewhere, somehow.
Florence: Alabama 3 are an institution in the UK, they will sell out huge venues and yet you don’t see them on tv and they don’t get much radio play. That’s an ideal band, no overexposure, just good music.
So how is life for you right now ?
Emma: Right now life is interesting, weird, playing live is amazing. You get this amazing high when you’re on stage, it totally blows you away.
We have this kind of nocturnal life where it revolves around our gigs and it does get quite surreal.
Matt: Today we were in the studio and Simon Le Bon was in there and tomorrow we might be playing a gig for 3 people. It’s all very strange !
Russell: Sometimes we don’t quite know where we’re going, everybody around us knows, but us, we’re blind to it.
But once in a while we get a glimpse of what’s going on and we know that we’re doing quite well. We can stop worrying.
Florence: Ok guys! It was a pleasure spending some time with you, I know they’re waiting for you back at the studio, so just one more question, right now what is your message to the world ?
Russell: Stop fighting, make music instead.
Emma & Matt: Stop fighting, join a band, spread the Love.
Words: Florence ACHERY
The Fleeing New York website:
fleeingnewyork.com |
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