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| The Fratellis Are Brilliant! Crazy! High Energy! Fruit Smoothies? |
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| Interviews - Band/Musician | ||
| Written by Kenya Jones and Jenna Bensoussan | ||
| Friday, 06 July 2007 | ||
 Life on the road can be exciting and exhausting, demanding and fulfilling, crazy and boring; all at the same time. For the Fratellis, one of the most criminally talented indie-rock bands to emerge out of the UK in the last year, life on the road can make you down right loopy. It can also be a true test to your stamina.
Traveling the world - hopping from the UK to the US, with a few pit stops in between, and then back again - for months that stretch on into infinity was both a blessing and a curse for the gents who cheekily confess to needing a good break, some counseling and the perfect smoothie. ACED recently sat down with the band and put them in the hot seat, asking the hard questions about their staggering success and how life was treating them now that they're the biggest thing since sliced bread....and the Arctic Monkeys. You're just going to love the answers we got.
The Fratellis are John Lawler (vocals, lead guitar), Barry Wallace (bass) and Gordon McRory (drums); a fun group of guys who only just started playing together two years ago in 2005. A lot has changed since the band first met after drummer Gordon placed an ad in Glasgow, supposedly asking for band members "looking to conquer the world". A very fitting notion, since that's almost exactly what they did only one year later. They played their first ever gig in March 2005 at the O'Henry's bar in Glasgow, adopting the nicknames Jon, Barry and Mince Fratelli. They were discovered by their manager in another bar and then signed to Fallout Records shortly after.They have since become one of the biggest bands in the UK in 2006, and have now successfully broken through to find a massive US audience that just can't get enough of their particular brand of bouncy, jived-up, post-punk indie rock. That's a mouthful, but they can handle it. They seem to also be able to handle the pressure of being named �best new band in Britain' by one of Britain's biggest musically influential magazines throughout the decades, NME. ACED: What was it like being named �Best New Bum Band of the Year' by NME Magazine essentially right after you had just really started getting your band together? Fratellis: Brilliant. But how did it make them feel? Were they excited? Flattered? In disbelief? Especially when, shortly after that, they were named "Best British Breakthrough Act" at the 2007 Brit Awards (a title previously claimed by fellow uber-popular indie rock band Arctic Monkeys in �06). Quite an accomplishment for a new band just breaking through. Well still, they thought it was, in a word, "brilliant." Ok. There's a nice word, and how fitting.We'll take that. It says a lot of things...It says �effing awesome,' �overwhelming,' �unbelievable' and the like. So it's a start. Their own description of their band's romantic engagement and ensuing married life on their official website is much less eloquent, but also quite fitting: "...Mince was a stoner, Barry was a car thief and Jon was just a Jon". For a group of guys with such humble beginnings who shot to fame in quite literally the time it takes to blink an eye or scratch your arse in the music industry, they manage to stay levelheaded and connected to their fans. Their official website is also an interactive playground where they get to have all kinds of fun by keeping their own profiles and blogs, uploading pictures of themselves on tour and chatting on message boards with die-hard Fratellis fanatics. They also keep up with the times by whoring themselves out on that good ol' pimp-tastic place for friends, MySpace. ACED: Myspace - gotta have one - Do you guys actually interact on there with your fans, or on your official site? Do you think fan interaction is important in that way? Fratellis: Yes, absolutely! E-mail us and we'll tell you all about it. We can't decide whether or not they're joking, but what the heck, we'll play along. ACED also discovered that it was, strangely and most exciting enough, "through their mutual love of strange fruit..." that the Fratellis found themselves "...gathered to create the happiest of sounds". Fascinating. And so true. One could describe their sound as �happily' and there does seem to be some obsession with fruit going on. ACED wanted to know what inspires them to crank out tunes kids can dance to like those wild and crazy multi-color silhouettes on the iTunes commercials...and what the hell do they plan on doing with all that fruit anyway? ACED: Who or what has been the biggest influence on your musical style/attitude? Fratellis: The Bay City Rollers. ACED: Ok - so if you had to choose a fruit that perfectly represents each of you, what type of fruit would each of you be and why? Fratellis: Apple, banana, orange - They make great smoothies. So they're inspired by the youthful, clean cut, Scottish pop rock sensations that swept the nation back in the �rollermania' days of the 1970s, and they fancy themselves some pretty tasty fruit smoothies. But speaking of those nifty iTunes commercials you see floating around on the telly everywhere, how do the Fratellis feel about now being a part of such mainstream media where iTunes and those commercials are so prevalent? What's their general take on the iPod and the whole digital music revolution anyhow? ACED: Is the iPod wave overrated? Do you prefer vinyl or regular CDs instead? Fratellis: I'm currently funding the design of a vinyl iPod. We tried to picture this, but it's not looking like a good investment. Who'd want to bad mouth the hand that feeds it anyway? It at least means they've got a goal. Goals are good. Not that they're much in need of them at this moment in time. The Fratellis are touring the world, playing sold-out shows; shaking hands and making plans. Plans for their future, which seems so bright from our point of view. They're still going strong with big dates coming up for them this summer. But, we wondered if all that flitting about wasn't getting to the boys just a tad bit. We also wondered whether or not it was at all possible for them to aspire beyond all that whirlwind madness they seem to have caught themselves up in by daring to be as good as they are. ACED: How is the touring going? Fratellis: Great! ACED: Is it what you expected - do you love it or hate it...? Fratellis: Yes and no. ACED: What is one thing you need that you don't have together yet to make life (on the road) a little easier? Fratellis: A new tour manager! Did this mean that being on the road was a complete nightmare for the band? Not at all. In fact they had loads of fun. They got to go to far away places and show off. ACED: What is your most treasured music moment so far in your career? Fratellis: Japan! ACED: What is the one thing you had to bring with you whilst traveling that did make your life easier on the road? Fratellis: Attitude, style, and a clean pair of comfy underpants. ACED: And what is so important or wonderful about being able to get on stage and just play? Fratellis: It's amazing what you can get away with. Coming back to those goals for the future, The Fratellis have somewhat of a cynical take on things. There is the money, the fame and the hype. But they seem to know that you also have to take a kick-ass fruit smoothie with the perfect juice blend and some really comfy underpants hand in hand with all the bad things in life that come with fame. Yeah that or it could just be jet-lag that's making them particularly cantankerous and taciturn while churning out answers for us. Maybe they're just screwing with our heads for a good measure of fun. That's cool. We can take a joke...ha...ha...ha...harrr.... ACED: What was the most difficult song you had to write/record whilst in the studio? Did you like the recording experience? Fratellis: Everything is a piece of piss. ACED: What are your main goals for the rest of the year? Fratellis: Depression, anxiety, mental illness, and lots of cash. ACED: And, if you had to describe your band in no more than 5 words - what would you say sums you up? Fratellis: In need of a break! So there you have it. The Fratellis are great fun, massively successful, fruit-obsessed and tired as hell. They write catchy songs with so much energy and such lyrical relate-ability, it has garnered a lot of attention that has them already well on their way to becoming a household name. Already one of MTV's �Discover and Download' artists to watch, and so in demand on a live stage that they've added dates to their US tour, we suspect it wont be long before they become superstars. Are we messing with their heads right now? Blowing a dose of helium into those craniums to make them the size of hot air balloons? Maybe. But one has to ask the question: with the popularity of British indie music and bands cropping up all over the US more rapidly than we've seen in decades, is it any wonder that we suspect we'll have a full-fledged invasion on our hands sooner than we can scratch our arses? And wouldn't we be fools not to identify The Fratellis as one of the front-runners in this movement alongside the Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, The Klaxons and The Futureheads to name a very limited few? We think so, but what the hell do we know...The future is in The Fratellis' own hands. Here's hoping they continue to kick butt and take names.
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