Artist Interviews

Q&A: Fang Island

By | Published on Tuesday 6 July 2010

Fang Island

Hailing from Brooklyn, Fang Island describe their sound as “everyone high-fiving everyone” and claim their main aim is to “make music for people who like music”.

What either of those things mean is up for debate, but the band’s sound mixes the slightly unlikely combination of Jay Reatard, Marnie Stern, Andrew WK and Thin Lizzy. They release their eponymous debut album (one of our favourites so far this year) in the UK via the Sargeant House label on 5 Jul. Ahead of that, we spoke to guitarists Jason Bartell and Chris Georges to ask the Same Six Questions.

Q1 How did you start out making music?
Chris: We started making music while we were studying art in college. It started out as something we did in our spare time, but soon homework and class got in the way of writing songs and playing together. To remedy our dilemma, we created our own rock band class and began Fang Island.

Jason: And on that very day Quetzalcoatl came from the heavens and gave us our guitarras.

Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Jason: The motion of the “devil sticks”.

Chris: The atmosphere of the recording sessions was really fun. The engineers at [Rhode Island recording studio] Machines With Magnets were really laid back and we had a lot of friends popping in during the sessions. It was a beautiful Providence, RI summer. The inspiration for our album was fun.

Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?

Jason: First we hit ‘new track’ in ProTools, then we click auto-tune, then we search the jazz funk fusion samples on websites. Then we take a break.

Q4 Which artists influence your work?
Chris: TV Carnage, Goya, Gary Panter, Joe Buzzell, Robert Longo, Shigeru Miyamoto…

Jason: …Francis Bacon, Caravaggio, and Super Mario.

Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?

Chris: “Sit in this comfy chair, here’s your Super Nintendo controller, here’s your beverage, hit this, here are your headphones. I’ll be back in a half hour and we’ll grab some pizza”.

Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
Chris: We want to tour the world for our newest album and the universe for our upcoming album.

Jason: And create a Fang Island commentary for the ‘Back To The Future’ trilogy.

MORE>> www.fangisland.com



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