Farm-gaze.
Part Brighton and part London based, Fear of Men have a talent for crafting songs with lush pop melodies with a deep undercurrent of emotionally arresting themes. With each new tune it's hard not to just exclaim, "they've done it again!" and leave that as a review.
A number of single releases on independent labels have paved the way for a compilation album due for next year and a spot on tour with The Pains If Being Pure At Heart this month. In Paris no less. Before all that though, they're playing a launch party at The Old Blue Last for new single 'Mosaic', which will have video accompaniment soon. I interrupted their busy schedule to ask Dan a few questions to find out how they do it all.
Mosaic 7" by FEAR OF MEN
So you’ve got your ‘Mosaic’ single launch coming up, how have people responded to the songs you’ve put out so far?
Yeah it’s been great, it’s always cool to hear what people think as we can feel quite detached when we’re off in our own world writing and recording.
How's the new album coming along?
Yeah it’s going really well. We’re excited about what we’re writing and we’ve just booked a date in to record it so we’re really looking forward to getting in the studio.
I feel like it would be the perfect winter warmer. When can we expect a release?
Well it will be recorded in the winter so it might have that feel. That’s one of the weird things about recording an album, it’s inevitably going to come out months after you record it, so we’re hoping to release late Spring next year. We have an EP coming out in America before that.
Where do you record? I keep reading something about a farm.
We practise on a farm where our drummer lives. We record demos there and it’s the perfect environment to work on music - in the middle of nowhere surrounded by woods.
Do you think it effects how your music sounds?
It just means we can work on songs at our own pace; we don’t like writing in normal practice rooms where you have time restrictions and you don’t really feel at home. We practise in a sort of barn thing though and it doesn’t have central heating so it does get really cold, which is a bit of a drawback. We’ve just bought fingerless gloves so we can still play our instruments when it gets colder!
You guys used a musical saw on ‘Green Sea’, have you used (or are you planning to use) any other interesting instruments lately?
We try to use instruments to fit the feel of the song. 'Green Sea' had a very fluid, wavy feel to us and we felt the saw would really fit that. We all play a few different instruments so we have some options to colour our songs. We were playing a church organ recently on a video shoot and now we really want to put that on a new song we’ve been writing!
I find the tracks have a great balance between the sweet sounding vocals and deeper, emotionally arresting themes. Are you guys conscious of balancing this effect when you’re writing the songs?
Generally we’re interested in wrapping quite fraught emotional themes in poppy melodies. It can be quite subtly subversive when you’re seduced by the tune and then think about what the words actually mean, and to me that’s the kind of thing that makes repeat listens of an album interesting.
You’re also heading off on tour with The Pains of Being Pure At Heart soon. How does it feel to have the chance to play songs to an audience as big as theirs?
Yeah it’s going to be really fun. We appreciate having a big stage so we can move around a bit- most of the shows we play we seem to barely fit on stage! It’s going to be a great week- our single launch, Paris and Nantes with TPOBPAH, back to Brighton for another single launch and then SWN festival!
Fear of Men are playing the Old Blue Last tonight. 'Moasic' is out now on limited edition blue vinyl.
Do yourself a favour and like Spoonfed London on Facebook!
Bored? Here's loads of things to do in London.
Add an event
Bigger, better, tons more music: East End Film Festival Q&A
The East End Film Festival has established itself as one of the biggest and brightest film festivals...