Date: March 28th 2006
Place: Over the phone
You've just finished a big UK tour. I'm expecting that the Astoria would have been an amazing venue to headline at, but what were your favourite places to play?
My favourite to play... I think Manchester and Birmingham were two of my favourites. But the Astoria obviously was one of our... I think it was my favourite, the Astoria, purely because, I don't know, I've watched bands there for years and years and years, I've always lived in London all my life, so to actually be on that stage and look out onto the crowd, instead of being out in the crowd, actually on the stage, it was really weird. I was almost emotional beforehand.
For the first year or so, Fightstar didn't manage to play many gigs due to Charlie's tight schedule - now that you're more established and have a hectic schedule of your own, how do you feel you've progressed as a band?
It's been a kind of whirlwind ride, really. Ever since Charlie's had free time, and we've been completely dedicated to Fightstar, it's been non-stop, and recording and gigging has obviously made us stronger as a band. I think when you get on the road so much, it just gets better and better and better every time. I think we've definitely progressed musically as well as technically over the past 18 months, which is why you hear such a difference between the EP and the album.
Who influences you as a drummer?
Oh, I've got loads of influences. Too many to mention. I'm actually quite inspired by heavier bands - bands like Dillinger Escape Plan, Meshuggah, quite technical and heavy bands. But also I've got old school drummers like Buddy Rich.
How did your endorsement from Sonor come about?
Well this is the thing, I'm not actually endorsed by Sonor any more now.
Oh, what happened?
Um, basically, I don't really know what happened there. They had different priorities, and I really really needed to get an endorsee that was going to be really supportive and you know, help me out, really. And they weren't great in that area to start with, so I'm actually with D.W. now. And that's going really well, they've really looked after me so far, so hopefully a good future with D.W.
Obviously since the album's just come out, we should talk a bit about that. Which tracks are you most proud of?
Personally, I think my favourite tracks, and the best representation of us, are Build An Army and Sleep Well Tonight.
They seem to be the fan favourites as well.
Yeah, they seem to be. Build An Army was the last tune written for the album, and it was written while we were finishing the rest of the album, so yeah, it just sort of came about, and it was actually a saviour really, because I think we needed that extreme edge that we had in Build An Army, just gave it that final hardcore edge. We needed one of the songs (?), and it's just such a fluent tune, it just came in a couple of days, and it was just recorded on the third day and that was it. And Sleep Well Tonight has been a favourite since we wrote it. It was very different to start with, very much a ballady-sounding song, but it just wasn't working, so we reworked it and it ended up... what you hear on the record.
How much did you contribute to the writing of it?
Well writing in Fightstar is a bit of a mixed bag really. It sometimes starts from Charlie and Al on an acoustic, or it might be me and Charlie just playing around with riffs. So it's kind of a mixed bag, really, so everything we write is written by Fightstar, it's very much a group effort. If someone comes up with a track, and it's kind of like, picked apart by everyone else, and we re-work it, and we get it sounding like Fightstar.
Al said recently that you used to work together on material...
Yeah. Well that's how I originally met Al, through mutual friends, and then after we jammed together a couple of times, I used to go up to his house quite a lot, up in Northampton, and we'd write stuff - mainly Al writing, but I was doing a lot of production then, and engineering and producing his solo stuff. That was way before there was any inkling of Fightstar. So it's great to see how things progress really, with people you like working with.
Would any of that material appear in Fightstar's songs?
No, it's very very different, very different. But you never know, there might be a graveyard (?) riff that'll come back.
How do you think Fightstar will progress in the next year or so?
Well, you can only hope we're going to be able to write the next record, and carry on gigging like we're gigging at the moment. That's the best part of the job, you know, writing records and gigging. I think the rest of it that comes with it is kind of, pass/park (?) the parcel. You know, that's fair enough, but if we can just get another album, that'd be cool.
You used to play a few songs that never got released, like Too Much Punch and Make Me -
- That's going back! I completely forgot about them!
Would you consider recording them as b sides for a single?
Hmm, I'm not sure. I think to tell you the truth, we've forgotten how they go. I think those songs were very inherent to creating Fightstar, and finding our sound, but I think if you put them next to our stuff now, it would sound like two completely different bands.
I never got to hear them.
Ahh, well you see, that's partly it as well. The reason that we didn't put them on the record is that they're very juvenile songs. I mean, it was kind of that period when we were just getting together, we didn't know how each other worked musically, and we wrote these songs that came out as... I don't know, they really sounded very, quite garage band, you know, like I've got this drumkit in my garage that's going damp (?). And that's how they sounded, and they still sound sort of like that, so I think the progression we've had musically, I don't think we would want to go back to that, but you never know, again you never know, we might pull it out a bag and record it as a random b side one day.
Is it true that you're off to America this summer?
Hopefully, fingers crossed, touch wood. I think we might be able to go to the States - we've got our EP which is just about to be released there, and we're getting some cool press, and we're getting some cool radio play with Paint Your Target out there. So yeah, things are looking great out in the States to start with, so hopefully we can go after all the festivals over here, around September time, and maybe we'll go over there and do a couple of little tours with some American bands, and that would be amazing.
You've already supported Taking Back Sunday and you're about to support Funeral For A Friend. Who would you personally love to have the chance to support?
Oh, Deftones. We'd all love to support Deftones. That would be our dream. I think we'd all be like 'right okay guys, I really don't care if we never play another gig in our lives. We've made it, man, we've made it.' [laugh] They're idols, so to play with Deftones would be amazing.
Who would you like to support you? Any new bands coming up that you recommend?
I don't know, really. I haven't really seen many new bands. We're so busy, it's kind of hard to keep track of new bands coming out, but I don't know. We've been on tour with a band called In Case Of Fire who are from Belfast, and they're really really good. We found them... we held a competition a few months back with Kerrang!, so readers' bands could send in their demos, and they sent in one of their demos. We went through hundreds of demos, literally and I found In Case Of Fire in my pile, and I showed it to the rest of the guys and everyone was immediately taken back by it. They're a really good, tight trio, so yeah, basically they're really cool, I want them to support us a few more times if they're available.
------------------
That's the interview, but I also asked a question for a couple of people as it came up on the official Fightstar forum.
'Work out your faith with fear and trembling' is a lyric in To Sleep. Is that referring to the quote from the Bible, or is it a reference to The Exorcism Of Emily Rose?
I should think it's more to do with The Exorcism Of Emily Rose, really. I think it's a bit of a coincidence actually, with the whole Bible thing, I don't think it was intentional.
Well apparently the part of the Bible that it's from actually talks about grand unification.
See, that again is weird. Whether someone in the band has been reading up on this stuff, I have no idea. It could well be.
<- Back