Fear No Fish - Interview

Brothers Chris and Mike, and their drummer Rob are “Fear No Fish", the trio from Surrey looking to play old school rock music. Their first EP “Now or Never", adorned with an image of a hand grenade, has hit the unsuspecting public, and thus far, those who have attended their tour dates have had a blast. Jasmin gets a chance to quiz them.

What has influenced your music in terms of your songs from your new EP, ‘Now or Never’?

Chris - Everything that’s led us up to this point! Love and loss, the music we love, the music we were brought up with, the joys of growing up and plenty of teenage angst from our younger years…for better or worse!

What brought each of you into the music industry?

Chris – I’ve always been passionate about music both listening to and playing, and a life in music is the only one I’ve ever envisaged for myself. It’s not something I’ve fallen into, but something I’ve chosen to do. Besides, it’s all I’m trained in now so I have to make it work! Being brought up on Motown and the likes of rock legends such as the Who always gave me a good appreciation of what music is and what it can do, and it’s that spark that’s kept me on the path I’m still on now!

Mike: Music has always been a massive passion for me and I’ve always loved performing and writing songs from a young age. We used to have The Who, The Jam and Motown music blaring in the car as kids and that definitely struck a chord with me musically and I think is pretty evident in the music I write. To be honest, I never actually thought about treating music as a career path until college. Since then, it’s been a total focus of mine and I’ll keep doing what I’m doing until we hit the nail on the head.

Rob: Kinda just happened. Studied music from 16 years old & kept playing gigs... Rather do that than any thing else right now.

Certainly an original band name, where did ‘Fear no Fish’ come from, and what alternatives had you considered?

We were only 12! It seemed like a great name at the time! But seriously, I like the name. it’s fresh. No one else has used it, and it’s great for Google! We’ve had a few names sent back and forth between us…Hello my name is Hero was one of my favorites, but after you’ve been doing this for as long as we have, and the hometown fans are passionate about what you do, a name change certainly isn’t on the cards. When we suggested it to our fans we received a ton of emails telling us not too. The public spoke. So we didn’t!

You‘ve said that one of your ‘goals’ is to ‘bring old school rock into the modern day’. What do you think of the music style (if there is one) that’s hitting the charts now? (And don’t you think there is much ‘old school rock’ about and if so why?)

Chris – It’s my opinion that music of today has been corrupted by technology. Now, in the rest of life tech is an amazing thing. It makes things easier, quicker and also enables anyone to have a go at anything. And in that lies the problem. Of course there are still incredible artists hitting the charts (Jessie J, Adele, Rox etc) but there is a whole other side to it where anyone with access to a studio and/or autotune can put a track out. It’s definitely more style over substance these days, and I think that is what will bring down the industry. That and the lack of talent and longevity.

The lack of rock out there is because the labels aren’t putting it out. The public want what the public get at the end of the day. The general public don’t seem to go out of their way to find new music. Take the Foo Fighters show for the Radio 1 big weekend. The crowd loved it. Rock isn’t dead. It just needs a helping hand from the big dogs. Any offers…?

“Now or Never", scheduled release in June, has there been a lot of pressure in the build up to this or given that you‘ve recorded quite a few tracks at various studios, has that not really been an issue?

We’ve had plenty of issues over the last few years, but the build up to it definitely wasn’t a problem. The amount of studio work we have done has only made us better at what we do, leaving us to enjoy the recording process a whole lot more. Sure, some time was certainly wasted travelling here there and everywhere to get the recording time, but I think it’s all worked out for the best. Only time will tell I suppose.

Are there any personal favourites on there, and if so, can you tell us a little bit about how that track came about?

Stay is and always will be my favourite. There are definitely more accessible tracks on there but it’s got the power that I love from a good alternative tune. Stay was a labour of love. We spent about 2 months working on it in Rob‘s home studio to get it to sound how it does these days. It was originally a softer tune (more alike our acoustic version of it), and we even came close to scrapping it on more than one occasion but we stuck with it and now we couldn’t be happier. It’s one of those tunes where if it doesn’t sound as good in real life as it did in your head when you conceive it, it is not worth spending time on. Luckily, it worked out.

Mike: I have to agree with my bro actually, Stay is definitely my fave song that we’ve written in terms of the sense of accomplishment we got when we finally finished it. Then again, as we’re writing more and more we’re tending to write bigger and better songs so what this space…….

Following on from that, your idol singers/bands are said to be likes of Biffy Clyro, Iron maiden and The Who. What is it about them, their qualities, that you like and how do they influence you?

Chris – for me it’s their originality and creativity that inspires me to always better what I write, sing or play. They all played the game (to some extent) within the industry, but they all were/are great writers who know what they do best, and stick to it. Don’t get me wrong, we love writing the funky tunes, the hip hop style stuff too, but we know what we’re good at, and it’s the determination of the bands you listed that I take from them most of all.

Rob Walker joined in late 2008 with the twins. How did this affect your music in terms of change of style if any?

When Rob joined we had just gone through a year of struggling without a permanent drummer. We had Steven Matthews (Free Swim/Android Angel) and Will Cattermole (Will Coeli/AIO) dep for a while so we could continue writing songs, but it wasn’t until Rob came along that we really found our stride again. We actually wrote a tune start to finish in his audition. He brought the energy we had been lacking after playing mainly acoustic shows for a year, and you can definitely hear it in our tunes these days opposed to the ones we were playing years ago. As for any real change…

LOUDER. FASTER. HARDER. J

All good things.