Fizzy Blood [Interview]
When a brand new band pop up with an arena-ready release, they certainly grab your attention. Leeds-based horror rockers Fizzy Blood have done that – and on the back of new EP Feast, they’re set to do much, much more. TMMP caught up with the band to discuss the respectable story behind that quirky monicker, the band’s origin story, and the making of an EP you need to hear…
This first question is really bugging me: Is your band named after Jamie Lenman’s song, Fizzy Blood?
In short: yes. Ben and Paul are heavily influenced by Reuben and Lenman’s work, so when they formed the band and were spitballing names, as soon as Fizzy Blood was mentioned it just clicked.
As well as a nice little way to pay homage to one of our favourite songwriters, it’s also pretty cool – right?
Your new EP Feast is out now. How’re you feeling about it?
Yeah, it’s out to buy on iTunes and stream on Spotify. It’s been a long road and labor of love really just trying to get it out.
We recorded it at Greenmount Studios in Leeds about a year ago now. We set up live, and recorded the whole record to tape within a day. It seems backwards that something that really didn’t take that long to record/finalize has taken this long to put out, so naturally we’re very happy to have it out there now and people seem to be responding positively to it.
How did Fizzy Blood come to be?
Ben and Paul were looking to start a new band after previously taking a short break from music. Being close friends and playing in bands together for years prior to Fizzy Blood, they wanted to experiment with different sounds and genres that weren’t being touched upon with the bands they were in.
This led to them posting an ad for a drummer on the Leeds College Of Music Facebook page (where Paul was studying at the time). First to reply to the ad was Jake, explaining that he was interested in playing with us. We arranged a rehearsal soon after. We all got on together and had very similar musical taste; he was a perfect fit! Fancy that.
Now in need of a bassist, Jake suggested his friend Ciaran. We bought Ciaran into a rehearsal the same way we did Jake, and hit it off again. We played a few shows together as a four-piece after that, and it was great. At the time we felt we had the right amount of people in the band. When it came to the point of us having to do live sessions, we asked Jake and Ciaran’s friend Tim if he fancied playing keys and guitar for us. He said yes. We played the sessions and thought the band sounded much better with that extra layer, so we asked him if he wanted to join full time and again, he said yes.
Voilà, Fizzy Blood.
How would you describe your sound?
We’ve been compared to a number of different bands: Billy Talent, Blur, Arctic Monkeys, Placebo, Queens Of The Stone Age, Pulled Apart By Horses – the list goes on. I think the fact that all these bands tend to vary in sound is a credit to us.
People find it hard to pigeonhole us. Personally I would disagree that we sound anything like Billy Talent, but because someone has made this connection it says to me that they’ve just found a band they like that also play distorted guitars, and compared them to us. Which I think is a good thing.
Our sound as a band is stylized to create varying moods within different songs, but there are running themes throughout. We use catchy vocal hooks and layered harmonies over rocky-sounding guitars with twiddly bits here and there. Horror Rock, there you go.
What’s your creative process like? How did the songs on Feast go from idea to reality?
Generally one of us turns up to the practice room with a vocal idea or a riff, and we jam it out a few times and go from there. We record what we’re happy with at the time on one of our phones and then take that to Paul’s bedroom studio to demo out and turn into a song that makes sense.
Being able to demo out material really helps in the writing process, as you’re able to see the songs from a different perspective and notice things you might otherwise not.
What’s the most difficult aspect of being a musician?
Being skint and living off tomato pasta straight from the saucepan.
What keeps you motivated?
Writing new music keeps us motivated as a band; it keeps it fresh and exciting for everyone involved. With every new song or idea you discover a different sound or a different side to the band that you may not have explored before – that’s what keeps us motivated.
In short: playing shows, meeting new people, making new friends and a fridge full of beers; that’s also good.
Beyond the EP, what’s coming in 2015?
We’ve got another tour in the works at the moment. We’re currently involved in a Reading & Leeds event that might see us playing the festival itself; you never know.
We’ve just come out of the studio again too. We hope to release what we’ve recently worked on as a string of singles later in the year that’ll be available to download. Other than that, who knows?
What’s your biggest ambition as a band?
At the moment I’d say it would be to release a full-length album. To be able to have the studio time to experiment on it and create something that we’d all quite happily say is the best thing we’ve ever done.
Another considerable driving ambition is the constant want to play to larger audiences. I feel that now we have a record that we are all proud of, available for the world to hear, we are ready to take that next step up.
Links
Check out TMMP’s review of Feast here.
Fizzy Blood on Facebook and Twitter.
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