Thursday, December 3, 2009

The Boys who Fight Fair.

Catch the current Breathe Carolina headliner? Then you've probably come across the first band on the ticket, Fight Fair. Not exactly like the other bands on this tour who I will be covering in the next few days including Stephen Jerzak, Breathe Carolina and Cash Cash, Fight Fair bring a mix of surf, punk and pop that just makes the audience happy every time. Self described bros, they bring sunny beats reminiscent of bands like New Found Glory and Treaty of Paris.

Based in San Diego, they first met in front of their college dorm and from then on have been working to promote their EP "Settle The Score" and will be releasing their debut full length early 2010, with the record completed at this date. I met up with the guys early on in the tour, being only about a week in, and they put on a wild show with definitely a few loyal fans in the audience, most who had never even seen them live before! We talked about everything from what they would cover for Punk goes..Country, that could totally work for 2011's compilation. It would be fabulous. I'm excited for it too and the most yummy thing a fan has ever given to them, yet a little crazy. I sat down with Alex Bigman who is the lead singer, Josh Reef on drums and Kyle Wanninger on guitar! Read on to learn a little more about Fight Fair!

How has the EZ Bronz tour been going for you so far?
Alex: It's been great, there have been a lot of kids, every one's been really supportive. The guys in the other bands are really cool, we hang out some times.

What's your favorite part of touring?
Alex: Let's see what Josh has to say.
Josh: My favorite part about touring is drives in the van, just getting to hang out with our buddies, have a ball, play music and just hang. We just like to have a good time!

If you could tour with any three other bands, who would they be?
Alex: Bands like Weezer, All American Rejects, Jimmy Eat World...Blink 182.
Kyle: Yeah, I was waiting for that.
Josh: Those are all bands that it would be really awesome to tour with. Taking Back Sunday.

Who are your major musical influences?
Alex: Pretty much all those bands that we just mentioned. I'm pretty influenced by older styles of music, stuff like The Beach Boys. Can even go back to someone like Buddy Holly or Elvis-original rock and roll. All pretty cool, we try to mix all of those up.

How did Fight Fair come to be?
Alex: We started off in San Diego. We met outside our dorms at college and we were like let's start a band. We were all in bands in high school. That's just how it all happened.

How did you get the name?
Alex: Well, I was in a class and the teacher was talking about dating and relationships and said to have a relationship, you need to fight fair and it just kind of stuck in my head.

How do you go about the songwriting process?
Alex: Um, we bring together ideas, sounds, style we want to do like a fast song, a catchy pop song or maybe more of a sad song or something like that. Josh, our drummer, he gets a beat or rhythm going, we fill it in with guitars, get a structure to the song and do it over and over again. Then we finally at the end put the vocals on top.
Kyle: Really, all our ideas bounce off each other and that's how like we come up with our sound and It's more of a feeling than anything.

If you were asked to do any Punk Goes...series, what would you cover?
Josh: Let's try "Pop goes..country".
Alex: Oh, that's good. Um, my favorite country artist right now is Kenny Chesney or maybe some Dierks Bentley. That would be cool.
Josh: I'd be down to do like Darius Rucker.
Kyle: A ballad.
Alex: George Strait. That would be awesome. We actually have on our new album a country song. It's pretty cool.

You've finished the album, right?
Alex: Yeah we have. Actually, we have been doing it over the last few weeks. The day before we left for this tour, we had been working in the studio for the past month. We had just finished up the record and it should be coming out some time late spring/early summer so it's going to be really cool. A lot of different kinds of sounds, really eclectic.

And you currently have an EP out?
Alex: Yes, we have an EP out right now called "Settle the score". It's been out for maybe the last year and the new album really takes our sound to the next level. It's going to be something that people really aren't expecting so it's gonna be really cool.

I know you guys were in a serious van accident which you raised funds to fix the damages for on Myspace. How do you feel the internet has effected your success with that being effective and having fans out here, 3,000 miles away from home?
Alex: Ever since Myspace came out in 2004, it's been a really good avenue for bands to promote their music and really gain a new fan base. Like, we've never played MA before and people were coming up to me after the show being like 'oh I finally got to see you play.' People were singing all the old songs. Since we've never played here, that's obviously through myspace and like all of those networking sites like that.

What's the strangest place you've ever played or recorded at?
Kyle: A daycare. In the green room, there were even tiny little chairs.
Josh: It was 'The Cow' in Texas. Not the venue but the drive there was very strange. It was different, it was nice but different. It's a very small place, creepy but people came out. That's definitely the weirdest place to play.
Alex: We played at a skate park that was also a venue in Buffalo, NY the other day. It had a indoor skate park. It's a pretty cool venue but it's kind of like, oh hey skateboarders!

What's your dream venue to play?
Alex: To play like the Fillmore in San Francisco, which is a really well known historic place. Of course I'd say Madison Square Garden in NYC. We like the Grand Ole Opry house in Nashville since we're country now.
Josh: I want to play at the Arrowhead Pond in Southern California, it's a hockey arena.

Have you ever been given something really weird from a fan?
Kyle: I was given extremely melted cupcakes in Anaheim at the Chain Reaction. They were good but melted. It was kind of like she made them in twenty minutes but I mean they were good. That's the strangest gift I've ever gotten.

What's your favorite thing about playing music?
Kyle: You can put your feelings down in a song and make someone understand it. It's way cool.

I'm addicted to:
Alex: I'm addicted to working out I guess. I was at the gym earlier today at my brother's college. Total bros.

Do you have a favorite album so far this year?
Alex: It's tough. My favorite album of 2009 is this old band called Portraits Past. They put out a new cd this year. They haven't put one out since like 1995 so that was really exciting for me. Probably one of my favorite bands.

Are there any future music plans we can look forward to you folks soon?
Alex: Hopefully Warped.
Josh: We'll see, hopefully it can happen. Besides that, gonna be promoting the new record.


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A big thanks goes out to the boys in Fight Fair for doing the interview and to the rest of the bands on the tour. Hope everything works out for Warped and look for their new album late spring/early summer, but for now you can whet your appetite either at one of their upcoming dates (tomorrow they'll be jamming in Albuquerque!) or by picking up their EP available on iTunes and a bunch of other places. Either way, check out their music on their myspace.

Let me know what you think!

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