(This is one of the first band interviews I ever did. With the recent release of "It's Great to Be Alive", I thought it was relevant again.)
Fake Problems’ bassist Derek Perry and drummer, Sean Stevenson pulled up three black leather stools to the bar at the Creepy Crawl in St Louis, MO. Passing a single Budweiser and cigarette between them, the pair cracked jokes as they reflected on the evening’s events. Sweaty and slightly intoxicated, the pair recalled the very beginning of Fake Problems.
“We all played in bands in high school, that’s how we know each other,” he said, pausing to take a puff of his cigarette, “We came together as a super group from high school bands. Everyone was going to college and we decided to keep going in the music direction,” Perry said.
Joining Perry and Stevenson in this Naples, Florida based band was front man Chris Farren and guitarist Casey Lee. Formed in 2005, the band began touring only two months after they formed. “We all moved into a house and recorded a CD that summer and then went on tour,” said Stevenson “We view ourselves as a summer camp band, that’s sort of how we view our lives”. Smirking, he added “Imagine us as the ‘Heavyweights’. That’s how we live”.
The show opened with a track off the band’s latest CD, “How Far Our Bodies Will Go”. As Farren strummed the opening chords of the title track, the crowd whipped itself into frenzy, echoing his vocals as the song increased in tempo. Perry and Farren hung out into the crowd, thrusting their microphones into the faces of eager crowd members. A boy in an Operation Ivy t-shirt threw himself forcefully into the stage, reaching toward Farren, singing the chorus at the very top of his lungs. Fake Problems has a very active and interesting stage presence, never resting in one spot for longer than five seconds. Lead singer Farren sprinted back and forth between the drum set during vocal rest periods as Perry holds his bass above his head, carefully plucking at the strings. Stevenson pounded away at his silver glittered drum set, smiling to himself.
At one point Lee rushed back to the drum set, helping Stevenson add a heavy tom beat to the song. The two play away laughing amongst themselves as the song goes on. It seemed that this band was indifferent to the audience’s perception of them and wanted nothing more than to have a good time playing music they love. They tried to have fun with the audience and the show was all the better for it. When the band announced that the show would conclude, the audience remained, chanting and pleading for more. Finally, the band emerged, half of them shirtless, to play the telling opening chords to their song “To Repel Ghosts”, a song seemingly designed to sing along with. A mass of young men mounted the stage and link arms to sing the chorus along with the entire band, concluding a night that was far from dull.
Fake Problems is reminiscent of Andrew Jackson Jihad meets Bob Dylan and CCR, all tossed into a blender and then electrocuted. They have taken the traditional “Florida punk sound” and turned it on its head, infusing it with call and response lyrics and indie rock elements. Add in a little alternative country and folk rock and you have Fake Problems. Perry claims that his favorite album is “More Adventurous by Rilo Kiley” which is evident in the musical styling of this band, particularly in songs like “Oh Maria” and “Oh, Your Silver Heart” off of “Spurs and Spokes”.
“The only reason we play music is so we can keep playing music.” mused Stevenson. “It’s very personal. We want to be big enough to make money but not doing stupid things. Everything we do we want to believe in”.
“We’re always dodging major labels and we’re highly sought after.” continued Perry. “For our next record, we decided to go with an indie label because it’s real”.
The band worked with AJ Mogus, the producer of the new Cursive record to record their latest album, "It's Great to Be Alive" which dropped in February to rave reviews.