News / / 28.05.13

FAIR OHS

Pizza and Prosecco with some of our favourite Dalstonites.

Friends Matt Flag, Eddy Frankel and Joe Ryan formed Fair Ohs four years ago. All had priors – the usual hardcore punk band history – but this would be different.

This time all three were set on one thing – spreading a guitar gospel of peace, love and harmony. This band would be good old fashioned fun. And as we find them building up to the release of album number two, the psych party, desert rocking Jungle Cats, it would be rude not to join in the drinking. We join the trio in Dalston for pizza, Prosecco, pandemonium and some new album chat.

 

Your new album shouts out its many multi-cultural influences, as well as straight out punk ones, do you think London has made its stamp on you?

Eddy: No. London has an impact because you are defined by where you live and the people you see. But the multi-cultural influences, for lack of a better term, aren’t from London. I think they’re just from desire. This album had a separate set of non-Western influences to the first album. I think I was getting more into West African guitar music, the whole Tuareg desert music.

What’s that cool instrument being played in Salt Flats? Who got to play the cool instruments?

Matt: Can I point out right now, I can only play bass [laughs]. If it’s weird string instruments look to the ginger one. If it’s cool percussive stuff look to Joe.

Joe: Matt did have a cool kalimba, but the instruments you notice, it’s Eddy.

Who recorded and produced  Jungle Cats?

Matt: We produced it. A guy called Ben Phillips who runs a studio on a boat called The Lightship 95 recorded it. We spoke to Ben and he seemed to understand the angle we were coming from. Joe knew him from growing up in Kent. And he’s a hardcore kid as well so he gets that.

Was this second album “difficult”? It doesn’t sound “difficult”?

Matt: No, I just think with a second record you don’t want to do the same as the first one and some bands paint themselves in to a corner. I think we’re fortunate as we’ve done a lot of different things so we could write anything we wanted and people would understand.

Eddy: Also we don’t have the fear of people not liking what we’re going to do. There are dirty words when you make music: funk, soul, reggae. These things are not OK. Funk is such a dirty word, but funk was one of the main things that influenced this record.

Matt: It annoys me. The Minutemen are my favourite band of all time and they’re really funk influenced punk. Also a band like Big Boys, they are massively funk inspired. They did Kool and the Gang covers; so many bands had that going through them. Gang of Four, all the post-punk stuff we listen to is influenced by funk and reggae. I don’t know why that part of the history has been written out of it.

What’s your favourite song off the new album?

Joe: … what’s Womac called now?

Matt: They all had working titles.

Eddy: Silver Jade Mountain.

Matt: Is that what Womac’s called?

Eddy: (apologetically) Yeah …

Matt: Errr, OK, Citric Placid. Because the end has a really ballsy pay off, it’s the best we’ve done in years.

Eddy: I think mine is Green Apple Milk, lyrically and in terms of my two minute solo.

If there was a Fair Ohs cocktail, what would be in it?

Eddy: [adopts a silly voice] I tell you what, a little dash of world music, some haaaardcore, some garage rock, a little pinch of punk … Joe: Here’s a fact for you – Matt only drinks cider.

Matt: No, I drink spirits too. He’s saying this because I don’t drink beer. Go on then Joe, do the princess story …

Joe: So in Holland they don’t really drink cider and they always say “here – have a million bottles of beer”, so me and Eddy are wondering how life could get any better while Matt has nothing to drink. So I always try and help Matt out and tell them he doesn’t really drink beer, but pretty much every gig we do they don’t get the cider and Princess Matt ends up with a fucking bottle of champagne, a bottle of whiskey, all this extra shit cos he’s being picky. Is that what you do in life? You’re a bit picky and you get more than everyone else?

Eddy: Another time you got a bottle of Blue Nun and drank the whole bottle.

Matt: I was amazing that night.

Eddy: I think actually I was amazing that night. I was the Lizard King.

 

It all descends into blurriness here. Crack exits the bar, resolved to learn the kalimba, to listen to more Minutemen and never to touch Prosecco again.

 

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Jungle Cats is out now via Dream Beach. For information on their upcoming UK tour dates, head over to facebook.com/fairohs

Words: Lucie Grace

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