Jeremy: We're a band from San Francisco, California. Consisting of myself (Jeremy Fareas) as the bassist. My brother Wes Fareas on guitar and vocals, and Bobby Gibbs on drums. Us 3 have been playing music for 10 years together and put together "name" since 2003. We're a band that is trying to revive integrity in music and show as much conviction as 3 guys in a band could.
-I rated your CD "Internet Killed The Audio Star" with 8 of 10 Points. I was quite stunned of all the musical influences you assimilate in your music. I guess you listen to all this different music styles also in private? What are your favorite artists of Jazz, Blues and the other extraordinary styles?
Jeremy: Aw..this question, I could literally post 7+ pages full of noteworthy artists/bands, but I can pull out a select few that we put in constant rotation, we're very much into artists such amazing jazz guys like Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Count Basie, Jaco Pastorius, and outside of that a lot of Wes Montgomery, Pat Metheny, and Stu Hamm. We listen to A LOT of Tom Waits, for he gives us so much inspiration every time we listen to him. Wes frequents a lot of female vocalists like Sade, and Scarlett Johansson, also Massive Attack, Telepopmusik, Portishead and Ceú. Then we have our abstract listens like Zu, Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, Sigur Ros, Zombi, and The Bird and the Bee. Right now I'm really into The Dead Weather, Atoms For Peace, Jay-Z and Old Crow Medicine Show. I had a chance to see them at the Coachella festival, and all of it was brilliant. Most of the time we really don't listen to heavy music. We like to gather our inspiration from the oddest of places.
-How long took the songwriting process for "IKTAS"?
J: We took the span of 4 years to write this record. But not all the songs took that long. We're so incredibly meticulous with our sound that sometimes it'll take months to write 15 seconds worth of material, and other times it'll take a day to write 2 songs. Everything we do has to be felt and not forced. For example we had our song "Spark of Divinity" written for 7 years, but we re-worked the song to make it have more life than ever. And the last 3 songs on our album we wrote in a matter of 2 days, and worked out beautifully. We took a chunk of time to gather a lot of material we had and the songs that have been completed to make sure that they were up to our satisfaction. Like I aforementioned, we are our worst critics, so we needed make sure we were 110% happy with what we had.
-Coming to the title of the CD. This reminds me of the BUGGLES-Classic "Video Killed The Radio Star" and I think this is not casually. On the one hand you're right because a lot of music listeners don't have the original CDs (or even Vinyl) of the interpreters on their rack but use digital media on iPod, Handy etc. But on the other hand, the distribution of music is much faster via internet and a band may reach more people. What's your opinion about this matter?
J: Well the title is a play off of the Buggles song. But for us, the title of the cd marks the end of a generation, and the start of a new, ambitious, and uncertain future. That song "Video Killed The Radio Star" at the time was describing how times were changing and how different forms of media were coming into fruition, and it left people wondering what was going to happen with their music. Well, fast forward a couple of decades and its history
repeating itself. The way we hear and receive new music is completely different now then it ever has been. Everything in media is so accessible, and so fast. Everyone is connected at once, and its both positive and negative. Positive being that some independent artists are receiving credit where they rightfully should and is helping people find new music or discover genres they wouldn't normally listen to. At the same time, especially with bands, is that they rely too much on their myspaces, or digital downloads and forget how essential it is to tour and make your art come alive.
-What's the story behind "Empathic Communicator" which is parted in four tracks?
J: I researched the concept of "The Empathic Communicator" and discovered some amazing information pertaining to the mind and how it processes its own ideas. The mind is apparently split into 4 states of consciousness and I thought it would be an incredible way to play on this theme. So I gave the idea to Wes, he loved it. I really wanted to write a 4 part song, giving 4 individual identities to one centralized theme. I had some general ideas sonically where I wanted to go. Wes helped gather a lot of transitions into play to have it make more sense. He also really ran with the concept lyrically and created this whole story, all nepotism aside, I thoroughly enjoy his lyrics and really loved what he did with this song. It definitely gave the songs more life. We split up the tracks into 4 parts because collectively its almost 23 minutes, so for the sake of the listener's attention span, it was easier to make 4 separate tracks to have the listener go to the song pertaining to the mood they were feeling at the time. It was definitely one of the most exciting and challenging pieces we've ever worked on.
-One track is entitled "My Sweetheart, The Whore". Did one of the bandmembers have bad experiences with women?
J: No. Haha, but good question. Wes's lyrics are very cryptic and never usually to be taken for face value, which is why they make for interesting and thought provoking reads. The title of the song basically shows duality, not necessarily love, or passion in any regard.
-What can you tell about the song "Dave Mustaine": Is it a homage or a malapropism for the legendary MEGADETH-Frontman?
J: I'll give the rundown on that title, it seems to create a lot of confusion. Everytime we put a song into motion, giving it a basic structure and what not, we give the songs working titles of Sigourney Weaver movies (this is no joke by the way), we do this because its easier trying to come up with a working title, and also because Sigourney Weaver is fucking brilliant. So that song had the working title "Dave"...after the song was completed and we had written this very serious metal song with this completely almost inappropriate dance part at the end of the song that made it seem a bit silly. We enjoy that kind of feeling haha. But I believe we watched the "No More Mr. Nice Guy" video from Megadeth and what we saw seemed to make sense for the song. That video is incredibly corny and seems wildly out of context and doesn't make sense for Dave Mustaine, because he's supposed to be this serious metal musician, but had this very un-serious video and you couldn't help but laugh at it. So it just stuck. We like it, and its neither an homage nor insult to him.
-Will there be a chance to see you in Europe on stage?
J: Well our album was just released in Europe on April 19th, and this year we hope to be out there very very soon. We thank all of you for the amazing responses and support and we can't wait to see all of your wonderful faces, just so we can blowtorch them off with our music. Until then, thank you for this interview and thank you to all the readers.
-Thank you very much for answering these questions, the last words are yours:
J: Anyone who has taken the time to listen to our music or to try and understand where we come from musically, we appreciate all of you. Your support means everything to us. Please help support independent artists all over the world, and go to shows, discover new music on your own. Gather inspiration from odd places, you'll never know what you'll find or how they will affect you. I'll get off my soap box now, thank you all.
-Take care, Brix
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