For our C2C Spotlight Stage series, Imogen chatted to the band Fairground Saints about their new single ‘California,’ their excitement for their return to London and who’s most likely to master the flossing dance… The full podcast episode is available here, featuring our interview with Fairground Saints.
Thank you guys so much for taking the time to chat with me! I saw you guys at the Borderline and you were amazing. I feel like you earned so many fans from that slot, so are you excited to come back around?
Absolutely, we loved everyone we met there and we just had the time of our lives so we’re so excited to come back.
Did you have any expectations for what the UK audience would be like?
Not really, I think we just tried to keep our minds open to whatever it was going to be because you never know – every show is different. But I think after song number two, we were just like ‘ok this is cool,’ let’s turn it on now. We could feel the appreciation for music in the room, and it’s such a beautiful thing to play for people that love – you can tell they love – songwriting and music. That first song, you’re just waiting for the reaction from the room… Second one, you’re getting in the groove.
So what’s the story of how you guys met and how you came together?
Meg: Well the shorter version is that we all kind of met via social media and the internet. Mason posted an ad on Facebook and Eli was the only one to answer the ad. It just happened that he’s a musical genius and they started jamming for a while, and eventually they wanted to expand from there, and they put an ad on Craigslist and a girl that I was actually living with at the time submitted a submission to their ad, and I was in the background of one of her videos and they saw me. So it’s all very stumble-upon…
It must just feel like it’s meant to be…
Yeah it’s very cosmic…
So what were all your backgrounds before that point, were you all already playing music, how far along on your musical journeys were you?
Meg: Well I’ll start, I’ve been writing since I was like 8 years old. I’ve always loved music, I’m from a very musical family, but prior to meeting the guys I was touring with this organisation called ‘The Young Americans’ and we came to the UK, we went to Japan and all over Europe. My specialty was song-writing workshops with kids, so I was doing more the teaching and that part of music for a while and then I met them.
Mason: My dad played guitar, he’s a doctor, but my sisters couldn’t get through the sore fingers stage. I’d always loved music, I played the trumpet and we had this programme at my middle school called ‘Arts Outreach’ and they would bring in instruments and donations would pay to hire a music teacher and have those art programmes. I wouldn’t say I fell in love with the recorder but as we continued on it got cooler.
Elijah: I have always played piano, I guess since I was about 5 or 6, and before I met Mason, since I was about 9 till the age of 16 I played in a kid’s jazz cover band sort of…
Mason: …they were good…
Elijah: Yeah, so we toured around Southern California, playing instrumental covers of jazz songs, and right after that band I met Mason.
So you all had really different backgrounds, which must have been cool when you all came together. Was there ever a sound you wanted to have going in, or did it just all evolve really organically? Because I know you put out a record before you moved to Nashville…
Meg: Yeah we actually put out a record right after we met, and it came out beautifully, but I think over the past few years as we’ve gotten to travel and tour together, the sound has definitely evolved and kind of taken shape into more what we think it’s meant to be and that’s a cool feeling to have, but I think it will always evolve. I think that keeps us growing and evolving.
Do you feel that moving to Nashville affected your sound?
Meg: I wouldn’t say that it changed us, I think it just more out of what we had. I think we met some people who were very great collaborators – like the guy who’s producing our record right now he’s a great collaborator and he has helped us immensely in finding that sound and to really hone in on that. So I would say that it’s more about what it’s brought out of us.
It’s what’s already there, it’s just about bringing out the real essence of you and what’s already there?
Totally.
Who’s most likely?
Who’s most likely to sing Dolly at karaoke?
Meg
Who’s most likely to turn up late to rehearsals?
Eli
Who’s most likely to forget the words?
Mason
Who’s most likely to trip over something on stage?
Meg
Who’s most likely to master flossing?
A steady competition between Eli and Meg…
Who’s most likely to know the most random facts?
Eli
So you released ‘Somewhere Down the Line’ first and I think that’s the first track most people will have heard from you, can you tell me the story behind it?
Mason: I think we had just moved from California to Nashville and we landed on the couch of a friend of ours named Chuck Cannon and…
Meg: Cos we didn’t have anywhere to live, we didn’t have any plans, we just had this gut feeling and just went..
Mason: And I think Chuck knew that… They have so many cool guitars at his house and I’d been messing around and I came up with the riff that started the whole thing and then Chuck said that he was wondering what we would think of a title like ‘Somewhere Down the Line’ and I think he knew very well – because he’s a really great songwriter – and I think he knew that we had just been through it and that we knew that somewhere down the line we were going to land in the right place and he brought that up to us and we just latched onto it. The writing process started and we all just started throwing in lyrics and putting it together and before you knew it we had this thing that resonated so much with us and felt so much like us that it really kind of felt like a rebirth of who we are as a band.
A very magical experience, so is your songwriting process really kind of playing off each other, or is it like one of you comes with a formed-ish idea and then it changes?
Mason: It kind of varies from song to song, there’s not really a method that’s set in stone. Sometimes there’ll be a complete melody, or structure or maybe even just a title, or even just an idea for a feeling sometimes.
Meg: We like to let it just really develop organically in the room and not to let too much structure – later the structure comes in when we edit – but we like to keep it just very natural.
Keep it as natural as you can before you have to put it down… And you guys obviously released ‘California’ very recently, so what was the story behind that one as well, because you guys come from California was it important to show where your roots were?
So when you’re in Nashville there is a certain pressure to cut outside songs and we are very particular about what we allow into our world, and we actually did not write ‘California.’ California was written by our producer Dylan Altman and Anna Vaus, and we had been in a lot of pitch meetings and said no to so many songs.
Well you do have to feel that emotional connection to a song as if you had written it…
Mason: Right, or else what are doing up there?
Meg: And we always look for songs that we can imagine that harmonious sound on the chorus and melodically and structurally alone that song is made for harmony. So those two things combined, we definitely wanted to do that song.
Mason: I think especially having just started working with Marshall, to know that your producer knows you so well that he can show you the one song that you really really want to cut…
That’s when you know you’ve made the right partnership…
Right…
So you guys are working on new music right now, is it an EP you’re working on, is it a full-length LP, or do you not know yet?
Meg: We’re going to be leading out with an EP that’s going to be coming out in a few months, and then we’re going back into the studio before we come to the UK to cut some more songs so eventually we’ll have the full album.
So exciting, have you chosen all the songs yet? Obviously you can’t spoil too much but did you have a vision going in to record it?
Yes we did, we really want to have an album that has dynamic and variety of emotion and even grooves, to have some that are really up-tempo and some you can cry to. We want to have a huge dynamic on the record so I think we’ve been waiting to fill all those little gaps. I think we’re getting to the place now where we feel like we have all those pieces.
Because it kind of needs to have that arc of a story, you know the whole record and even our producer the other day in our final round – where I kind of think most of the magic happens – and he says ‘try to think about what you’re missing, what pieces are you missing – not to say that you are or you aren’t, does it feel like a circle or does it feel disjointed’ and I feel like we’ve found the circle is complete.
And last year you guys went on tour with Kip Moore, what was that experience like, everyone says how dedicated his fans are?
Meg: Yeah we met so many cool people and Kip’s whole team they’re really fantastic. I think we learned a lot about live performance on that tour because their show is so tight and electrifying and just being around that, I think we grew and we made so many friends and new fans and it was awesome.
Eli: It was really valuable to see, like Kip’s show is a rock show…so it was amazing to see the people who were there on a Friday night to see a rock show. I don’t know if I was surprised, but I was surprised.
So obviously it will be C2C in March and then studio time. It must be so exciting to think about putting out the EP to see how it will grow?
It’s very exciting, it’s been a while since we’ve put music out, so we’re really excited about the place we’re in. We’ve just got to get it out and tour like crazy.
Well I know how excited everyone is to see you over here!
Final Few
Record you’re playing on repeat at the moment?
Record you wish you’d written?
Record you couldn’t live without if you were stuck on a desert island?
Mason:Shangri-La by Mark Knopfler
Eli: White Album by The Beatles
Meg:One of These Nights by The Eagles
Would you rather give up songwriting or performing?
Do you have a pre-show ritual?
I don’t know where it came from but it’s a huddle and based on how hard the gig is going to be – are they going to be listening to an acoustic set – and we use that to base the number of how many leg lunges we’re going to be doing into the middle… So C2C is going to be a lot of people so 7. So after we do the leg lunges, it’s very important we all make eye contact with each other, then we put all our hands into the centre, we ask Eli where it’s going to go, he tells us where it’s going to go and we lift up and that’s where the worries are going to go…
Complete the sentence…
Music is… Love
Country music is… Stories
The Fairground Saints are…Harmony
Check out the Fairground Saints on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and their website here.
