Fono Interview

Fono
Interview

Wednesday 3rd of October 2007

Interview

By Haydon S

Fono are the hottest alternative rock band in the world right now. There, I said it. If you've not heard these guys, and their fabulous (and free, forever) new record Too Broken To Break, then you really owe it to yourself to give the guys a try. We cornered frontman Del Currie via the labyrinths of cyber space and probed him with some... questions. Here's what he had to say:
You guys will probably be a new name to our readers, but you've been around for a while. Fancy giving us a potted history of the band?
Blimey, don't know where to start. There's been loads of ups and downs, though we tend to remember the ups more. Our first gig was opening for Bon Jovi in front of 50,000 people and that kind of gave us the bug. As part of that BBC radio followed us round for a few weeks and covered the whole experience. That helped give us an expedited passage into the music industry's eye line and we got some cool shows with people like the Guano Apes and Robert Plant (very nice man).
It wasn't too long till we dove into the record company world signing a deal in the US. We recorded an album called goesaroundcomesaround, then the label shelved us after some internal shake ups. Eventually we were sold to another label and they got the record out, we hooked up with the Goo Goo Dolls and headed off to the States touring. We did that for about 2 years straight and things were moving along nicely till we had some label issues again and ended up in a lovely lawsuit round 2001 that lasted for a couple of years. For legal reasons we couldn't record during that time so that really put a spanner in the works.
Finally the lawsuits were over and we were able to get rolling again. The Goo Goo Dolls called us up soon after and we hit the road with them again for a second tour all over the US and when we got back we set up a studio in this killer spot in San Diego, California right on top of a hill overlooking a canyon and set to recording a new record. We were about finished and had started mixing when the California wild fires of 2003 came through and burned down the studio. We lost everything from guitars, amps, drums, memorabilia from our tours, all our studio gear and worst of all the masters for our new record. We have photos of the remainders on our website and you'll see from that we were literally left with nothing.
We basically had to start again, and as we'd already lost so much time we quickly put together an EP called It's The Way That You Use It. We tracked some new tunes and used a couple of rough tracks we had left from the fire and got it out. It wasn't long after that we starting working on this new record Too Broken To Break and here we are!
What are Fono's favourite artists/influences?
We listen to all sorts like Muse, Radiohead, U2, Foos, QUOTSA, Mute Math, Led Zep right through to hip hop. I'm the narrow minded one in the band!
What have been your greatest moments as a band?
Opening for Bon Jovi was a big moment of course, but seeing our name in the first airplay charts in the US when we hit #9, Oasis were at #8 and Bowie was #10... we were cruising round the US in a big black tour bus that Janet Jackson owned and it all felt like the plans were coming together.
And what about the low points? You've been through some hard times and circumstances as a band, what's made you keep going?
I think I covered most of those in the first answer! Lawsuits are bollocks and very frustrating. As a musician all you want to do is play and when your hands are tied behind your back.... you get pretty low. I have no idea what keeps us going, we just do. We believe in the music we make and we want to keep making it. I think if we gave up we'd just be quitters and determination is certainly one of our strong points. Yeah we've had our ups and downs but in reality they're nothing compared to what other people in this world have endured.
You're giving away your new record, what brought on this madness?!
Bottom line... we just want everyone to hear our music. We love this record and our long time hero Chris Sheldon did a killer job mixing it, so we didn't want ten bucks to be the difference between someone experiencing our music or not. Also, here in the US people are becoming more green-conscious and in reality a CD is a pretty toxic petroleum based product... and now that digital is available as a great alternative, we feel the life of the CD is limited so we thought we'd get a head start on everyone else and put it up for free download.
Throughout your career, you've had the opportunity to work with some truly cool people and bands and been on both sides of the industry, signed and unsigned. What advice would you give to independent bands looking to get on in the industry, based on your experiences?
You've got to keep going, keep working at it and keep getting better at what you do. I look back at stuff we recorded thinking it was the bomb and now when I hear it I'm kind of embarrassed that I used to let people hear it. And don't be afraid to ask for anything... people can only say no. There's only one main reason Chris Sheldon mixed our record... because we asked him to!
What does the next few months hold for Fono?
We've just rolled out the free download deal and that's going out in stages, we have different partners promoting the album with us over the next few months and we're running a radio campaign here in the US. Then we'll be hitting the road again later in the year and into 2008... hopefully we'll get over to the UK in 2008.

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