Fenech-Soler interview

Joëlle: So, Ben and Ross, two brothers. How does that work for you being in a band together?
Ben: It’s good, we seem to get on ok…I think. If we have an argument it’s over and done within about 4 minutes. There are just certain words that can wind each other up, but I definitely think it helps.

Joëlle: How do the other members feel about it?
Ben: Fine. This is the first time as a band that we’ve really gone and done consecutive dates. The most we’ve probably done is 7 in a row and this is about 30 days. We’re all adjusting to being with each other 24/7, so everyone kind of has their own way of dealing with it but I don’t think that we really piss anyone off.

Joëlle: And which of you is the older one?
Ben: I am, 26.
Ross: I’m 22.

Joëlle: So you’re often categorised as electro-pop, how do you feel about that?
Ben: I’m not a massive fan of ‘electro pop’ as a phrase but I can’t really argue with it. It’s like we are electronic and we do essentially write pop music. We don’t really shy away from the whole pop thing – we do like pop records. From the writing point of view, we like writing melody and that’s the type of stuff we enjoy. So late 70’s early 80’s George Benson, The Whistlers, these kind of people who write songs that are timeless, that’s what we listen to and go ‘fuck that’s really good.’
Obviously there’s a core electronic edge to the stuff that we do so I don’t mind it, people can put us in that bracket.

Joëlle: Do you think that it gives a bit of ambiguity as to what you’re about?
Ben: I think that when you say ‘electro pop’ it falls in the bracket of people thinking ‘I’ve heard this before, it’s shit’ ‘you sound like this, you sound like…whoever.’ But I do think that we are a little bit different to what’s out there, so for that factor, I resent the fact that maybe ‘electro pop’ is a thing that has been banded round a lot in the past 2years. But it is, probably, correct.

Joëlle: Which band would you compare yourselves to or say that you had similar sounds?
Ben: Well obviously we’ve just released our album, and it’s kind of an odd feeling, working on something and then finally putting it out there and you’re putting yourself up there to be judged. We kind of get linked into a lot of bands that are around at the minute: Everything Everything or Friendly Fires. We love all those bands and I think that at the minute there just isn’t that many bands on daytime radio1 or in the pop world. I think that the chart stuff is full of kind of commercial producer music and I don’t think there’s that many bands that are originally bands that aren’t put together. Those kinds of bands (Everything Everything and Friendly Fires.) supposedly we get put together with but we like them so there’s no problem with being associated with bands who we think are good. We’re friends with a lot of them and they’re all nice guys so it works.

Joëlle: You’re on day nine of your tour at the moment and you’ve got quite a few more dates coming up all around the UK. What’s your favourite aspect of touring?
Ben: My favourite aspect is feeling like as a band we’re getting better as we go along and playing records off our album. As a band we actually worked quite hard, because we did the whole album at home on our laptop and we actually did that before we had signed a record deal. So getting in a rehearsal room and actually practicing is something that we didn’t really do that much. We wrote music and then went and played it in clubs etc but we never sat there and went ‘right, let’s create a show.’ We did that for about 2 and half weeks which were good to have the band playing the whole of the album. Going out and playing some of the songs on the record that are a little bit different soundscapes and more relaxed stuff is good fun. Also it’s the first time we’ve gone out with lights, so that’s a whole side to the music that we’ve never done before.

Joelle: …And do you find yourself improving every time?
Ben: Definitely. We started this tour is Inverness and it was a bit shaky playing all these new songs but actually as we’ve gone on in the last week, we have improved. I think you have to play to fuck up and realise that that’s not the right thing to do. You learn what is and isn’t right, what works and stuff. But I think that travelling around with your best mates in a band playing music is a privileged position and we’ve worked pretty damn hard to get where we are. So I think going out with your friends and playing music, getting to go to places like this (Other Rooms, Digital.) It’s the places we’ve never been before is fantastic. The whole experience is good fun.

Joëlle: Is touring your favourite part of being in a band?
Ben&Ross: It is really good fun. We love writing music but we haven’t really had a chance in the last 2 months because we’ve been getting ready for the album but we love writing music as well and that’s the reason we started it. But touring live is really the best part. I think when you do a load of one thing for a while you just crave ‘the grass is always greener’. I think by the end we’ll probably just want to sit in a studio and write music.

Joëlle: Is it you who mainly writes the music Ben?
Ben: We have a bit of a system with the 4 of us. We have two studio set ups, there’s one where Ross and I live and (maybe we’ll move out by the end of this tour – to make us feel successful.)

Joëlle: And how do your parents feel about you living at home?
Ben: Fine! I think my mum’s heard the album more than anyone else, but I think that at the end of this tour we have plans to move to London.
In terms of writing, we have 2 studios, 1 is set up at ours (Ben & Ross’) and we have another one at our drummers’ house. We live really close together in Northamptonshire. Me and Ben do most of the writing part of it at our house and then we go over there and do the production side. There’s 2 studios and the 2nd one is more complex.

Joëlle: You went on tour in the USA…
Ben: The main reason was to drum up some industry interest. It was around the same time when Ross and I had co written a single for Groove Armarda – Paper Romance on the Blacklight album. We were doing some dates in the UK and then went and did some of their American Tour which was obviously pretty incredible. Amazing. It was pretty compact, we did New York, Sanfransisco and the West coast. It was basically a 7 day tour – a cross section.
Actually we’re going back in a couple of weeks to do CMJ in New York which will be fun.
America is such a big place to go and tour and to actually invest time in it, you have to go and tour your arses off over there; so I think we’ll look into doing that next year maybe.

Joëlle: Do you prefer touring abroad eg. USA or do you feel more of a connection in the UK?
Ben: Maybe not America, I mean, America was good, but I think European stuff has been really good as well. Germany’s always been really good, it has a really core electronic scene. It’s massive in Berlin and even if we play when a club doesn’t know who we are, people really enjoy it. Whereas, when you’re playing in Shoreditch people are too cool to get into it. ….If anyone is reading this interview and they live in London, we love playing in London.

Joëlle: And as we mentioned earlier, you’re often mistaken as a French band
Ben: Yeah. I think we enjoy the mystery of ‘who is this?’. Actually our first single is on Alan braxe’s label, a label called vulture. I do think we stumbled into that being a thing that had happened rather than a given. It wasn’t like ‘ yeah what you do’ is: Think of a difficult name to pronounce, release some quite French music, release it on a French label and then pretend we’re French!
It did start the ‘Fennech’ in the right place, it was a very niche label. It wasn’t a big release, it just put it out there. I think that every single we’ve put out, we’ve not tried to force it in any way. The DJ’s of Radio1 have just helped us. They genuinely just like our music and think it’s important for a band to have space to develop properly rather than in a massive hype and with loads spent. Millions spent here and there, rather than going out and doing loads of gigs where it will hopefully spread.

Joëlle: Are you ever inclined to throw in a bit of French into your lyrics?
Ben and Ross: Well…If we could speak any French, we would like to do that. Our drummer’s good at French, he did French A-Level. I can still remember my French GCSE oral…
But when we do learn French, we’re going to do a whole song.

Joëlle: Finally, obviously Newcastle is renowned for its Geordie nightlife, are you going to venture out tonight after the gig?
Ross: Well I had a taster of some of the Geordie nightlife last night. I was sat just behind the decks of Digital last night. It was Annie Mac’s night last night so this place seems a lot cleaner and less rowdy than night. It was good. We were really excited because we had a day off yesterday in Newcastle, we just walked around and the weather’s been really good! …I think there’s an indie night on after the gig so I’m sure we’ll be having a few.

Joëlle: Thank you so much Ben and Ross, it’s been a pleasure to meet you and until next time!

Interview by Joëlle Lerner