Artist Interviews

Q&A: Fun

By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 19 May 2010

Hailing from New York, indie-poppers Fun came into being after founder Nate Reuss’ previous band split up in 2008. He recruited Andrew Dost and Jack Antonoff to join him on a new adventure, and the trio were soon in the studio with producer Steven McDonald and arranger Roger Joseph Manning Jr (the former Jellyfish keyboardist) working on their first album ‘Aim And Ignite’. Following a free download release and two years of touring, that album is now finally ready for release, via Hassle on 7 Jun. Ahead of that, the band will play at Liverpool Sound City this Friday night, 21 May. With that in mind we fired off our Same Six in Reuss’ general direction.

Q1 How did you start out making music?
As soon as one of my older friends was able to drive, a group of us would go to concerts almost every night. A few of them knew how to play instruments and started a band, but excluded a couple of us other guys in the process So, out of anger, we started a Blink 182 type band. Even though we didn’t know what we were doing, we were far superior, so they had no choice but come and join us!

Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Falling in love and moving to a new city, while trying to figure out if the friendships mentioned above were worth maintaining.

Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
I still don’t play an instrument, so I write full songs in my head and then sing the melody and a few instrumental parts to Andrew and Jack. Then they start putting it together until it becomes something we’ve all written.

Q4 Which artists influence your work?
Van Morrison, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, XTC, Weezer, that type of stuff…

Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Give it a chance. Unless you don’t like it.

Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
To tour as much as possible, learn as much as possible, and stay true to ourselves.

MORE>> www.myspace.com/fun