Fever Sleeves is a Rock/Indie/Breakcore band playing in San Diego and the Southern California scene. Their music is unique and great. They need to be heard! Check out the interview I did with them and give their music a listen.

Fever Sleeves is a new friend of CWG and of the Continuum.

Q: You are listed as Rock/Alternative/Breakcore. What does that mean? Tell me about your sound and music.

Tony Gidlund: Before we get started I’d like to thank you for having us answer these questions. Rock is the largest umbrella possible for what we are trying to do. We generally do not do music that does not rock. I love plenty of mellower music, but I don’t think I would enjoy performing it as much. Honestly though I think a more accurate description of our music is Prog/Punk/Pop because we use a lot of ideas from those realms (exploration/energy/melody). Is that answer pretentious/vague enough?Q: Tell me about each member of the band. How did the band come together? Got some good stories about the coming together of this group?

Bill Szafranski: Nick, Tony, and I all played in awful bands in high school.  We would play shows together in our various bad bands and decided to kick that crap to the curb and start making better music together.  At the time there were only two paths to take – form a band that was a bad knock-off of Thursday or do anything else.  Fortunately we went with the latter and I think we’re the better for it.  Lain was a recent addition from Chicago.  We recruited him from Red Hot Chili Peppers after we convinced him that they had nowhere to go but down and we had nowhere to go but small shows in san diego – I mean up!
Q: How long have you been together and where do you think you are in your career?
BS:  We put the band age at 4 years.  I’d say that we’re just starting to hit our stride musically.  So I think that would put us around 1 year old in dog years.Q: You have a hell of a video for ‘Futuristic killings.’ Tell me about it.

TG: Thanks very much. Our friend David McHank came to me and said let’s make an stopmo animated video of that ghost guy from your 7-inch cover. He has a pretty huge record collection, like a whole wall full at least. We drew a ton of pictures of the character and McHank took the pictures. We listened to a bunch of records too like Thin Lizzy, Honor Role, and Rocket From the Crypt. It was a swell time. We’ve actually got a long-gestating follow-up video for the song Vampyroteuthis that is sort of the same style but with actual humans used.Q: Tell me about the writing of your album. How did the songs come together? How long did it take to write? Does each member contribute to the writing process?

TG: We definitely have no usual method for songwriting. Sometimes I will bring a video-game-sounding skeleton of a song in for the boys to elaborate on (Futuristic Killings, Mangirlmonkeyhorse). Sometimes we will start with a cool riff or two and then write each section of the song one by one (Maximum Castles, Grrraldo). Other times we just jam and a cool song happens to fall out of us (Hot Steel Heat, Prettyhead & Sparkle). With those ones the hardest part is always writing a bridge. Bridge-writing is difficult in general actually. There was this band called Modern Life is War whose songs were almost all build-ups and intros. hmmm.
Q: How the hell are you guys not signed yet?!
TG: Well Jason I gotta tell ya, it is rough out there. Record executives can barely afford to have their yachts waxed these days (not a euphemism). It just doesn’t make financial sense to put out really really awesome music from a down-on-their-luck band of nobodies without their own reality show. We certainly are not averse to having someone put out our stuff though. Our album had only positive reviews and it has no physical version. It’s just a bunch of 1s and 0s floating around in a series of tubes.
We are writing another album though. We’re five songs deep right now with a bunch more being conceptualized.

Q: Tell me about some of the venues you’ve played.

TG: In the interest of time I am just going to list the ones that have funny names. We played the Nut Sack Nightclub in the state capitol building. We played this one place called The Fuselage that is actually a teen center and art gallery in the back of a jet airliner. We once played the Jeff Goldroom in LA. That one is owned by Jeff Goldblum (kind of a jerk). The Smell is a cool place but it is too smelly! There was a Super Smash Brothers tournament we played in a basement in Glendale, AZ and that one was also too smelly. We actually just flew back from a Transformers-themed venue and boy are my arms tires!
BS: Of course Casbah is home sweet home!
Q: We just had a decade come to a close. Tell me some of your favorite records of the last ten years.
TG: Wow dude. Okay.
Thunder Down Under is an excellent close to the career of Hot Snakes, a devastating blow that as a city we are still recovering from.
First EP by Mock Orange is just about perfect and I subconsciously absorbed a lot of songwriting and singing quirks from this band.
These Arms Are Snakes put out a lot of good music this past decade but Oxeneers is my personal favorite. Not sure why.
I really like the song “Who Is It” by Bjork from that album that was all vocals. Not really an album but the Grammys would consider it one.
I’m now just going to name a bunch of stuff I really liked listening to from this dumb old decade: Zach Hill, Brilliant Red Lights, Broken Social Scene, The Velvet Teen (last album mostly), Mars Volta (1st album only!), Madvillain, Adam Carolla, Radiohead, Tegan & Sara, the Comedy Death Ray podcast, Shook Ones, Sleeping People, Panda Bear vs. Shark, myself typing lists of my favorite artists, Menomena, Converge.
BS: Mastodon – Crack the Skye, These Arms are Snakes – Easter, The Bad Plus – Give, Lady Gaga – the Fame, No Knife – Riot for Romance
Q: Valentine’s day also just passed. What’s the greatest album to do it to?
TG: I have this tape of whale sounds that is really hot. You put that thing on and brother, you got a stew goin.Q: What are your favorite albums ever?

TG: The ones that immediately come to mind are Emergency & I by the Dismemberment Plan, Yank Crime by Drive Like Jehu, and We Are The Romans by Botch. The first Tera Melos album will always be very special to me as well.
Q: Paper or plastic?
TG: For condoms, plastic. For drawing pictures of wereponies on, paper. All other purposes, reusable.Q: Best live show you’ve seen?

Bill Szafranski: Rage Against the Machine at Cox arena in San Diego.  It was my first big concert and it blew my mind and still does.  It was just after the release of “Battle of Los Angeles” which isn’t one of my favorite albums, but it was nevertheless a top notch event.

Q: What is the single most important trait for a musician to have?
TG: The ability to expand on old ideas. Also you have to enjoy playing and hearing music.
Q: What do you love about San Diego? Is there anywhere you’d rather be?
TG: I love that most of my friends live here. However if San Diego were destroyed except for me I would like to go to the distant future and see what’s shakin. I’m really eager to see how certain celebrities lives turned out and if they ever fixed the things that ail us. Also, I’d like to if they can make health food taste like good food.

Free chance- plug your web site, album, gigs, friends, whatever ya want:

TG: I wanna give a huge plug to our pal Michael Paul Schultz who is running for election in the beautiful state of Hawaii. I don’t remember the position but I’m sure he’ll be great at it and he really needs this.
Find more on Fever Sleeves at:

http://www.myspace.com/feversleeves

Stay tuned for updates on Feever Sleeves, here as always, in the Continuum.