Following their wonderfully received debut album ‘Tell Where I Lie’, which firmly made it’s mark on the No.1 spot in the New Artists Chart in the US, indie-folk duo Fossil Collective set off on their highly anticipated UK & Ireland tour; before hitting many other parts of the world.
I caught up with Mr. David Fendick, half of this fantastic two-piece, shortly before the guys took to the stage in Whelans, Dublin, for the final show of the tour.
So, you guys are playing here in Whelans tonight- are you excited for that? Have you played in Dublin many times before?
Yeah, we played in Dublin once before; I think it was The Academy. It was really cool, it was our first gig. It’s only the second time I’ve been to Dublin but I really like it, it’s got a really nice vibe to the place. [Yeah, it’s a friendly city! And great for music- lot’s of busking!] Yeah, it seems really cool!
You guys recently released your debut album, which got a phenomenal reaction, especially in The US. That must feel incredible?
Yeah, it feels amazing. It feels good that we got the album finished and out there; that’s the first thing. And that’s all we ever really wanted to do, was just finish the album and get it out there but it’s just getting loads of god feedback, and was number one in the New Artists Chart in America, which completely blew our heads off! So, yeah we’re just happy to get it out there and going out to play it for people.
Sweet! Is there any one song on the album, or even that isn’t included on the album, that you’re most proud of?
It kind of changes all the time really. I think normally when you write a song, that seems to be your favourite for a while. The last two or three songs we wrote on the album were ‘The Magpie’, ‘Monument’ and ‘Under My Arrest’, which I kind of think are a more developed sound than some of the earlier songs. Probably my favourite song of ours is ‘Boy With Blackbird Kite’; it’s always been a favourite of mine.
Sometimes when I listen to your music, I get a slight Radiohead vibe behing your sound. Are they a band you guys would look up to, or who would you feel mainly influenced by?
Yeah, they’re definitely an influence! Everything we do really is completely accidental. I mean, we’re influenced by Radiohead and Sigur Ros, and a lot of modern bands but, we’re also kind of inspired by some of the music that our parents played when we were kids, that we sort of grew up listening to- Simon & Garfunkel; Crosby, Stills and Nash; Neil Young;Fleetwood Mac, things like that, so I think when you listen to the music, I’d like to think you can hear the old married together with new modern influences.
Deadly! Obviously, you said your parents used to play a lot of music around you as a kid. Do you think that’s where you got the ambition to be in a band, or how did Fossil Collective come about?
Well, me and Jonny knew each other before Fossil Collective because we were in a band together called Vib Gyor for about four or five years, but towards the end of the band, the other three people were completely pushing in a different direction. Jonny and I would be playing this Alternative Rock music , and then going off listening to more acoustic based stuff so we decided to pull the plug on that, and just go back to basics where the song was the most important thing-the melodies and the harmonies, and that was the key . Everything else just worked around it really.
It’s pretty much a given that with a name like ‘Fossil Collective’, it’s going to pose questions as to where it came from. So, how did ye come with the name?
Well, the “Collective” part is quite straight forward, because Jonny and I decided from the beginning that one of the things that annoyed us in our previous band was we had a bass player, a guitarist, a drummer and a singer, and that was all we could ever do. We felt very limited by that. It’s great for some people, but for us we wanted the music to be like a collective of musicians.
So, if we wanted to do some songs, and we wanted a violin player to come in and do some parts, or a friend of ours is a harp player, or slide guitar, or any kind of instrument really, we could go into the studio and do that. Write the songs the way we want them to sound, and work out how to go about playing them live at a later date. So that’s the “Collective” part. “Fossil” just sounded cool really! We’ve got to the point now where we say “Fossil” is because we were looking backwards for inspiration.
[Certainly makes it sound cooler- but so made up!] Yeah, the truth is, we just stuck as many words on it and then it sounded cool! And then about two months down the line everyone said “Oh, Animal Collective”, and we were like “Aw fuck yeah, Animal Collective!“. But then it was too late, the name had stuck!
So you guys have a rapidly growing fanbase, especially now after the reaction to the album. What do you hope to do next?
Just tour, promote the album, I know we have a lot of festivals coming up. I think we’re coming back to Ireland, I presume Dublin again, in October or November. We’re going to do a slightly bigger tour. That’s it really. That’s just what we like to do- we like to write music, and we like to go out and play it to people. And we’ll play to five people or five hundred , we don’t really care, as long as the crowd who are in that room are really enjoying the music.
I’d much rather play to a little room of fifty people who are singing along or just really attentive. Some of the bigger gigs we’ve done, we might have played to like, 500 people, but it’s a Friday night and half the crowd are chatting at the back.
[Well, there’s always a great vibe in Whelans. Everyone is usually here to listen. A lot of my favourite gigs have been here so you should enjoy tonight!] Cool, I hope so!
Thanks a million for that interview David, and best of luck tonight.
Thank you, thanks very much.
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Check out the Official Music Video for ‘Let It Go’: