Take a look at the track list of their upcoming debut full-length album: song titles include “Stoked & Broke,” “Wake Bake Skate, and “Cocaine.” That album’s debut single, “Cheap Beer,” is exactly what one would expect from the title. Over a raucous bed of distorted guitar and reckless drumming, singer Zac Carper chants the song’s infectious chorus, “I drink cheap beer / So what, fuck you.” That debauched, gleefully simple chorus has all the makings of a punk anthem, which is fitting, considering that the band spent the summer opening for alt mammoths the Hives.
Writing to the Guardian recently via email, the FIDLAR’s drummer Max Keuhn referred to the Hives’ opening spot as “pretty crazy,” noting, “we started this band as just friends jamming.” This off-the-cuff approach is noticeable in the band’s music, which sounds so ramshackle that it’s difficult to believe the band has ever seen the inside of a studio. Keuhn’s description of the Hives’ recording process supports this hypothesis: “We recorded the record ourselves at Zac and Brandon’s house.”
Just because the members of FIDLAR aren’t interested in excess composition doesn’t mean they lack songwriting chops — some of the band’s songs, such as their second single “No Waves,” have all the catchiness and slacker charm of golden-era Blink-182 or, more recently, Vancouver power-duo Japandroids.
Two of the FIDLAR’s most substantial influences are skateboarding and their home city of Los Angeles. The band has maintained strong ties to skate culture, and Keuhn remembers “finding out about a bunch of rad bands from skate videos” as a formative experience for FIDLAR. Speaking about L.A., Keuhn says that “being able to be surrounded by a bunch of rad bands and musicians, and being able to play shows all the time definitely helps you to progress as a band.” Indeed, FIDLAR play shows in their home city almost constantly, with a recent show in Echo Park spawning a 50-person near-riot that had to be shut down by the LAPD.
For all their destructive hijinks and seemingly disinterested attitude toward the music industry, FIDLAR are quickly gaining steam as one of the nation’s most-hyped up-and-coming garage rock bands. They’ve recently been covered by several prominent music publications, and they’ve started to play more and more headlining sets. Don’t expect them to change their attitude, though; Keuhn declares that “there’s no real direction with the music, it’s just what’s fun and what we are into at that time.”
Their goal? “Never stop touring.”
