Fallen Stars
Ensconced in the cramped quarters of the dressing room( don’t all breathe at once), I tackle Ben and Jon from The Fallen State on life’s mysteries, described as “beefy and brooding” I say pass the Bovril my friends and let’s get cracking!
A.P. Like I said earlier, we’re from Original Rock, here to interview Ben and Jon from the Fallen State. How’s the tour going?
B.S. It’s been really good. First time on a tour bus where we’ve actually been on the bus, been pretty different but it’s been a laugh.
J.P. Fifteen happy people existing in perfect harmony!
A.P. That’s the only way it’s go to be.
B.S. I’m the only screamer to be honest!
A.P. Everybody staying well?
J.P. Just about.
B.S. We’re trying our best.
J.P It’s a lesson in disciplined living.
A.P. Just reading up about your new LP out in April, “A Deadset Endeavour”. What does that mean and what are you trying to tell us all?
B.S The title is what it is really, we’re putting everything into it, we mean business. We’re not hiding anything out of it we’re going for it basically.
J.P. You see it as that type of mentality when you’re gonna go for something, you’ve got to be deadset on it, you’ve got to want it. You can read it to be for so many things in life and that comes in some of the themes in some of the songs.
A.P. Up until now you were a band that was a do-it-yourself, working around your jobs. How are you finding the differences having now signed? And that’s happened very recently after releasing EPs yourself and getting really far.
B.S. The way we like to work the record deal was we went and did the album ourselves and we wanted to have the same process. So it wasn’t like suddenly we’re leting everyone have an influence. This is our album we want to do our way. We recorded it and once it was done we went and found ourselves a record deal. It had the vibe of how we write and how we work and we weren’t giving anything up. We were just like ‘This is our album, who wants it?’ and we got picked up and they’re gonna be there for PR
J.P. It’s like you’ve got to be able to do it anyway, all you’re doing is increasing the strength of your wheels. You’re still the same band in the core, you’ve still got to do all the same things, but the added opportunites, speaking to people such as yourselves, someone else comes through, but that just builds on what you’ve already done. I don’t feel like it’s that different
B.S. It’s not that different. We just have more money.
J.P. We have more money to do things, we can go to more places, but in terms of how we work and how we do things, it doesn’t feel different.
A.P. I think that’s good to hear because a lot of times you hear the opposite where bands are pressured by the record company to do this or that. They didn’t want to write this song but they made them write that kind of music. I think it’s good if you can maintain that freedom and do what you really want to do.
B.S They let us do our thing really and they say ‘Right what’s going to be the singles, let us know’ and it really is still our option which is great. They’re there as the backing behind it.
A.P. How do you write and record songs? Do you work on your own or does everyone bring ideas to the table?
J.P Would you like us to get the scroll out!
B.S. The album took us a long time to write, we had no deadline really. We decided wanted to make an album we didn’t really book in the recording process until we nearing finished. Then we said we were gonna write a load of songs and we all come up with ideas and flesh them out lots or even not so much and bring in ideas and feed off each other and demo it and work that way.
J.P. We all write stuff in different ways coming from different angles, but I think it was that we had a few false starts as well that it can be so hard. I remember always trying to blow up a balloon as a kid, you always get that bit where the first thing where you try and blow into the balloon and it won’t blow and you just give up, then one day you can do it. That’s what it felt like. You knew that you had to have a conflict, you had to have an argument or there was something you couldn’t get through it. And then i think we found our groove around this time last year and that’s what this is. It took us almost 8 months to find out what is was gonna be as we were still writing it. But once we had that…
B.S. Once we had a clear picture of what the album was, then we could finalize parts of other songs we’d written and work on new songs as well.
A.P. Is there any subject matter you wouldn’t write about or find difficult to write about?
B.S. No? There’s stuff I haven’t written about yet, but there’s not stuff I wouldn’t. It depends, we try and be honest with our writing, how we feel is how we write. I haven’t been overly political in any of our songs because I don’t really have a thing to say, I have no fresh opinion that needs to be said. But when I’m writing songs and we’re writing lyrics, we try to say how we feel. I don’t think there’s anything we’d shy away from, we’ve touched some stuff that was hard for us to write.
J.P. And I think there are probably things we wouldn’t write about as well, as much as I love pastry we’re probably not gonna write about that!
A.P. I’m sure you could come up with something!
B.S. We may have to write something!
A.P. That’s the second album in progress!
J.P. We’re gonna call it “Parisian Croissants”
B.S. You know when you’ve run out of stuff to write when you write songs about French pastries!
A.P. If this band didn’t exist, which band would you want to be in? Out of who’s around now.
B.S. Of who’s around now?
A.P. Or whoever really.
J.P. I can answer that question really easy. Periphery. I discovered them 2-3 years ago they have the same influences as me, they are the same age, different parts of the world, the same experience with the internet, how they formed their band, so they have the same formulative experiences. So what I hear when I listen to their music is if I was a lot better at guitar, it’s what I would have done! It’s different, when you’re younger, everyone you look up to is older than you, so it’s like I would like to be that person, but thisi is different because I would actually like to be in that band.
B.S. I’d probably join Faith No More. I can’t see that going very long!
J.P. I can see you doing a bit of Dream Theatre.
A.P. Name a song you wish you wrote.
B.S. There’s so many. I have this all the time. All the time i list to songs thinking I wish I’d written that.
J.P. I’ve got one, it’s “Times Like These” by Foo Fighters. I dunno why, it just popped into my head.
B.S. I wish I’d written the first Rage Against the Machine album.
J.P. You’re not political
B.S. I know! Im not political man! I might have been at that point in time! You never know. That would have been cool, I bet they’re proud of that one.
A.P. If you could be a fly on the wall in any situation, where would you like to be?
B.S. Any situation? I think it would be pretty interesting in the Oval Office right about now!
J.P. There’s potential criminality involved now! So what do I want to see! So the Oval Office but maybe layer it with the Eastenders theme tune. Or it might be a bit more Emmerdale.
A.P. What are your hobbies or interests outside of work when you get time?
B.S. We’ve all got different ones. Greg and Rich are both golfers. Dan’s a bit of a Marvel Cinema movie lover. We all are to an extent, but Dan especially. I’m a bit of a workaholic to be honest.
J.P. So am I.
B.S. We’re both kinda like, we don’t have down time.
J.P. I like fitness stuff. And that’s work, it’s a means to an end.
B.S. I dabble in a few things, a little bit fickle with my hobbies, try a bit of everything.
A.P. Share your best and worst tour experiences
B.S. I don’t think we can name the people we’ve toured with for bad ones! Best ones?
J.P. I’ve got a general one which I’m sure all musicians in the UK can sympathise with. Why do they shut motorways at night!
B.S. Yeh that is killer. We are always in traffic when we leave the venue and I think that is probably the worst part of touring.
J.P. When we were in Buckinghamshire, our place we’re staying is there. It was a motorway, it’s there. It is on the other side of the roundabout just outside Towcester and the roundabout was shut. We had to take about a 25 mile diversion at 3:30 in the morning to get to where we were staying.
B.S. It was within throwing distance, you could see it, it was like right there but they were diverting everyone.
J.P. We even asked the guys on the road if we could, we were literally right there. ‘Nah mate, sorry mate, got to take it up with the boss.’
B.S. It’s the driving, the worst tour experience is driving everywhere. It’s alright on a tour bus cos you just sleep. Bus calls at 5AM, you just jump on, fall asleep and you wake up in the next place.
J.P We’ve seen some fantastic shows for best.
B.S. Best I’m gonna say is Rock City, when we played with Halestorm. I think we both agree on that one.
J.P. I think that’s one for both of us.
B.S. I think that was one of our first, it was like 4 years ago so it was when were just kicking on with our big shows. It was amazing, the crowd was epic and we were backstage having a beer, chatting hanging out. Just a really nice experience.
J.P. It was the first as well.
B.S. It was our first huge show. It was sweet.
A.P. Which questions do you dread being asked?
J.P. Where’s the tax return?
B.S. We did them all!
J.P. I’d just like to confirm in case anyone from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is listening, taxes are all done! but that is a question everyone fears in life.
B.S. You mean in an interview situation I assume? I don’t know, we’re pretty easy going. Sometimes you geta bit stuck on an answer.
J.P. It’s probably a question where the interviewer puts their finger on the pulse of something that’s happening in the band that you don’t want to talk about.
B.S. Whatever’s going on in that time like ‘How’s your relationship with the bass player?’ ‘Well i just fell out with him 5 seconds ago! I’ll be back in a minute.’ I dunno, we’re easy going so we’re not too worried about questions. I’m sure we’ll think of all the answers to all your questions the second we go up.
A.P. I’ll be in the audience!
B.S. It’ll be like ‘I’ve got your answers!’
J.P. We’ll shout them out between the songs!
With that I let them go and prepare for this evening’s hoedown, and I am positively thrilled at having had the chance to speak to them, I need a lie down!