Fang Island

Tracking guitars today for the new Fang Island album, recording at Machines with Magnets

thanks Josh Pfaff for sharing your Fang Island “Life Coach” video with all of us.

(Source: vimeo.com)

Gifs could be album covers….

In honor of Halloween, we are giving away all day today Fang Island’s debut LP !! Nobody loves Halloween more than those guys so we thought it appropriate. So if you don’t already have it? Or you love it please share the wealth and tell your friends to get it today! FREE ends at Midnight . We Love You // Fang Island & Sargent House.

HIGH FIVES FOR ALL CLICK TO DOWNLOAD

There has come a time when we’ve all wanted our own musical score to accompany our lives. The mundane being jazzed up by our theme song. Epic encounters backed by frenzied guitar riffs, video game-esque music mashing all climaxing into a heart-wrenching crescendo. If there ever was a band that could be the soundtrack to your life, Fang Island would be it.

Fang Island, a self-proclaimed instrumental band from Rhode Island began at the Rhode Island School of Design featuring guitarists/vocalists Jason Bartell, Nicholas Andrew Sadler and Chris Georges, and drummer Marc St. Sauveur.

The Minaret got to speak with Georges before the band’s first ever Florida show, supporting the Joy Formidable on Sept. 25 at the Orpheum.

The Minaret: How did Fang Island Come Together?

Chris Georges: I started the band when I was in college, initially to fulfill a class credit. We decided to take a class called Rock Band class. We just recorded an album and then it started to get more serious and we started playing outside of school events and then became a band.

Did art school have an influence over 
your music?

Art school just gave us the freedom to do whatever we wanted to kind of f*** off and be creative so it kind of lends itself to that. We wanted to make fun music because there’s really nothing else to do.

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Welsh shoegaze bashers the Joy Formidable’s debut LP, The Big Roar, dropped earlier this year via Atlantic and Canvasback; now, maximalist math-rockers Fang Island have done up an expectedly zany remix  to The Big Roar cut “Cradle”.

DL: The Joy Formidable: “Cradle (Fang Island Remix)” 

Time to play. Between finishing the writing and before heading in to finish recording their new album Fang Island will head out for some shows in September as direct support to The Joy Formidable and some of their own headliners as well. 

FANG ISLAND LIVE
09/10 - Pawtucket, RI @ Machines With Magnets w/ Dan Deacon
09/21 - Washington DC @ Red Palace 
09/23 - Charlotte, NC @ Tremont Music Hall
09/24 - Atlanta, GA @ The Drunken Unicorn 
09/25 - Tampa, FL @ The Orpheum # 
09/26 - West Columbia, SC @ New Brookland Tavern #
09/28 - Carborro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle #
09/29 - Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall # 
09/30 - Rochester, NY @ Club at Water Street Music Hall #
10/05 - Brooklyn, NY @ Glasslands  

# w/ The Joy Formidable  

Fang Island is how art school students rebel against art school. First off, it’s hard to believe there exists a band that plays pop-punk instrumental math-rock that, if represented as a graph on the Cartesian plane, would show pretension and quality in an inverse function. It is equally confounding and refreshing that a band that started as an art project at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design would have the gall to take their name from a fictional place featured in an Onion article.

It’s possible that Fang Island guitarists Nick Sadler and Jason Bartell could have gotten away with describing themselves as pioneers of the re-appropriation of arena rock. They could argue that, much in the same way that Girl Talk allows hipsters to unironically appreciate radio rap, Fang Island provides a prism  through which to enjoy all the anthemic qualities of a band like Boston or Journey. However, they would never say that, which simultaneously reinforces that they are the best art project ever and makes me a douchebag for trying to intellectualize something so pure and fun.

Sadler and Bartell lent Crawdaddy! some time out of their busy schedules to provide insight into Fang Island’s origins, new musical direction, and bold sartorial decisions.

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This Parrot has the sweetest moves to the grooves of Fang Island. Love this. 

Marc St Saveur, Fang Island 

Origins:

When and why did you start playing drums?

I started when I was 11 or 12, so around ’97/’98. My dad had a giant all-chrome Ludwig kit in the basement, so that definitely sparked my interest. And Dave Grohl. Can’t forget about him.

What, if anything, transpired to keep you playing all these years?

Constantly being interested in what was going on in the world of music and drumming. There’s always something interesting that comes along and blows me away. Like, “why the hell didn’t I think of that?!” I think it’s important to stay humble and always have a drive to improve. It’s exciting when someone kicks your ass to such an awesome degree that it psyches you up and influences you to play.

What was your first kit and how did you pay for it?

My dad is a drummer, too, and an awesome person, so my first kit that I could really call mine was a junk CB kit or something that he fixed the bearing edges on and gave a new paint job. He put a lot of work into it, and it although I didn’t really get it at the time, that was like the ultimate way for my dad to show his support. I’ll always remember that moment. I still have that kit.

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Fang Island: Infinite High-Fives

NBC’s Nonstop Sound had the chance to chat with Brooklyn-based rock outfit Fang Island before their “Deli Magazine” showcase at Brooklyn Bowl. The band generates an impressive wall of sound with their three screaming guitars, and they’re proud of it, describing their music emphatically as “everyone high-fiving everyone.”

Why should Schubert have all the fun? In both sound and attitude, Fang Island’s self-titled 2010 debut was all about the overture. Slabs of three-guitar ham steak shouldered happily against wiggy electronics and a crowded ruckus of wails, the sort of joyous choruses you’d hear from the Polyphonic Spree or even the Flaming Lips, whom these guys have toured with. It was outsized. It was fun. Shucks, it was even uplifting. It was also kind of like a really loud, really exciting one-act play, so we’ll see what the next few months bring for the boys from Fang. Idea: four guitars. 
Fri., May 27, 11:30 p.m., 2011 / 21+ / $5 / Brooklyn Bowl (DeliFest) 

Fang Island, with its three-guitar attack and lightning-fast riffs, knows a few things about shredding. Logic dictates that it also knows a fair amount about guitars. For guitarist Nicholas Sadler, there’s one axe in particular that stands out: a weirdly human girl-guitar of mysterious origins. In this piece penned for ALARM, Sadler laments the fact that he didn’t conceive of the musical mannequin first and goes on to explain what exactly makes Teenar so magical.

I Wish I Had Thought of This First: Teenar, Girl Guitar
By Nick Andrew Sadler

My name is Nick Sadler, and though I hate guitar players, I love guitars. This one is a work of mad genius. Here is Teenar, my dream guitar, at what could be a middle-school, father-daughter dance with her pervert-savant creator / daddy,  “Sunset” Lou Reimuller. I am absolutely enamored with Teenar, and I really wish that I had thought of this first.

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Fang Island at Lipstick 24 (3/19/11) - SXSW

It was a telling sign when Fang Island guitarist Nicholas Andrew Sadler asked everyone at Lipstick 24 to raise one of their hands and high-five the person next to them before the band’s set. That inclusive gesture perfectly encapsulated the overall feeling of the band’s performance, as their exuberance and undeniable musical talents made for a set that kept audience members smiling throughout. Fang Island are specialists in the same kind of uplifting, positive rock that was made popular by Andrew W.K., and their three-guitar attack made for some undeniable highs. There truly is no better way to describe the band’s sound than their own proclamation that it is the musical equivalent of “everyone high-fiving everyone.” Songs such as “Sideswiper” and “The Illinois” chugged along at a furious pace, with Sadler and guitarists Jason Bartell and Chris Georges forging an endless supply of riffs and solos into hooks that made their unpredictable song structures seem completely natural. Meanwhile, bassist Michael Jacober and drummer Marc St. Sauveur did everything they could to keep up with their friends’ flying fingers. The audience members were shouting right along with the band during the choruses, and they moved feverishly to songs like “Welcome Wagon” and “Careful Crossers,” proving that resistance was futile against the euphoria onstage. When the “oooos” and “whoas” accompanied a sweeping organ line to start set closer “Daisy,” the band’s energy was at a peak and continued until the last lyrics had been chanted. Their set was a mesmerizing display of talent, and an argument as to why people should want Fang Island to soundtrack every high-five worthy moment of their lives. -Ryan Lester