E Pluribus Urine

By Jeannette Madden
Staff Writer

Indie rock band Fake Problems plays The Venue Sunday, September 5, with Gaslight Anthem. Fake Problems is touring in support of their sophomore release, “Ghosts Caught On Tape” and all I can say is get the album. You will not regret it.

As I listened to it, two things immediately struck me. First, each song is better than the last, which is amazing because every song is awesome. Second, I cannot remember a time when I immediately liked a whole album like I did this one. Usually, I like one or two songs and then the rest of it grows on me after listening to it twenty or thirty times. Not “Ghosts Caught On Tape.”
Each song is unique and each song reminds me of someone or something else but at the same time, they all fit together beautifully. I was able to speak with lead vocalist/guitarist Chris Farren.

High Plains Reader: How do you define your music?

Chris: I think that it’s pretty much rock and roll. It definitely fits in with what the Gaslight Anthem are doing. We’ve been friends with those guys for like three years. We took them on their first tour. I call it indie rock, mostly. This record’s particularly inspired by 60s girl groups, a Phil Spector type of production, a lot of techniques like that. Modest Mouse, Vampire Weekend. Somebody called us “beach punk,” which I thought was pretty cool. I’m pretty into that definition.

HPR: Tell me the history of the band.

Chris: We’ve been a band for five years now. We started just because we were four kids in a town [Naples, Florida] that doesn’t really have that much of a thriving music scene, who wanted to kind of branch out and make music and tour. There’s no real venue in Naples for live music and touring bands don’t come. Once we had music the only way we could get it out to people was to pretty much deliver it, so that’s what drove us to start touring and get out there on our own. We started booking our own tours and we put out some of our own records.

HPR: Can you tell me about each of the band members?

Chris: Okay, this will be fun. My name is Chris, I sing, I play guitar. Do I have to talk about myself, too? Can I just talk about everyone else?

HPR: Yes, you do have to talk about yourself. But I’ll tell you a little secret. I save this question just for special bands and whoever answers talking about everyone else first and themselves last.

Chris: Well, I was going to do a brief one of me, but now I look like a total idiot! Okay, I’ll save the best for last, I guess. Okay, okay. I’m still going to start with me. I’m kind of introverted. I like music and I pretty much only do things involving music. I am always recording and writing. Thinking of ways to make our set list better and all that junk. Okay, I’ll move on.

Casey Lee is our lead guitar player, kind of like a free spirit, I would say. Like Dharma from “Dharma and Greg.” He rarely wears shoes. He was runner up on Warp Tour, second place for dirtiest feet of the tour. He’s great at guitar.

Derek Perry is our bass player. He is crazy. He juggles a lot and he’s pretty serious about it…he’s out there. He’s definitely an extrovert. He’s always all up in everybody’s face.

Sean Stevenson, I guess Sean’s the cute one. He dresses really well, he has blonde hair, he’s really tall and he plays drums. He has a little voice and he’s really bad at yelling. He can’t scream or yell and if he tries it’s almost maybe the funniest thing in the world.

HPR: I know that you tour extensively. Can you tell me about that?

Chris: Yeah, like I said,  touring is the way to go and this is what you need to do if you want to be successful. We’ve been trying to reach as many people as possible. We try to do our own headline shows and try to even those out with support slots, because we’re very excited to go out with Gaslight. but at the same time, with your own shows there is also the benefit of being in charge, getting to play a longer set and the fans are there specifically to see you. So, we try to balance it out, to stay on the road as much as possible.

HPR: From what I read, it sounds like you guys have had your share of problems on the road. I suppose touring so much you’re going to…

Chris: One time a turkey flew through our windshield. It like flopped all the way to the back of the van and I was sleeping in the back of the van. I woke up with a turkey fighting for its life on top of me. Like a huge turkey, you know turkeys are pretty big!

So, I had to kick it away from me and I think I killed it but it was going to die no matter what. We were stuck in the middle of Tennessee for the weekend because we couldn’t get the windshield fixed until Monday.

One time we were at a venue and it was attached to a strip mall. We went up on the roof (at the time we were like 18, 19 years old and we were just kind of screwing around.) We weren’t doing anything crazy, weren’t vandalizing anything. But somebody in there called the police and before we knew it there were helicopters overhead and a bunch of cop cars. We all got arrested for trespassing. Yeah, and Sean got beat up by the cops, too, because they thought he was trying to run away when really he was just jumping off the roof to get down.

HPR: I promise, I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing with you.

Chris: No, no, it’s a crazy thing. Those are just two of the things. Oh, one time our trailer caught on fire but that wasn’t that big of a deal. We’re a band and we drive in the van a lot. There’s bound to be some water bottles full of pee. We opened the trailer and one of Sean’s drums had caught on fire somehow, like there was an electrical circuit from the trailer loose. The only thing we could use to extinguish the fire was pee, from bottles. It did work and everything was fine. It’s just that everything was covered in pee.

To learn more about Fake Problems, check out their website http://www.myspace.com/
fakeproblems. I highly recommend the videos “The Dream Team” and “Frank Turner Tour.”

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If You Go

What: Gaslight Anthem, The Menzingers, Fake Problems
Where: The Venue at The Hub
When: Sun, Sept 5, 7:30pm
Info: 800.511.1552