Music Editor Lorcan Drury talks to indie-rock band Filligar about their musical influences and making music in a COVID-19 world
Two weeks ago, I had never heard of the American indie-rock band. But, after listening to their latest album Future Self, I became an instant fan. Talking to all four of the members made me become even more of a fan.
Who are your favourite artists?
Johnny (lead singer and guitar): That’s the sort of stuff that’s really changing all the time. I think through the years we’ve always returned to Wilco, a Chicago band from our home town. But recently I went to an SG Lewis show the other day and he was awesome. I kind of went down a familiar rabbit hole of Disclosure and a number of other bands like that. Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of oldies reggae, Velvet Underground, Talking Heads, artists like that.
Casey (keyboard): Like Johnny said, it’s always changing and I do think that Wilco is the band that brought us all together. Recently, I’ve been on a Brian Eno kick and I’ve been listening to a lot of Fiona Apple.
we’ve always returned to Wilco, a Chicago band from our home town
Lorcan (Redbrick Interviewer): I love Fiona Apple.
Some of her albums from the ‘90s and early ‘00s. Recently, I’ve been really into Vince Staples. When I’m in a hip hop mood, Vince really does it for me.
Teddy (guitar): I just have the weirdest listening habits. Occasionally I’ll go back to my roots and listen to a full Rolling Stones album. I will listen to the same song on repeat for a couple of days. I listened to that Glass Animals ‘Heatwave’ song on repeat for two days straight.
Lorcan (Redbrick Interviewer): That song is so addictive!
I feel like they’re psychopathic musical habits. We all have a different approach to our influences.
Pete (drums): I’m going to have to give a shoutout to a percussion group that’s always been influential to me. On the new record I did a lot of tinkering with new sounds and there’s a group called So Percussion that has always been influential.
Leading on from what Pete said, which of those artists do you think have influenced you the most?
We try to keep our influences a little mysterious
Teddy: We’ve been a band for 20 years. Our first cover was ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by Nirvana so we’ve gone through a lot of progressions. We’ve gone through a Wilco phase. At times we’ve gone more folksy. When we put out the album The Nerve we were listening to a lot of ‘Exile on Main Street’ around then. We’ve just gone through so many because we’ve been together for so long. But I don’t know about this record. What do you think guys?
Johnny: I don’t know. That’s a tough one. Probably a lot of the bands that I mentioned, well at least personally, digging into Velvet Underground, a lot of Lou Reed, kind of B side stuff, Tame Impala. I think with this album we tried to pull a lot of stuff from different types of sounds so bands, like Tame Impala, add a lot of synths, that sort of thing. Those were fun references, pulled out the Dave Smith Prophet and tried to shape it from the ground up.
Casey: I think we were also listening to a lot of ‘90s stuff, don’t you think? The Verve, that sort of stuff, and ‘80s too like Talking Heads. We try to keep our influences a little mysterious. We don’t want to be too pastiche.
Lorcan (Redbrick interviewer): That makes sense. You don’t want to reveal too much. So, for people who have never heard your music before, how would you describe your sound?
He’s more than a friend – he’s our brother
Johnny: A fair amount of it has to do with how we were brought up as a band. Pete, Teddy and myself are brothers and Casey is our friend. He’s more than a friend – he’s our brother. With that comfortability, we have over time been free to just try new things and think differently. When we started out, we loved punk music and some ska stuff. I remember one of the songs that we wrote, ‘Overdriven’, we were like ‘you know, we need a horn section. How do we get a horn section?’ As a teenage band, you might be like ‘well we don’t have a horn player.’ So we got a horn sound on the synth and all of a sudden we had a ska type operation. I think that comfortability that we have with each other allows us to push ourselves.
Lorcan (Redbrick Interviewer): Wow, that’s amazing that three of you are brothers. I could not imagine being in a band with my brothers.
Johnny: What would you be?
Lorcan (Redbrick Interviewer): I’m the least musical in my family! I’d be the really bad singer or the songwriter. My youngest brother plays keyboard and my younger brother used to play guitar and drums.
Johnny: Well start the band! What would be the name?
Lorcan (Redbrick Interviewer): ‘Drury’ because that’s our last name! (Lots of laughter)
So moving on to talk about your new album; what inspired Future Self?
we’re very proud that we made it happen because there were so many reasons why it couldn’t
Johnny: The process to this one was similar to how we’ve done things in the past but because the world has totally been turned upside down for the last couple of years, I think that certainly helped define Future Self as an album. I guess what I mean by that is that we’d be just ready to write an idea down, whether it’s a vocal idea and recording it in the voice memos or a lyrical idea and writing that in the notes app. So over the course of those years, since 2020 and before that too, we had a work bank of ideas. Then, we started to say ‘well alright, let’s take it from A to B’, sending stuff back and forth. Finally, recording studios opened back up so we were able to go in and hammer it all out which was a lot of fun.
Pete: It also was an album that was made all over the place. We did some of it in Chicago, some in our studio in New York, some in LA. Also went down to San Diego to do a bit. It was really something by necessity where we just had to adjust. It was very much a piecemeal work and we’re very proud that we made it happen because there were so many reasons why it couldn’t or shouldn’t.
Casey: It used to be that you would book studio time and just go into the studio with your songs fully written, record them as they’d be written and maybe do some overdubs. Because of the pandemic and how studios can pop up wherever it’s convenient nowadays like if you have a laptop. I’m sitting here with my mini controller (holds up a keyboard, everyone laughs). I’ll give you guys a little recital. (More laughs). So if you have 15 minutes and have an idea you can record it pretty quickly and send it back and forth to each other – even if you’re in a different city or across Los Angeles which can sometimes feel like a different city. Like Johnny and Pete said, it was a bit of patchwork and that’s the exciting part of recording these days.
You wouldn’t think that because the record sounds really cohesive. That really feeds into my next question: how has the pandemic affected you as a band?
We tried to find those pockets of normalcy and for us it’s always been fun to make music
Johnny: I think first and foremost that the past few years have affected us as individuals. I think it’s hard not to have gone through that and not to have had top of mind all the different circumstances that people had to go through in order to just live everyday life. Music has always been a labour of love and in those times when there were a lot of difficulties, I know at least personally returning to the things that we could do and the things that we love was an important way to keep on trucking. So after the initial hangover of ‘wow things are gonna really be different’, in the first few months, we settled into what everyone called the ‘new normal’. We tried to find those pockets of normalcy and for us it’s always been fun to make music and to have that in our lives so we made an effort to keep that rolling. But yeah, it’s been a wild ride and we’ve still got a little bit to go. The thing that personally I miss the most is seeing shows ‘cause I think that’s the most fun part of music – seeing a creative live in 3D. I’m glad we’re starting to be able to do that again.
Talking of live music, are you going to be touring soon?
Johnny: Our big time hope is that we’ll do some shows in the UK. We’re currently talking to some folks.
Lorcan (Redbrick Interviewer): Come to Birmingham!
Johnny: We’re in! In all seriousness, we’d love to make it happen with the UK this year. We’re currently working on some shows in the big US cities like New York, Los Angeles and our hometown Chicago so we’re shaping it all up now and there’ll be more to come on that.
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