A CHAT WITH FIST TO THE SKY (Interview & Photos by Mario Salazar)
Fist To The Sky is a Chicago band that like many others around the country, has been pluggin' away for a few years now trying to make a name for themselves. They have recently released their 1st EP titled 'Light Up The World' and took the time to sit down with me to talk about the band, the new demo and their future plans. Here's what they had to say. CHICAGOSROCK: Let's start out by telling us a brief history on your band. The new EP 'Light The World Up' FLIP: We started in 2008 and had a different lineup for a while, but this is the one that has been the most successful. FRESH: We got Dick in the fall of 2008 and actually started recording right away. DICK: I found these guys thru an online ad 'Looking for a drummer'. At the time I was looking for a band, so I simply sent them a message and hit the ground running. FRESH: We actually played with his old band at one of our shows and met the guys. I think it was the year before..., I dunno. So we kinda knew each other, but not really. . | 
© 2010 www.mariosalazarphotography.com
The band from left to right: Flip, Hollywood, Fresh & Dick
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CHICAGOSROCK: I've noticed you guys have some interesting, colorful nicknames or stage names. What is the story behind that?
FLIP: I got mine from my family. Pretty much grew up with it. My real name is Phillip. So it just kinda grew, people heard it and just stuck. My grandpa used to call me that, -Flippy, Flipper..., so I had to cut out the 'Y' (laughs).
FRESH: [In my case], our old drummer and myself used to be into rap and gangster stuff so we just call each other fresh and a whole bunch of other things, but 'Fresh' is the only one that really stuck so that's what it is.
HOLLYWOOD: I'm Nick AKA 'Hollywood', I'm the clean-cut guy in the band...
FRESH: ...more like the 'pretty boy' in the band...(laughs)
HOLLYWOOD: My name was given to me by 'fashion' Flip and kinda stuck....
DICK: My name 'Dick' came from just Rich-Dick y'know. These guys are actually family and at the time I wasn't really tight with them so they just came up with that name for me. Kinda the dick in the band (laughs)...
FRESH: Well, we are really into alternative music, -actually more of a modern, alternative, so we try to give it a harder twist to it with some metal & rock fused inside of it. We're really into modern bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Disturbed and also like Shinedown, Breaking Benjamin but also like old-school stuff like Iron Maiden and Metallica. It's kinda of an old and modern rock.
FRESH: For this album, most of the writing was between Flip and myself. We'd come to the band with a structure for a song. We'd have a riff and a chorus and we'd bring to the band to practice and just jam it out and build up from it. The other guys would then add their parts and style to it.
CHICAGOSROCK: Describe your 2010 sound to me and for those who are new to Fist To The Sky.
FLIP: Generally we all listen to metal. I like Tribune and All That Remains. It's just that when we all write together, it comes out sounding a bit more alternative. So it's pretty much alternative music with a LOT of metal influences (laughs).
CHICAGOSROCK: Do you guys write individually, together as a band? What is the writing process like for you?
HOLLYWOOD: We also sometimes write on our own and then come together and make songs as a band too. Like if I have a riff and Flip also has a riff, we'll show the band and we'll build from there. Sometimes they'll have the whole song done by themselves, and then we'll just add our own pieces to them or we'll play what they've already written because we like it already..
FLIP: I got mine from my family. Pretty much grew up with it. My real name is Phillip. So it just kinda grew, people heard it and just stuck. My grandpa used to call me that, -Flippy, Flipper..., so I had to cut out the 'Y' (laughs).
FRESH: [In my case], our old drummer and myself used to be into rap and gangster stuff so we just call each other fresh and a whole bunch of other things, but 'Fresh' is the only one that really stuck so that's what it is.
HOLLYWOOD: I'm Nick AKA 'Hollywood', I'm the clean-cut guy in the band...
FRESH: ...more like the 'pretty boy' in the band...(laughs)
HOLLYWOOD: My name was given to me by 'fashion' Flip and kinda stuck....
DICK: My name 'Dick' came from just Rich-Dick y'know. These guys are actually family and at the time I wasn't really tight with them so they just came up with that name for me. Kinda the dick in the band (laughs)...
FRESH: Well, we are really into alternative music, -actually more of a modern, alternative, so we try to give it a harder twist to it with some metal & rock fused inside of it. We're really into modern bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Disturbed and also like Shinedown, Breaking Benjamin but also like old-school stuff like Iron Maiden and Metallica. It's kinda of an old and modern rock.
FRESH: For this album, most of the writing was between Flip and myself. We'd come to the band with a structure for a song. We'd have a riff and a chorus and we'd bring to the band to practice and just jam it out and build up from it. The other guys would then add their parts and style to it.
CHICAGOSROCK: Describe your 2010 sound to me and for those who are new to Fist To The Sky.
FLIP: Generally we all listen to metal. I like Tribune and All That Remains. It's just that when we all write together, it comes out sounding a bit more alternative. So it's pretty much alternative music with a LOT of metal influences (laughs).
CHICAGOSROCK: Do you guys write individually, together as a band? What is the writing process like for you?
HOLLYWOOD: We also sometimes write on our own and then come together and make songs as a band too. Like if I have a riff and Flip also has a riff, we'll show the band and we'll build from there. Sometimes they'll have the whole song done by themselves, and then we'll just add our own pieces to them or we'll play what they've already written because we like it already..
Light Up The World -
2010 EP
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CHICAGOSROCK: So you've got this new demo 'Light The World Up'. Are there plans for a full-length record anytime soon?
FRESH: Hopefully. Hopefully this will get us shows where we can save up and get it done professionally. We'd like to do a professional full-length album. People have been waiting for stuff from us for so long we decided to put something out and give them all that we had for right now, -which is also all we could afford for right now. The goal right now is to do as many shows as possible and get the word out there. FLIP: Some of the songs like Bad Karma, Finally Awake are 4-year old songs, but we never put them out and some of the songs are newer. So we just wanted to put together a collaboration of all the things we've done in the last couple of years and put them out there. CHICAGOSROCK: It's probably safe to say you're working on building a buzz, correct? So are you looking to stay local or are you looking to expand that buzz regionally or perhaps even nationally before going into doing a professional record? FLIP: First we are trying to creat a buzz in Chicago. We are trying to build up a strong fan base in our hometown because we love Chicago. So we'll build our fan base here and once we have something more professionally done, then we'll branch out nationally. I think we all agree on that. |
CHICAGOSROCK: Has anyone approached you guys yet in regards to recording or anything along those lines?
FRESH: Not yet.
FLIP: We haven't played that many shows yet. We haven't put the shows
together yet. With these songs, this lineup, we haven't put ourselves
out there yet. So that's the next step, we gotta play.
CHICAGOSROCK: Is that something that would interest you or are you more interested in maximizing the whole 'Do-it-Yourself' approach?
FLIP: We take it like whatever happens, we'll go with that. We'll try almost anything.
FRESH: We love doing things ourselves. Mixing and producing this album was a lot of fun. It was work, but it was fun.
HOLLYWOOD: We love the aspect of learning as we do things ourselves. We think though, that we need a producer for our next time, to make it more radio-friendly I guess, more of an actual production like a show, rather than just music on a CD. We think that would really benefit us next time.
CHICAGOSROCK: Is that something that would interest you or are you more interested in maximizing the whole 'Do-it-Yourself' approach?
FLIP: We take it like whatever happens, we'll go with that. We'll try almost anything.
FRESH: We love doing things ourselves. Mixing and producing this album was a lot of fun. It was work, but it was fun.
HOLLYWOOD: We love the aspect of learning as we do things ourselves. We think though, that we need a producer for our next time, to make it more radio-friendly I guess, more of an actual production like a show, rather than just music on a CD. We think that would really benefit us next time.
CHICAGOSROCK: Anything else beyond that ? FLIP: We're ready to go, ready to play! That's what we're here to do. CHICAGOSROCK: Do you have a particular target demographic or market you're trying to hit ? FRESH: Probably, mostly the younger scene. The new crowd of kids getting into music and hopefully taking them with us. CHICAGOSROCK: ...younger meaning what ? Toddlers, teenagers...? FLIP: ...late teenagers. Probably not teenie-boppers but maybe 16, 17 year-olds thru about 35. That's the age group we've been hitting and those are the ones that have been showing up so far. So we'll just go with that...! (laughs) CHICAGOSROCK: That's cool. So what are you doing to reach those people ? FLIP: Well, with this album, these are just songs that we've had and some new ones. The next album is going to be more of a planned out thing [I guess], and we feel they'll be more behind it because it'll all be new, fresh stuff. So we already can tell where it's going to go. This is what we have now and that's what we're going to show people, and see how it goes. HOLLYWOOD: We just got the domain name fisttothesky.com, so right now it links to our MySpace but we're looking to get a professional web designer to get our Fist To The Sky website going with our music, show dates and things like that. For right now we have the MySpace (myspace.com/1fisttothesky), Facebook, Twitter, ReverbNation, Pure Volume and all that good stuff. Check us out...! |
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