Last Updated on January 7, 2024
Originally published in Beat Motel issue 7
Anyone that spotted the glowing review I gave F451 in the last issue, or has spotted me singing along with a fist in the air at either of the two gigs that I booked this band for (within weeks of each other) won’t be surprised to see this interview, laydees and genitals, let me introduce a future favourite of yours…
-First up, who are you and why?
We’re Fahrenheit451, or F451 as most people know us by now. There’s Jez (guitars), Matt (bass) and Jon (drums), and we play indie-punk-rock with loads of tunes and lots to say. We’re basically 3 indie-rock mates from school, but we’re angry about a lot of things – capitalism gone wrong, flat-earther christians, celebrity culture – and that’s where the punk comes from, which is good, because it’s genuine. We’re full-on and play full-on live performances because we mean what we say.
-How long have you been up and running, was the positive reaction to your stuff immediate or where there a few hiccups along the way?
This band’s been going for 3 years now, although the 3 of us we’re been playing together for about 7 years from an old band in school. We’re only just got out of university, so that’s been a great relief – although we never considered leaving, it’s important to have a degree. Obviously it’s been a bit tough until now, but it’s also been difficult because we’re not some 1-dimensional scene band and people often don’t get us until they see us live. But we’re getting some radio airplay, and we’re building a fanbase, so it’s starting to happen.
-What has been your most disastrous gig?
Matt reckons it’s driving all the way to Leeds to play to 8 people in a pub.
Jez and Jon are going with a recent all-dayer in Chelmsford where the sound guys were just completely rubbish ….. it’s a horrifying feeling of watching everything fall apart while you’re battling on.
-Yer last disc ‘catastophe’ had some unusual instrumentation (whistling etc). What can we expect from your future studio outings?
Haha, the “whistling” was some guitar slides with some cunning effects. Jez said he wanted it to sound like “an armed rebellion with comets raining down”
… not convinced it worked but it was worth trying. We’re recording with Neak Menter again in December and the songs have shaped up nicely. They’re more straightforward, but bolder, and we’ll be pushing ourselves more with strange sounds to make individual.
-Do you think MySpace is killing originality in live music? From the perspective that a lot of bands appear to have a MySpace page and photos before they’ve even played.
Not necessarily, although you’re right, a lot of shit bands can look 20 times better on myspace than they do on a stage. A lot don’t even bother with their own website, which is pathetic – it’d be like living in a house owned by Rupert Murdoch. Regarding originality, myspace is just accelerating everything, and showing how much harder it is to make something new. Instead you get hordes of teenagers thinking that dressing in black and hating yourself is cutting-edge, when Smiths fans were doing it 20 years ago.
-At what point would you be satisfied that F51 has achieved it’s goals?
If we could make a living, just a small one, from being a band. But we know that’s ridiculously difficult, so as long as we give it everything while we’re young and we’ve got that choice, we’ll be happy.
-Do you know why you shouldn’t hit jellyfish with shovels?
Got a vague idea, but worried now about what you do on weekends…
F451 have a super duper new E.P out now called ‘The Battleground is Everywhere’ you should probably go and buy it from www.f451.org.uk right now…
