With a name that makes automatic spelling and grammar fixes an unwelcome burden, fun. are simply as their name describes: fun, period. The band formed just a couple years ago when frontman Nate Ruess’s band, The Format, broke up. He joined forces with Jack Antonoff (formally of Steel Train) and Andrew Dost (formally of Anathallo) to create a unique indie-pop group.
In an interview with The Eagle, the multi-instrumental Andrew Dost talked about the band’s conception.
“We all just kind of developed a mutual respect,” Dost said. “It was something we’d kinda wanted to do but it was unspoken. So once The Format, Nate’s band, disintegrated, he called up me and Jack. And then within the week we just agreed to go and get one-way tickets to New York to meet Jack, and that was it, we just started writing right away.”
From the very first moment of their debut album “Aim and Ignite,” which was released in late August, fun. bring Broadway to alternative-pop music. The first track, “Be Calm,” exemplifies everything that makes fun. what they are, and the song Dost believes most defines their sound. Backup vocals are prominent, and more orchestral instruments are added to the traditional rock mix of guitar, bass and keyboards to give the whole record a more theatrical tone. A later number, “Light a Roman Candle With Me,” sounds like it came right out of a musical, and Ruess’s songwriting and vocals stand out above all else.
The band’s “’70s of ‘60s sensibility,” in Andrew’s words, comes out in several of the tracks. One of the singles, “All the Pretty Girls,” is reminiscent of the Beach Boys at times, and is definitely one of the standouts on the 10-song CD.
Things get a little funkier on “At Least I’m Not As Sad (As I Used To Be),” and the oddball combination of musical genres and instruments forces the listener to not be sad — at least, not as sad as they used to be before listening to the song.
“I would like to think that what makes us special is that we genuinely know what we’re doing,” Dost said. “I think there’s a tendency in rock bands to feel what you’re doing, and just go from your gut or your crotch or wherever it is that rock ‘n’ roll emanates out of. But I think we tend to write from our brains, or at least I do, more than I do out of my stomach.”
Clarifying his thoughts, Andrew Dost continued to try and explain what makes fun. so different and worth listening to.
“I think at least a lot of what’s popular, what’s out of the indie world right now, is sort of like garage-y and low-fi stuff. I definitely think we’re a reaction to that in the complete opposite direction; we want our songs to be very hi-fi and very well thought out and well put together.”
Fun. have gotten a lot more notice recently, thanks to a feature on blink-182 bassist and singer Mark Hoppus’s Spin Magazine blog, Hopp on Pop, which Dost called “really cool.” Although in the piece Hoppus expresses an interest in working with the band in the future, fun. have “no plans at this point” to do so.
Like many other bands, the members of fun. have taken to social networking — but not for any serious purposes.
“We use Facebook and Twitter,” Dost said. “I think that’s more not even to reach out to fans as it is just like, it’s nice to have people pay attention to stupid, random thoughts that we have.”
But the most important thing to keep in mind about fun., according to Dost, is to keep an open mind.
“Just please give it a chance and believe in it a little bit,” he asks listeners. “I think all music takes a little bit of effort to get into, a little bit of something of yourself that you have to give to it. It’s almost a willingness to believe, not just the absence of cynicism or skepticism but just giving yourself to it. That’s how I want people to listen to my art, with some willingness to give themselves to it a little bit.”
Catch fun. live as they open for Jack’s Mannequin at the 9:30 club on both March 3 and 4.
You can reach this staff writer at mhollander@theeagleonline.com.
