The Fratellis Reminisce About Webster Hall, Discuss Creative Process

By Lauren Johnson

It’s been nearly 12 years since the album that launched their career, won them the 2007 BRIT Award’s Best British Breakthrough Act, and landed them an iconic iPod commercial featuring their hit single Flathead was released, but Scottish indie rock band The Fratellis are back with a new album and stronger than ever.

In Your Own Sweet Time, released on March 16, manages to keep the same upbeat, fun, stuck-in-your-head-all-day qualities as Costello Music without sounding like a rehashed version of the album that made them famous.

Composed of three members – Jon on lead vocals and guitar, Barry (“Baz”) on bass, and Mince on drums and backup vocals – The Fratellis are known for their lyrically light anthems with a heady sound reminiscent of the Black Keys meet the Scissor Sisters. Recently, I had the chance to speak with Jon Fratelli about the band’s latest album in advance of their North American tour, which kicks off on April 26 and brings them to New York City to play Brooklyn Steel on Wednesday, May 16.

Q: Hi Jon! Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with Hedonist/Shedonist. We know New York City is a long way from Scotland, so we are honored that The Fratellis will be making it for a show! Do you have any favorite memories of previous tours in the Big Apple?

A: I think we’ve done an American tour with every album that we’ve brought out, but there’s a couple of memories when it comes to New York City that stand out. One that really stands out more than any is the first thing we played in New York after we had just gotten back together again, I think we played Webster Hall. We had never seen a reaction like that – it was kind of fevered – it was the first time I can remember being taken aback by an audience. For instance, we walked on stage and before we played a note the noise from the crowd was so loud, and it went on for four or five minutes. We kept looking at each other thinking, ‘Do we play now? Do we just let them continue?’ I’d never seen anything like it. It was particularly warm that night, I think it was the middle of summer, and well, it stuck in the memory. There was an enthusiasm there, a slightly different kind of enthusiasm, no better or worse than anywhere else. You know, you [Americans] aren’t shy, if that makes sense. And that’s just a pleasure to play for that kind of audience, so we’re always excited to come back.

Q: You’ve been playing guitar and singing since you were a teenager. What led you to pick up a guitar and how did you learn to play?

A: I think I was about 16 – the summer between 16 and 17 – when I started. I tried to play before that – I’d played piano and I had tried to play guitar and just couldn’t make the damn thing work, I couldn’t get the music of it. And then that summer for some reason, I just felt compelled to continually play. I’m an incredibly slow learner, always have been, and it took years basically before I got to a point where I could say “I haven’t figured this thing out yet, but I’ve figured out enough to really be able to stand on a stage and be confident playing.” But the learning really never stops. From when this band started til now, there’s been a massive improvement, in all of us really, and you can only get that from playing hundreds of shows, you can’t get it any other way. You can play in your bedroom all your life and you still don’t get the same kind of learning experience as you do from playing night after night. And when you fall in love with something like that, a thousand wild horses couldn’t pull you in another direction.

Q: A couple of times now you’ve mentioned how much you enjoy playing on stage. Besides feeding off the energy of the crowd, what do you like most about playing for a live audience?

A: The truth is, I have a love/hate relationship with it. Hate might be a little bit strong, but just personally, it takes a lot out of me to do that, especially being a singer. I wasn’t blessed with strong vocal chords, so it takes a lot of work, day after day, to keep everything working. But the love part really just comes from – I don’t actually think there’s a word for it – nobody’s invented a word yet that’s sufficient to describe what it’s like. It’s not about being on stage; it’s about being part of that shared experience, you know? You can have the biggest band in the world in the biggest stadium in the world playing for two hours with nobody there, and that’s not a concert, that’s not an experience; you need that community that comes with the music and the people there. And it’s definitely a two way street. It’s completely unpredictable, you just don’t know each night what you’re gonna get when you walk out there. The audience doesn’t know, and you don’t know, and that’s really exciting. It’s a very good way to feel alive – that’s the best way to put it.

Q: If you could share the stage with one artist, living or deceased, who would it be and why?

A: Just for the thrill – and this would just be for me – the E Street band looked like it would be a whole lot of fun. To be in that band for one song, I would swap that for lots of other things.

Q: The Fratellis have been around since 2005 and fans are just as receptive and passionate about your newest album as they were about your first. To what do you attribute the success of In Your Own Sweet Time, and how do The Fratellis stay fresh and current in an ever-evolving industry?

A: If I knew the answer to that, I would put it in a bottle and I would get that bottle out every time I went to write songs. I think this record is, to my ears, the best thing we’ve made, and it really just came from having a really good period where lots of good ideas happened all at one time. That’s actually all that happened with the first record too. With the records in between, the ideas didn’t come as easy, they needed worked on a lot more, so they seemed less spontaneous. This time around, the ideas were just there, and it’s really just down to luck. Nobody engineers ideas, nobody’s in charge of coming up with ideas. I would go so far as to say that nobody’s ever had a good idea in their life, you know? The ideas choose you, you don’t choose them; and you just have a lucky period where lots of good ideas arrive on your doorstep. After that, it really is just a case of eking out the ones that kind of entertain you the most – it’s kind of as simple as that. It’s asking yourself if this little piece of music, if these multiple little pieces of music that are buzzing around, are enough to get me out of bed in the morning? They have to be or else I would stay there all day. With this record, there were just a lot of days where they were worth getting out of bed for.

Q: Many creatives seem to have a similar hands-off approach when it comes to generating – or perhaps “receiving” – ideas for their projects. Can you explain a little bit more how that idea fits into The Fratellis’ creative process?

A: It’s really the only way [to create]. We like to pretend afterwards that we did something, but again, I would go so far as to say that nobody has ever had an idea. At least the spark of the idea to make something – great music, or write a novel, or make a movie, or whatever it might be –the spark of the idea is never yours. It doesn’t belong to anyone. Now, there’s work after that, there’s a sort of craft I guess, and you make the idea into a shape. That’s your only job, really – to find some sort of form for the spark of the idea.

Q: It seems like the creative process is simply positioning yourself to be ready to act when opportunities come your way – sort of like playing baseball. The batter doesn’t go looking for baseballs to hit, but rather waits for the right pitch to knock it out of the park.

A: Well to me, it seems like there’s kind of two absolute truths there – one is that if you’re not absolutely driven to do it – if you don’t feel like you’re gonna explode if you don’t do it – then you shouldn’t do it. At the same time, the other truth is that sometimes, you have to go fishing – you have to put your rod in the water. You can sit there all day, and catch nothing, but there’s just some days where if you stay there long enough, you’ll catch something. And it just comes down to knowing what sort of day it is. So it’s a little bit of both, probably.

Q: Even though In Your Own Sweet Time just came out last month, you’re already working on your next album. What can fans expect to see from The Fratellis in the future?

A: That’s a good question. We certainly won’t try and recreate what we did in this album. I think at first with the previous two records to this, the ones that we made after we got back together, I really struggled to figure out what kind of music it was that we played then. We had made two records up to that point, one that had been successful and one not so much, and I knew that I had absolutely no idea and absolutely no desire to try and recreate the first record. But at the same time it was like…if we’re not gonna do that, then what are we gonna do? And it took up until this record to finally just ignore that whole question. Just drop that whole idea. Up until this point that had been kind of a problem, and then all of a sudden it stopped being a problem because I suddenly thought “My God, you’ve been an idiot. You don’t know what it is that you do, and you don’t know what it is that you should do, which means you can do anything,” which just left me completely open. And that’s kind of carried on, because I started writing the next record, and it’s more of the same of just being completely open to anything that comes up, which means we can be whatever we need to be from song to song. I think there will probably be some threads that connect the albums, but I definitely learned a lesson of trying to recreate anything. It just doesn’t work, so really it comes down to trying to entertain myself. Will it be radically different from this album? I don’t think so, but it has to be different enough to keep us engaged.

Q: Before I let you go – what’s up on your roster for NYC? Any fun touristy outings or places you want to check out before the show?

A: I don’t think I’ve ever done a touristy thing anywhere in the world. I tend to just wander, and see what certain cities have to offer. I’ve been to New York a lot, I’m sure you could go back to New York every weekend and still not find everything that’s there, and that’s one of the exciting things about a city like that. But generally a day off for us is kind of a precious thing, so there tends to be a lot of sleeping. I haven’t been on a holiday in a long time, I always think holidays are for people who have something they need a holiday from. I don’t really have anything I need a holiday from, life is sort of perfect. But generally there’s a lot of wandering, I guess, until food becomes a big deal. What are we going to have for dinner? Apart from the show that night, it’s the most interesting part of the day.