Refined Flavour

Fat Freddy's Drop

Fat Freddy's Drop began with an exceptionally broad canvas. Since embraced worldwide as a stellar live act, it's become easy to overlook the eccentricity of the group's origins. Coalescing in the late-'90s, Fat Freddy's Drop began purely as a jam band. For years, their live sets were almost entirely improvised. Even today, a significant portion of each performance is composed in the heat of the moment.

Which isn't unusual, in or of itself. Plenty of bands can be described as capable improvisers. Fewer can lay claim to having a multi-platinum, award-winning debut album under their belts. Released in 2005, Fat Freddy's Drop's debut album, Based On A True Story, has sold over 100,000 copies in New Zealand alone, which is unusual. Fat Freddy's Drop's world-conquering career was built on a foundation of sprawling improvisation. So, Blackbird is something of a development. Released earlier this year, the band's third album sees Fat Freddy's Drop ditching the sprawl of Based On A True Story and 2009's Dr Boondigga & The Big BW in favour of shorter, tighter works. While many of the tracks still push into six- and seven-minute territories, their overall songwriting is sharper and punchier. It's a work of surprisingly lean structure.

“I think, for me, it feels a little bit more deliberate. Or something,” saxophonist Scott Towers (alias 'Chopper Reedz') says. “I think we've been doing this for a long time now and we're starting to really wrap our heads around songwriting. I feel like we get to the meat of a song a lot quicker on this album than we have on our previous records. We've done a better job of narrowing our focus for each particular song.

“There are many, many versions of these songs. And some of the versions are miles away from where they started. Russia, the second song on the album, is a pretty straight dub tune - except, when we started playing it, that dub part was just a small section of a completely different piece of music. That's how we played that song for a long, long time. Until someone in rehearsal said it should just be the dub section.”

In a weird way, it's an oddly fitting turn of events. Fat Freddy's Drop have defined their career through the management of sprawl. Based On A True Story took nearly five years to fully assemble. Each record involves years of live shows, random jams, edits, remixes and restructuring. Recording every live show, the band sifts through each improvisation later to look for ideas and hooks. It's an intensive process.

“As soon as we finished Dr Boondigga, we chucked some MPCs and drum machines in a cupboard and, to just fill in time while we waited for artwork to be finalised and stuff, we just started writing beats. Those beats really started the songwriting process that led into Blackbird. They make their way into the live set really quickly. Often, we'll tack it onto the end of a well-known song and just jam on it and see where it goes.”

It's not just musical sprawl, either. Fiercely independent, Fat Freddy's Drop release their records on their own label and are largely self-managed. No small feat, given they've got seven members to negotiate. With a touring schedule that spans multiple months and continents, their entire career has gradually grown into an ongoing exercise in navigating a series of disconnected schedules, perspectives and family commitments.

“Touring has become a fine art now,” Towers boasts with a laugh. “We know exactly what we need to do to make it work, what everyone requires in terms of space. Even to the point where our tour manager and agent in the UK can talk about how many shows we've got in a row on a tour and what each of us can do on our day off to re-energise. We're a pretty slick combo on the road, these days. You have to be.

“We really try and manage it so that we're not away from our families for more than a couple of weeks. You know, we'll head over to Australia to play a festival, come back and do some shows in New Zealand, head back to Australia for some headline shows, come back to New Zealand and cool off and then head on over to Europe again. When we come home, there's a good chance we'll be doing more shows again, though.” 

So, it's only natural for the band to have streamlined their musical sprawl with their third album. Having started with such a broad canvas, each year of the band's existence is an exercise in growing more refined and specific in their approaches - though Towers remains insistent that the band's love of improvisation and exploration will always play a major role in their output. 

“The improvising idea is still a huge part of what we're about - always have been, always will be - but I feel like we can make our set that much more interesting now because we have an array of key songs we can throw into the set if we want to. The ability to surprise an audience is great. To just play an old song in the middle of some brand new jam or idea is really appealing.

“You know, we really enjoy creating these songs and it doesn't take much for us to really get going on an idea and jam on it at a live concert,” the saxophonist enthuses. “It's part of our process, really. We record all our live shows and, listening back, we can hear what works with an idea and what doesn't. Improvisation is really important to us like that.”