Finger Eleven Celebrate An Enduring Career Of Over Two Decades With ‘Greatest Hits’

Craft Recordings celebrates the enduring career of Finger Eleven with the band’s first collection of hit singles. Spanning over two decades, the Greatest Hits album highlights the group’s diverse range with fan favorites, including multi-platinum hit Paralyzer and Juno-nominated One Thing, plus chart-toppers like Falling On and Living in a Dream. As a bonus, the 12-track set also offers a previously-unreleased cover of Pink Floyd’s Welcome to the Machine (a longtime live staple) as well as the band’s first new single in more than seven years, Together Right.

Finger Eleven, which currently includes original members Scott Anderson, Sean Anderson, James Black, and Rick Jackett, plus drummer Steve Molella (who joined the band in 2013), released their critically-acclaimed seventh studio album, Five Crooked Lines, in 2015. Since then, they have remained active on the road and enjoyed their legacy as one of Canada’s biggest bands. Between 1995 and 2016, Finger Eleven was among the top 75 best-selling Canadian artists in Canada and among the top 25 best-selling Canadian bands in Canada – as evidenced by Greatest Hits. Today, they show no signs of slowing down. Front man Scott Anderson talks to Hi Fi Way about their Greatest Hits compilation.

Congratulations on your Greatest Hits compilation, how was the process of compiling that?
It’s been a dream for a long time. The idea that we have enough songs to fulfill it is wonderful. We finally thought, okay, the time is right, and we decided let’s get off our asses and get some artwork together and pull the trigger. It does feel really good. It’s something we’ve talked about for years, you have those late night talks and then finally committing to it in the light of day. I’m glad it’s a project that it’s finally become real.

With so many great songs how hard was it to kind of get it down to that final twelve? Were there plenty of robust discussions about what’s in and what’s not?
Well, there was, but there were also some heated debates between. It took a very long time, and that’s just because everybody’s passionate. Not only what songs go on the album, but where they go. That’s always been something that’s important that if we’ll put out an album, okay, what is the running order and how many seconds between songs. It’s always been the idea that you’re sitting down with a full record like the way we used to do. So in that case, let’s make sure the journey works for us. The running order took a couple weeks to figure out. Then once we would have it down, we’d say, oh, what about this song? There were a couple songs on the chopping block, and then the numbers had to have their say. Was this a greater hit? Will the fans be absolutely pissed if we keep this song off? We had to have those discussions. In the end, like all things in Finger Eleven, all the members came out as happy as can be.

The new single Together Right complements this compilation perfectly.
Well, I’m glad you say that and the band feels really strongly about that song. It has few out on the radio for a few weeks or so. You never can tell how somebody’s going to react to your music, but this one seems really special, and people seem to be having a really good time with it. I’m glad that it found its way onto the ‘Greatest Hits’, it’s proving itself to be something special, so that’s great.

Did you find that as you were working through the songs to go on the compilation did you get nostalgic at all? Did it take you back to particular points in time where certain things happened?
Yeah, some of these songs took me back as only music can do. There’s some songs off The Greyest of Blue Skies where I don’t really recognise that the person who’s singing that song, there’s just some moments in time, there’s a lot of anger and frustration that I tried to channel into some kind of process. I do remember Drag You Down, started to be a hit somewhere in Florida, we got grouped into playing some really hard show. Finger Eleven isn’t all hard stuff, we’re kind of all over the place, that’s when we first met up with Sevendust who were who and still are like incredibly kind and wonderful dudes.

They didn’t have to be as nice as they were to us, but I remember touring with them and having been blown away by their live show, and we just looked at each other and said we need to step it up. Like, they’re amazing! It’s all times and places that you forget. There are wonderful moments in time and you stack them together and it does make you realise some time has gone by. I’ll say that!

With this Greatest Hits has it been a time for the band to reflect on what has been achieved over the journey?
I can’t really believe it. It feels like we’ve never stopped being a band. The process has been largely the same, get in a room, plug your stuff in and see what happens. Our lives have become different. We don’t get together every single weekend like as teenagers. There’s just different positions in life now, but when we get into the same room, we can still pretend that we’re still seventeen years old. Nothing has changed in that world. I think there are some bands that have a hard time being together, whether there’s like some animosity or maybe they don’t want to be friends, but they’re stuck in like a level of success and there’s nothing they can do about it. We’ve always been friends and like worked out our differences, that’s as good as having another single out. The friendship is as important as the music, and I think one feeds into the other.

Do you think it’s those friendships that you would say is the secret to longevity and the foundation of success for Finger Eleven?
There’s a lot of respect. If somebody is shooting down your idea, you don’t have to be spiteful. You respect everybody’s position and everybody wants to make something better. I think you try something different. There is a strong foundation there. I don’t know if every band has that. I feel lucky that we still can operate that way.

With the success of the single has that got the band thinking about new music?
We were blown away by the reaction. We’re talking a lot about that it’s time to get into a room and finish song A, B, C, and D. I know we have some great music to follow up. We just have to say that it’s finished. There are at least three or four songs that time has proved, it’s sitting on the bench for long enough that I still like it. There’s always a danger of like, oh, this is the new song, this is the new idea this is really good, but time can’t really fool that.

The big question Australian fans would be asking is whether an Australian tour planned at some stage?
We would love nothing more. We’ve only been down to see you once. Things are moving really fast, the phone is ringing more than it has in a little while. We would fall over ourselves to get that done to come down and see you. We would absolutely love to tour Australia.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Finger Eleven Greatest Hits is out now…