Future Static Are Locked In For Froth & Fury
‘The production’s levelled up and we’ve levelled up in terms of our musicianship as well. I think every time you go to a Future Static show, whether that be opening, main support, headlining or whatever, it’s always going to be better than the last time you saw us. We want to be constantly improving as musicians and as people, and I think we’re doing that.’
Ryan Qualizza, guitarist in Melbourne genre bending outfit Future Static reflects on the past year and the road ahead which includes their own headline tour of Australia in January and a soon to be maiden appearance at Froth & Fury Festival in Adelaide.
‘We love Adelaide and we feel like the feeling is mutual every time we go there, we have the best fucking time and people really respond to us over there. I don’t know what it is. It’s like the best city!’
The bands trajectory has skyrocketed in the last twelve months since the release of their debut album Liminality. Tours with Electric Callboy, Crossfaith and TesseracT complimented by the bands own jaunt around Europe and the UK, they are finally back home and ready to show us what they’ve become.
‘It’s quite a shock when you list everything just in a row like that, it seems like so much is going on, but when you’re actually inside of it, you don’t really realise how crazy all of this shit is because, especially touring Europe and doing all these big international headliners, you’re really focused on just making a good impression for the audience. The bands that you are touring with because obviously they’re really great people and great musicians, and you want to not really impress them, but just show them that you are in it for the long haul and professional, so you’re more focused on the day-to-day operation of stuff. But yeah, to be honest, I don’t think any of us envisioned half of the stuff that we would do in the past couple of years.’
The band features fire bolt vocalist Amariah Cook, bassist Kira Neil, guitarists Qualizza and Jack Smith as well as drummer and all round trouble maker Jackson Trudel, with Neil vocals contrasting throughout with Cook’s to create a unique sound that Qualizza seems to put more to feeling than design.
‘Lyrically it’s a pretty simple way that we look at things. Obviously Amariah is the lead vocalist, so she takes most of those duties and she does, I would say about 90% of the lyrics and the vocal melodies, everything like that. But if somebody has a good vocal part or a good lyric, something like that, we just sort of chuck it in, see how it goes. A lot of my vocals come from Amariah basically being like, oh, I can’t do this live. Can you help me out a little bit? I’ll just do that to help out. There’s nothing really that major about it. I know that ‘Hourglass’, the chorus for that song lyrically and melodically was written by Kira and that it just felt really right to have Kira sing that section just because tonally she was great and she worked on that part. It wasn’t really about ownership, it was just about how we were feeling on the day. I didn’t even know that Kira was going to be singing that part until we got the scratch mixers back when they were doing tracking, it just felt right. So, there’s not a lot of discussion around it, it’s just, yeah, however we’re feeling and whatever serves the song best.’
One thing that is clear is the band have a wry sense of humour. Followers of the band would’ve noticed the recent Instagram revolt from drummer Jackson – and subsequent consequences when the band took it back a few days later – that they are having a wild time on this journey, evidenced by Ryan’s hilarious ‘I’m not angry just disappointed’ response.
‘I’m not going to lie, it’s been a pretty hectic week. It’s been pretty trying for all of us here in the Future Static Camp. I don’t think any of us were really expecting the soft cue from our drummer Jackson. He just took things over and there was no way we can stop him. We tried contacting Facebook. My dad is friends with Mark Zuckerberg, to try and get the posts taken down and get Jackson off the airwaves, but we got a reply back from Zuckerberg saying that his muscles were too big to be taken down, and if he threatened with legal action, Jackson would threaten back with punching. So that avenue didn’t really work out. So the best thing that we could do in that case is just let Jackson have his fun, pop him in the cage and let him rattle it around a little bit and just kind of pick up the pieces and deal with the fallout. He has been reprimanded in private. I don’t really want to bring the backend stuff to the forefront. This is supposed to be a positive interview, talking about how well things are doing, but the hot pokers are out and we’ve got to get him. Fear not, problems been dealt with, and correction will be swift and merciless!’
Europe was a success for the band this year, playing shows and festivals across the continent and doing what they do best, winning fans over.
‘We’ve got a lot of people waiting for us to come back, which is good. They’re not chasing us out with pitchforks and torches, so that’s a positive thing. But then when you’re talking about, I think some of the festivals that we played, especially Sziget Festival in Hungary, it was just like nobody heard of us. I think there was two people at sound checking on the day and they were like, ‘oh my God, I’ve never heard you guys before. We want to come and watch you when you’re actually playing’. So, nobody had heard of us at all. And the weird thing about Sziget was you’d go out there to start playing each set and you’d just see two people at the barrier, and that was super fucking intimidating. It was this massive open area, and there was fucking two or three people just there at the start of our set, and you’re like, all right, well better make the most of it and see how you go. As the set went on, people would just be walking past, hearing music and they just start descending down from the hills and we ended up having a really, really good crowd as the sun set. I think it was a couple of hundred people, you look off in the distance, it was like that first scene out of Gladiator when everybody’s just coming down the hill! So that was a really special place.’
Lastly, another moment of the bands humour when I ask what can people who have not seen the band before expect at Froth & Fury Festival. Well I think its humour.
‘Assless chaps, what else? Gimp masks! No, in all seriousness, you can just expect a genuine expression of what we are all feeling. When we play that music, you can expect high energy, you can expect a lot of passion. We’re pretty no nonsense when it comes to playing shows. We don’t do a lot of chatting or talking or anything like that. We really just want to let the music speak for itself. So that’s what you can expect. Yeah, just cool shit, cool moves, cool music. Yeah, that’s about it really. Just cool shit.’
Interview By Iain McCallum
Catch Future Static at Froth & Fury Festival at Harts Mill, Port Adelaide on Saturday November 9. Tickets from MoshTix…
