“Thanks for coming, man. Want some bum juice?”
“What the fuck is in this shit?”
“Tampico and Everclear. It’s pretty gross.”
When they started in 2009, seeing FIDLAR meant showing up to a house party and eventually having this exchange with one of them. Zac Carper, The bands guitarist and singer (well, one of ’em) would hand you a red cup , throw an arm around your neck and probably end up blurting out how fucked up he was. Their set list would read more like a grocery list of party supplies than a list of songs: “Cocaine. Cheap Beer. Chinese weed. Four Loko.”
After a few years of being a band Zac still plugs in his pedals attached to a skate deck (“Pedal board”, get it?) and says “Hi We’re FIDLAR: F-I-D-L-A-R. It means ‘Fuck It Dog, Life’s a Risk”. Seeing a FIDLAR set consists of drinking and dancing with people that are twice as drunk as you are while the band rips through songs about what they know best: The girl doesn’t call, my ex is a whore, I lost my phone, my car is a piece of shit, my friends are pieces of shit, I do too many drugs, I’m really awkward, I love Del Taco.
FIDLAR is Zac Carper, Elvis Kuehn, Brandon Schwartzel, and Max Kuehn. Elvis and Zac met at Kingsize Soundlabs in LA and recorded a ton of demos with the band before playing a live show. Their first show was on a FMLY bike ride at a skatepark in Culver City. Three years later the band has played with Black Lips, OFF!, Japanther and toured with The Hives. They’ve released two EP’s and just got back from touring Europe.
Listening to them, you can tell that the band did their homework on punk rock and seem dead set on inflicting lessons on anyone willing to listen. Any given song will give you a Germs influenced guitar solo, the catchy “Ooo’s” and “Ah’s” of The Misfits , and lyrics in the same family as Black Flag’s “Six Pack” and “TV Party” . On the same token they can just as easily be compared to any of the bands they cover (Blink 182, FEAR, CCR, Warron Zevon), yet it all comes across entirely their own: Surfier, Faster, more fuzzed out, more personal and a lot more drunk.
FIDLAR are your dumbass friends that find a beer, scrape the shit off their shoes, and tell you how the hardest thing about waking up late and trying not to fuck up your life is having to do it with no job, no money and everyone bumming your cigarettes.
FIDLAR recently teamed up with Parks & Recreation star Nick Offerman to create their most outrageous video yet. Pairing once again with Ryan Baxley, the director behind over-the-top clips for “Cheap Beer” and “Max Can’t Surf,” the video for “Cocaine” features a pissed Offerman on a decidedly-NSFW, 40-fueled bender through Los Angeles. Nothing is safe, including the Hollywood sign, a few animals, Matt Zuk, Nick Cage’s star on the Walk of Fame…
Tour Dates
8/29/13 – San Francisco, CA – Bottom of the Hill
9/01/13 – Seattle, WA – Bumbershoot Festival
9/02/13 – Vancouver, BC – Biltmore Cabaret
9/19/13 – Santa Ana, CA – The Observatory
9/20/13 – Santa Barbara – CA – Velvet Jones *
9/23/13 – Tucson, AZ – Club Congress *
9/24/13 – Phoenix, AZ – The Crescent Ballroom *
9/26/13 – Denver, CO – Larimer Lounge *
9/27/13 – Kansas City, MO – Czar Bar *
9/29/13 – St. Louis, MO – Firebird
9/30/13 – Columbia, MO – Mojo’s *
10/02/13 – Atlanta, GA – Drunken Unicorn *
10/4-6 +10/11-14 – Austin, TX – Austin City Limits
10/07/13 – New Orleans, LA – One Eyed Jacks *
10/08/13 – Baton Rouge, LA – Spanish Moon *
10/14/13 – Nashville, TN – Exit/In *
10/18/13 – Toronto, ON – Hard Luck *
10/19/13 – Montreal, QC – Il Motore *
10/23/13 – Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair *
10/24/13 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom *
10/25/13 – Philadelphia, PA – First Unitarian Church *
10/26/13 – Washington, D.C. – Rock and Roll Hotel * 10/28/13 – Pittsburgh, PA – The Smiling Moose Upstairs *
10/29/13 – Cleveland, OH – Grog Shop *
10/31/13 – Chicago, IL – Subterranean *
11/01/13 – Madison, WI – High Noon Saloon *
11/02/13 – Minneapolis, MN – 7th Street Entry *