A fine interview with A Fine Frenzy
Alex Nagorski
Issue date: 4/10/08 Section: Life!
AS: The name comes from the second track on the album, "The Minnow And The Trout," and the song is about being near people and how everybody is alike despite our small differences or situations and circumstances or whatever, because at the end of the day we're all connected. I felt very connected when writing this album because I knew I couldn't be the only one that felt the way that I did, or had gone through the things that I did. I mean it felt like I was but I knew that was not possible, so that's pretty much where it came from. Also, I was just really lonely and isolated and one cell in the sea is pretty much the most isolated as you can get. The main goal of the music was really just to give something to people that would make them feel sad or be able to acknowledge sadness in their lives, or maybe see things they weren't able to see or feel things they hadn't been able to access through music, and that's always been the basic goal for me.
AN: Your music is very intelligently and eloquently poetic and lyrical. In other words, you use a lot of vivid imagery to convey whatever it is you're trying to get across in each song. If you were asked to describe the underlying meaning or message of your record as a whole, what would that be and what inspired it?
AS: I suppose it's rediscovering the fairytale of life and applying a soundtrack to it, because I think there are so many wonderful, wild, and poetic things in the world that are very much like fairytales or things that are just greater than the ordinary day to day humdrums, and I think you can see that usually when you're looking at it from a child's point of view, so there's all that under the surface of my record.
AN: I read that you taught yourself how to play the piano. How long did it take you to do this and what kept you from giving up?
AS: It took me a long time, I feel like I'm still learning so much and getting better and having a lot of limitations that I'm trying to get rid of, and always expand. The thing that kept me from giving up is song writing, I mean that's the thing that taught me to be able to play andwrite better songs. So whenever I got frustrated I would just continue to write, and no matter how terrible I was I would just work on it. When I was writing I would have to play the same thing over and over again to kind of work things out, and that was practice but it didn't feel like practice, it just kind of felt like working to solve a problem, so that's why it was easier for me not to give up, because I had a purpose.
AN: Your music is very intelligently and eloquently poetic and lyrical. In other words, you use a lot of vivid imagery to convey whatever it is you're trying to get across in each song. If you were asked to describe the underlying meaning or message of your record as a whole, what would that be and what inspired it?
AS: I suppose it's rediscovering the fairytale of life and applying a soundtrack to it, because I think there are so many wonderful, wild, and poetic things in the world that are very much like fairytales or things that are just greater than the ordinary day to day humdrums, and I think you can see that usually when you're looking at it from a child's point of view, so there's all that under the surface of my record.
AN: I read that you taught yourself how to play the piano. How long did it take you to do this and what kept you from giving up?
AS: It took me a long time, I feel like I'm still learning so much and getting better and having a lot of limitations that I'm trying to get rid of, and always expand. The thing that kept me from giving up is song writing, I mean that's the thing that taught me to be able to play andwrite better songs. So whenever I got frustrated I would just continue to write, and no matter how terrible I was I would just work on it. When I was writing I would have to play the same thing over and over again to kind of work things out, and that was practice but it didn't feel like practice, it just kind of felt like working to solve a problem, so that's why it was easier for me not to give up, because I had a purpose.