Music Mania: If It Carries On Like This We Are Moving To Morecambe by The Fierce & The Dead [Exclusive Interview]

Weird title but great music — that’s what we like about these great discoveries that the Music Mania segment has brought us and that’s what keeps us going. Today, we feature a band from the UK called The Fierce & The Dead and their first album. If It Carries On Like This We Are Moving To Morecambe is a unique album mixed with electronic tracks, rock tracks, some smooth ambient tracks and some songs that would be a great accompaniment to a de-stressing session.

We even got the chance to interview the band (well, a member of their band) so you’ll actually find out where Morecambe is and why they’re going there.

Interview, tasters and purchase links for the album within.

The album contains 10 tracks and you can download it for £7 or more.

Interview with Matt Stevens from The Fierce & The Dead

Jackson: Tell us about your band.

Matt: The Fierce And The Dead is a band project that I’ve been trying to get going for a while with various different people. Eventually, what happened was that when we were recording my second solo album with my friends Kev Feazey and Stuart Marshall doing a version of my song Snow and we realised that what we had was a band. We released those sessions as our debut EP; one long song, 19 minutes long. We never intended it to be a really long song it, just came out that way.

It’s very much a collaboration between the three of us, unlike my solo stuff, it’s all done together and we make all the decisions together. Everything including the songwriting is split between us. The response from bloggers and listeners was far more positive than we ever expected. The EP did pretty well for an underground release. After that, we got offers from labels but we decided to stay indie.

We’ve just released our first album, we’ve been really pleased with the response, really positive. The blogs have been supportive about it and the listeners have bought it, it has been great really through word of mouth. The good thing is that we’ve been playing together so long we play very much as a unit because we played together in various bands for years. No one is over-playing, there are no flash solos on the album or anything like that. I’m not keen on a lot of instrumental stuff because its just people showing off, just noodles. It is all about the songs, even though there are improvised bits in there. There would be no point putting out another really long track, unless we were inspired to do that. It is really important to keep moving and trying new things, taking risks.

Jackson: To me, it feels like this album is slightly different from your previous releases. Am I right to say that?

Matt: Yeah it is. It is very different to my solo stuff and kind of a continuation of our first EP. The songs are a lot shorter and there is a lot more light and shade, ambient bits, sax, clean stuff, noisy fast stuff. It covers quite a lot of ground really. I’m pleased about how it came out, Kev Feazey who plays Bass and Synth did a great job on the production.

Jackson: Did you draw inspiration from other artists while putting this album together?

Matt: All sorts of stuff – Can, 80′s US hardcore, Tribute to Jack Johnson era Miles Davis, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Explosions In The Sky, King Crimson, Napalm Death, DJ Shadow, soundtracks, even some black metal. We all listen to really diverse stuff and it all comes out in the music. If you ask anyone in the band, you’ll get a different answer.

Jackson: Why Morecambe and where is it?

Matt: Morecambe is in the north of England, it’s a place people of modest ambition go on holiday. It seemed strangely appropriate.

Jackson: What does The Fierce & The Dead have in store for us in the near future?

Matt: Lots of gigs this summer then a new vinyl EP in the new year. We’re looking to bring in another musician to help us play the music live, there is so much stuff in there on the album and we really want to pull off a good live show. I can’t wait to play this stuff live and it’s great people want to see it.

To buy the album, head over to the album’s page on Bandcamp. Check out our previous Music Mania posts to discover other free albums you may have missed.