A QUICK CHAT WITH FANGZ (ISO EDITION)

Congratulations on the new EP! Sounds like it’s got a pretty strong message behind it. Can you tell us a bit about the lyrics?
Cheers! Last year was a bloody crazy year for us, with things picking up momentum very quickly resulting in a heavy touring schedule and then managing to squeeze recording a new EP in the only 3 weeks we had off for the second half of that year. Lyrically, the second EP was Josh’s chance to really open up about the challenges he has faced in his life to this point. The themes touch on, loss of loved ones, relocating to the other side of the world, and being comfortable in your own skin and not giving a fuck what others think. You know, Punk Rock stuff. Musically I guess you could say it was inspired by beer, boutique fuzz pedals, Jägermeister, the Hume Highway, Cancer Bats and The Used.

Life as we know it is pretty different now. How have you been dealing with the pandemic? Have you been keeping busy in isolation with the release of your new song?
Unfortunately, due to old mate COVID we had to cancel a heap of shows. Rather than conceding defeat, we sat down and thought about what we could do whilst still giving people some new ways to view music they may not have heard before. So, we came up with the idea to turn a small section of a warehouse we work out of into a mini studio bunker, and film a short series which we called 14U14M3 (named after out debut single). This featured a new band each week doing stripped back versions of one of their tunes, with a short interview, and us doing beer, and chilli sauce reviews, as well as speaking our silly thoughts on random topics, whilst adhering to all social distancing rules. This show was a great success and aired every Monday and Thursday for 10 episodes featuring 10 local bands before Jameel’s computer decided it had had enough. It was a lot of fun and evidently, we have some very talented friends in bands- not that we didn’t know that already!

Oh, and we’ve also written a heap of new tunes… So, hey no more “stopping touring to write new material” once restrictions are lifted!

What are some of your favourite activities to do in isolation? Any good TV series, movies, book or games you could recommend?
I’m not a big book or game kinda guy, but Doug Stanhope’s “Digging Up Mother” is great if you’re into dark humour and have an audible credit you haven’t used. Other than that, we have this game called “drink the drink”. I’m not going to bore you with the intricacies, but basically you drink your drink really fast, and then drink another drink… You get the idea. A particularly fun variation during isolation was going on Instagram live and drinking with our followers - was always a laugh, and usually ended up in dinner rapidly going from “home cooked” to “uber eats”. Sorry to our girlfriends/wives.

If you could be stuck in isolation with one person dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Another Stanhope reference here… Bill Murray for sure. There really would be no better person in the world to day drink with. I feel he’d have some absolute ripper stories too.

After this is all over and you can start performing again, can we expect any live shows from FANGZ?
Do bears shit in the woods? I’m sure it will be announced by the time this article drops, but we will be launching our EP at Frankie's Pizza August 1. The rest of the year looks like we will definitely be in QLD in Oct/Nov for a couple of festivals. Look at it this way. Once stuff becomes somewhat normal (what even is normal). We will be everywhere. Watch out.

FANGZ - New EP ‘But No Thanks’ - click to listen

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