Splicing emo and metal influences, Fightstar’s music encompasses the delicate and the dark. “That blend of aggression and tenderness is the most important thing to us,” says frontman Charlie Simpson. Drop in some good looks and great musicianship and you’ve got yourself an unbeatable formula.
Fightstar knows that what’s important isn’t where you’re coming from, it’s where you’re headed. OK, no denying that Charlie cut his musical teeth with teen sensation Busted, but that was then. Fightstar’s original label clearly wanted more of the same, which is why they parted company; the band is now with Gut/Institute records and producing an altogether more mature sound – but one that still rocks.
Their latest album One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours draws in part on emotions stirred up by the break-up of Charlie’s longstanding relationship: he reckons ‘it was almost therapeutic to vent it all on the album…In fact some of the vocal tracks on the album are actually demo takes because I sung those when my feelings were still very raw‘. The record was produced with Matt Wallace (Faith No More) at the helm and recorded in a mere six weeks. Says bassist Dan Haigh, ‘the pressure made the album sound really visceral and real.”
And they’re a band with a conscience. Recent single ‘Flood‘ was inspired by watching Al Gore’s global warming movie An Inconvenient Truth. According to Charlie, “like most people I was blissfully unaware of how bad things had become, and I realized that we should all be facing responsibility for the way we behave. It really inspired the whole record: how we treat our planet and our society now is going to have repercussions in 50 years’ time.‘
Influential webzine Drowned In Sound reckons that Fightstar play with ‘a gritted sheen and dexterity that their mothers would be proud of.‘ Their mothers are obviously a lot groovier than ours.
In a word: huge.
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