For 13 years now, English outfit Fat White Family have been equally described as one of the most vital, singular and innovative groups out there.
Alongside their stellar discography, which – as of April – now includes their first album in five years, Forgiveness Is Yours, Fat White Family have been renowned for their volatile behaviour and presence, both on and off the stage.
Most notably, a 2022 biography of the group saw author Adelle Stripe label them “a drug band with a rock problem”, though frontman Lias Saoudi admits that things have calmed down a little bit these days.
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“I’ve stopped getting fucked up on school nights. I avoid it most weekends,” he notes. “I’ve decided I want to live beyond 50, so I’ve had to change tack last minute. Now I’m all about celery juice and boxing. Celery juice for the inflammation, boxing for the incandescent rage that playing in this band for over ten years has left me with.”
This rage is far less visceral than he lets on though, and while boxing might be a cathartic release, so must be the triumph that comes with the release of their latest record. After all, a lot has changed between albums.
In addition to founding guitarist Saul Adamczewski leaving the band acrimoniously during recording, Saoudi reportedly hasn’t spoken to his brother and bandmate Nathan in months. Though Saoudi admits that triumph is something the likes of Spotify have ensured no longer truly exists, it does feel like a success to have emerged with a new album out of the morass of these past years.
“I guess it’s a response to the hive mind insanity that kicked in around the time of the pandemic or reached fever pitch around 2020 at least, when the world was stuck on its phone, wrapping itself up in an eternal crusade of extreme sanctimony, finger pointing sententious horse shit, a never round of Maoist denunciation and counter denunciation,” he says.
“It became clearer to me than ever that we’d given up on the idea of forgiveness, and had wandered instead into a far more sinister period of self-surveilling, crotch-sniffing, curtain-twitching metaphysical alienation. Our atomization was complete. We were now just nodes in a machine.”
Sonically, Saoudi notes there are entirely no external influences on the new record owing to an inability to listen to new music because of the “heartbreak and pain” it inspires, though the record’s evolved lyricism was a result of his exposure to philosophers like Cioran, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer amidst lockdown.
“I’ve always been a big reader, but the lockdowns were sort of like being given a chance to go back to college,” he says. “Only there were no parties to go to this time, so I didn’t fuck it up chasing girls around campus while doing shit ecstasy pills and speed.”
For a band whose existence has long been seemingly underlined by tumult, to release an album of such ferocity is a masterful achievement. But what is it that keeps the group driving forward to greatness? For Saoudi, it appears to be years of negative reinforcement and a desire to rise above the mess.
“[It’s] a grave lack of imagination on my part,” he says. “My dad’s voice in my head telling me I’m a failure over and over again as well, that’s always been key for me.
“It’s amazing how far you can get on sheer negativity, like, in trying to negate it, you lumber yourself deeper in the mire, the thing is to find a way of making love to negativity, then you have this spawn of ill hope,” he adds. “That’s what these songs are, the spawn of hopelessness, nascent dreamless-ness, new ruins, etc.”
With a new album out now, could we finally be seeing the long-awaited return of Fat White Family to the country? The cogs are indeed in motion for their sole Aussie venture in 2016 to be complemented with more shows in the future.
“If the good people at Beat Magazine can generate sufficient hype your end, we promise, we swear on our lives to fly out there and disappoint that hype, and disappoint it in style,” he says.
“But in all seriousness, there’s two weeks in my calendar in October that my manager has coloured in blue that have the words ‘Oz TBC’ written on them,” he adds. “TBC is a pretty big word in the music industry, so let’s not get too excited just yet, but if Allah is up there smiling down on us, then we might just be heading towards round two. Let the games begin…”
Forgiveness Is Yours will be released on Friday 26th of April. It will be available on CD, black and clear vinyl. Listen here, get physical copies here or digital here. Follow and discover Fat White Family here.
This article was made in partnership with Domino.
