fidlar’s brandon schwartzel chats about touring with dune rats, aussie critters and the band’s new album

With iconic punk tracks including “No Waves”, “Cheap Beer”, “By Myself” and countless other rowdy tunes under their belt, FIDLAR is a band who needs little to no introduction. The Los Angeles-based trio of musos are also no strangers to performing on our shores — even touring alongside Dune Rats just this year.

We were lucky enough to steal a chat with FIDLAR’s ace bassist, Brandon Schwartzel, and discuss everything from the band’s decade-long run so far to their brand-new album, which you can stream down below.

FIDLAR’s been making music for over a decade. How would you describe the music that you were first making to the music that you're making now? I would like to say that we just kind of like to make music. When we first started the band, we were a lot younger and we had never played thousands of shows all over the world, we were just living in a party house. And so, just hanging out with our friends and getting fucked up or whatever.

We just wrote about what we knew, we're not that complicated of people! That's it. It's kind of what we've always tried to do, and also not be too precious or overthink it too much.

You’ve also developed such a strong friendship with Dune Rats over the years. How did this friendship first come to be? It's been over a decade now, but I feel like maybe the first time we came to Australia —   which was 2013, I think — and we played one show with them and just instantly like hit it off. It really felt like we had met our alternate selves. They’re the Australian FIDLAR, and we’re the American Dune Rats.

We have this familial relationship we have with them. They’re like that family cousin you have who you love a lot but you don’t see them that often, but every time you see them you pick right up where you left off. You might even get into trouble and sneak off somewhere. They’ve toured with us in the States, we're touring with them in Australia and they toured with us in Europe. I love this relationship and I can't wait to see it go on for another decade.

How would you compare the American punk rock scene to the Australian punk rock scene? I feel like Australia feels more like fun loving if that sense, but I feel it might just be like Australian people in general. That’s kind of similar to Southern California where I grew up and where the band's from, and I think that’s why it's like our favorite place to play because it just feels like home — just with scarier animals.

I always find it funny when Americans say that we have scarier animals, because you guys have bears! OK, this is a long story, so I'll make it really short, but one time Zac, Max and our past bandmate, Elvis, went hiking together in Australia. Max got struck by leeches, we saw huge goanna lizards, Elvis slipped into the water and almost got bit by the second-most poisonous spider in the world and I almost stepped on a brown snake. I think we were all traumatized after that!

With bears, I've had a few bear encounters on camping trips and yes, they are scary. And they're big. So yeah, America is pretty scary too.

Out of your entire discography, what’s your favourite song to perform and why? For a long time, it was “Punks”. It just has a riff and energy to it that unlocks this little devil inside of me or something, and it sets me free in a weird way. But there’s also been some new songs that have been fun to play, like “Dog House” from our new album. There’s also “Cheap Beer” and “Cocaine” that are always crowd-pleasers, and you match the energy of the fans.

And whenever I play live I always want to look at the fans. You know, it’s like if they give it to us, then it gets me excited and then I want to give it back to them. So I'll go harder. They go harder. Cause I'm going harder. It’s like a sick cycle of stokedness or something.

Apart from making music, do you have any other creative hobbies? Yeah, I mean I do a lot of the artwork and stuff for the band, a lot of the tour posters and videos and stuff like that. I have a video production studio with a couple friends — actually shared with Zac’s sister and brother-in-law, who have been with FIDLAR from the beginning.

I'm very not good at like relaxing. I'm pretty like hyper, and I relax by needing something to do. So art stuff, video stuff, photo stuff, drawing, paper mâché, DIY stuff, cooking, whatever. I'll do anything.

Talk to us about the band’s newest album, Surviving The Dream. What were its inspirations? I think a lot of the time, people think that being in a band is this super-glamorous thing. And yeah, it’s fucking rad to be in Australia right now, but that also means long flights, not being able to see family back home, not seeing your partner or any other relationships you have. You know, 22 hours out of every day isn’t that great, but those two hours where we get to perform is the absolute best. That’s where “surviving the dream” came from.

I think with this release, it was more about us being independent, since we're self-releasing. It was very much us just thinking “let's go in the studio. We have the songs. Let's just make the album”. Like, what are we thinking about so much? So that's kind of what we did.

How does it compare to your previous albums? I think it's a little bit of all of them. It takes a little bit from everything we've done so far. We tried not to think about it too much. Zac and Max have also become so good at producing, so there’s some production elements that were present in our second and third albums.

There's a song on the new record that's the kind of vibe of where the band's at now. And you know, losing a guitar player that had been around for the beginning changes things. We didn’t want to replicate what he did, because he was such an amazing guitar player. It's like, let's figure out how we would do it without him.

What do you hope fans get out of Surviving The Dream? I just want people to be stoked on music! There will always be people on Instagram saying how they just want the old stuff, but that’s what the old stuff is there for. We’re not deleting our old stuff just because we made new songs!

I just hope people like it and it inspires them to make music and start a band. It’s always an awesome thing to hear people getting inspired by us, and we make music to play shows for our fans. There’s not like a big message there in this album, and there never really has been in our band. It's like, we make the shift that we like, and we want other people to make the shit that they like.

If everyone did what they liked, then that would be cool. I know that sounds a little dumb and stoner 101, but as long as you’re not hurting anyone then do what you want!