Band Interview: Fool Saint

Games, Brrraaains & Head-Banging Life are pleased to bring you an interview with alternative rock band, Fool Saint.

1. How did you get started as a band?

The history of this band has some layers. Essentially, we began to form the band at the very beginning of 2020. Christian, Austin, Doyle, and Kyle were all members of a previous band, Young House, that had just broken up. On top of this, Christian and Austin put out a few post-hardcore records together in a previous band called Gatherer (Equal Vision Records and No Sleep Records) so they had every intention of continuing to work together. At the same time, Sara began her master’s in Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management. She started jamming with us and gave the band an entirely new sound. Consequently, a completely different band was formed. Her education profoundly influenced what she writes about and was inspired by notions of care economies, anti-consumerism, and living in harmony with the community of life. Those themes are reflected in our first three tunes.

Our first three songs are Plum Tree, Harborview, and Packing. These songs were recorded in November 2020 at Timber Studios. Each song was released as a single starting with Plum Tree in May 2021. By August 2021, we had five more songs written, which would soon become our first EP, “In a Field, Away From The City”. We went to Nada Studios to collaborate with Music Producer/ Engineer John Naclerio on this release. We’ve worked with him in the past and knew he was going to capture the sound we were going for. Now we are playing shows all over in support of our debut EP release.

2. How would you describe your sound?

It is hard to say. We bridge the gap between indie rock, alternative rock, and pop-rock… but we also have shoegaze and dream pop elements in the instruments while simultaneously being a little psychedelic. Our music reinforces notions of anti-consumption and focuses on the human experience, which kind of makes it a little pop-punk. One thing I can say for sure is that we are emo. Neo-aging-millennial-emo.

3. What bands/artists would you say have influenced your style of music?

Each one of us comes at our music from different artistic/ musical backgrounds so the range is rather large. For example, Sara, is a natural born performer and draws on her Musical Theatre training rather heavily, but don’t let this fool you… she is a total metalhead and cites Opeth as one of her most dominant musical influences. Austin grew up spinning records from the grunge, pop-punk, and posthardcore eras. This is definitely a sound that influences our music. Kyle and Rob both love the classic rock era. and Christian.. well he listens to Handpan music and a bunch of other out there instrumental music on the regular.

4. Has the rise of YouTube & music streaming helped or hindered you as a band?

Interesting question. We are still pretty new to the idea of Social Media Influencer Band, but we like it. It’s a really easy way to get your music/ content out there to a wide audience who might never have had the opportunity or privilege to discover your music. It gives a lot of people access to the arts (and food porn, which we love).

Micro-content/ content takes up a lot of time from music making, but maybe this is the start of some wild innovation in music? We aren’t sure, but we intend to go with the flow.

5. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not making music?

All five of us are community driven, family lovin’, outdoorsy people. We all tend to spend our free time with loved ones. Whether its running, hiking, biking, ice skating, sitting on a rock somewhere quiet and thinking about life… it all depends on the time of year/ situation. Thats the kinda stuff we really love that makes life undeniably beautiful.

6. What are your future plans musically? Tours?

The future seems to come faster and faster every single day. Fool Saint has major ambitions- both collectively and as individual people. I think we all can agree that the most important aspect is to keep music and our friendship at the heart of the group. For now, we will continue to create and perform for whomever is interested in listening.

Links

Website | Spotify | Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram