Fictionfamily.com has been updated. Check it out now! There's a cool little video blurb, and the site is also streaming Fiction Family's single "When She's Near" in hi-fi quality. Yes.
Oh, and the band has a new Facebook page, and Sean Watkins wrote a little introduction blurb. It's pretty interesting hearing the story from his perspective this time, after hearing Jon Foreman's side for all this time.
Hello friends!
The wait is nearly over. Fiction Family's debut record is eponymous and upon us..... relatively, being that we've been threatening to release it for the last couple years.
Fiction Family is myself (Sean Watkins) and Jon Foreman (Switchfoot) and we've been working on a record together for the last three years. Unofficially we met maybe 12 years ago, in the parking lot of Off Shore Surf Shop in Carlsbad, CA. We both had just gotten out of the water and were introduced by a mutual friend who wanted us to meet cause we were musicians....we shook hands and gave each other a smile that said..."sure you're in a band, aren't we all?" But officially, we met backstage at a music festival in downtown San Diego called Street Scene. Nickel Creek and Switchfoot were playing one after another.
Anyhow, the record started as simple plan to co-write a song, which then then turned into a plan to make a 3 song garage EP, which was so fun we decided to make it a 5 song EP, which led to the idea of making it 7 songs and the ability to sell it for $10. As soon as money entered the equation, it was all over folks. At that point we realized that with just a few more songs we'd have a real record... that would of course, sell millions, alter the course of rock and roll and make us rich and lazy.....of course, i kid.....partly. Not kidding about the being lazy part. Anyway, it's coming out January 20th and we're very excited. It's really icing on the cake that this record is even being released properly. ATO none the less. Ideal, really.
Most of the time while making this record, we were thinking that we'd probably end up just giving it away online and perhaps play a few shows. Just that sounded fun and fulfilling enough for the work we were putting into it. We recorded it all at our homes in north county San Diego. The basic tracking was done as he and i playing in front of a few mics at his or my house on the very rare days that we were both off the road over the last couple years. When one of us had time off and the other was touring, whoever was home would chip away at the songs alone and send emails with overdub/harmony/etc ideas. With a just few exceptions we played all of the instruments on it. Not on purpose, but more because it was just easy and the songs ended coming to life at random times and sporadicly. It was a very relaxed and home oriented project.
I've never worked on any recording project in such a non pre-concieved and organic way. It was freeing to have no time frame, no one looking over your shoulder, no idea what it would end up as and no musical manifesto. And at times, it was a little frustrating for those same reasons. Thankfully ATO stepped in and agreed to release it which gave us motivation and a timeline for having it all finalized, turned in and done. The old adage that "you never finish a record, you just stop working on it" holds true. Whereas, we could have had endless fun adding and changing this record, it was nice to put it in the can and move toward getting out to you fine folks. Ultimately it was a wonderful experience that yielded a record we're both proud of and very invested in.
Hope y'all like it too!
-sean
For some reason, I really liked the ATO mention... hm. ;)
And in more Fiction Family news, Paste magazine has a new article about the act. Check it out here.
One interesting tid-bit: "Sara Watkins will lend her fiddle to an undisclosed number of songs." Interesting...
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Now, moving on to some Switchfoot news!
"The Best Yet" is currently featured on the iTunes "What We're Listening To" section. Awesome!
On the charts, "The Best Yet" is:
No. 12 on the iTunes rock charts
No. 65 on the top Albums overall
Also:
"This Is Home" is No: 12 on the Rock Singles Chart on iTunes
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Also, here are new reviews for "The Best Yet":
Christianity Today
Christian Today
WOW. Seriously, how uncreative can you get? haha.
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In other news, "This Is Home" was added to a new Hot AC station this week: KSII
KSII Adds
Maybe this is a result of the radio reship a couple of weeks ago? We shall see...
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