“As I was furiously calling out the doctor in the hallway, and as the security was called on me, that’s where I got it. We are building this dystopian society around us. It’s a real thing...”
INTRODUCTION BY RTM (@RYANTHOMASMITCHELL)INTERVIEW BY JAE F (@_THEGHOULNEXTDOOR)Finland-based EBM project The Fair Attempts has just released a new single called “Signals,” as well as a stunning new music video to coincide with the release.
Seriously, if you do nothing else, scroll down a bit and watch this video. It’s incredible. The cinematography is top-notch, film-quality stuff.
To learn more about the mysterious masked man behind The Fair Attempts, read our exclusive interview below.
DARKNESS CALLING: First and foremost, thank you so much for the opportunity to get to know The Fair Attempts a little better. For those who might be new or unfamiliar with your project, The Fair Attempts, how would you describe your music?
THE FAIR ATTEMPTS: We're “The Black Mirror of Industrial Rock.” Our music explores themes of a dystopian future society that’s being constructed around all of us right now. We do that through a combination of musical styles, like Industrial Rock, EBM, Darkwave, and genres that are typically blending with those.
DC: How did The Fair Attempts come to fruition?
TFA: You mean how did I get these scars? I got them in various stages. We got our start at 2018, around when I started making music again, after nearly a decade’s break from it. I came from the era when music was released on CD’s and digital streaming was just putting on its shoes, so to say. So, I was curious about the life of an indie musician in the modern world, and the conditions in our life started to be ripe for that.
I thought about giving this music endeavor another shot and thought of a name under what I would release my art. “The Fair Attempts” came to me from out of the blue, and as I initially understood it, it was about me giving it another shot. I liked the enigmatic message about it, of our human condition and our struggle forward. It's really about all of us. You and I both can admit we are here to attempt our lives as we can, and most likely we will fail with it in many aspects. But that's not the point of it.
“There is a great personal liberation in admitting that we are not perfect in any way. Because the point is not to succeed, win or compete. It is to try your best regardless. It’s in the process itself. And The Fair Attempts reminds us all about it.”
There is a great personal liberation in admitting that we are not perfect in any way. Because the point is not to succeed, win or compete. It is to try your best regardless. It's in the process itself. And The Fair Attempts reminds us all about it.
My vision of The Fair Attempts became clear to me after witnessing the medical authorities forcing my wife to hop on one leg, in terrible neurological pain (due to MS) and in public hospital corridors, simply to meet some bureaucratic regulation that would allow her to have the medications that would help to halt the progression on her neurodegenerative disease. She was stumbling in pain, vomiting from the induced trauma and shock of her barbaric treatment at the hands of the very people who were supposed to help her. As I was furiously calling out the doctor in the hallway, and as the security was called on me, that's where I got it. We are building this dystopian society around us. It's a real thing, although not physical. Now I am in contact with it and through my creative processes, I keep connecting and exploring it, piece by piece.
This is the point I started wearing the gasmask. It's a symbol of self-isolation from the damage of that dark reality.
DC: Your new single “Signals” is danceable, yet dark, eerie, and reminiscent of Broken era Nine Inch Nails. The addition of nightmarish sounds captured on a cell phone and a dystopian hellscape laden video adds to the overall unnerving theme. What was the inspiration behind the incredible new single?
TFA: One day in 2019, me and Starwing were having a conversation in cellphone. I guess I was calling her from my work, until some… thing took over our call. It was like scrambled voices at first, as if it was chopped to bits and disorganized through some algorithm. But the freaky part happened when I responded to the monstrosity, and it stopped right there for a second, then began hissing and screaming at me in a most bizarre way, as if it was a demonic cell tower, or some modern day, digital banshee calling from the 6-bit abyss to warm me about the impending death. I got this recorded on my cellphone and naturally sampled the whole thing and made a song about it.
This off-the-wall encounter with a rogue signal stream inspired us to think of how we all are receivers and repeaters of various signals streamed into our minds. Seriously. Try to analyse when you last had an independent thought. Then look at the world around you and listen to what people say. They repeat the same fucking things everywhere, all the time. Why? Because they want to be accepted and loved.
I don't blame them. We have always been programming each other in various ways. These days the code is just way more effective.
“We have always been programming each other in various ways. These days the code is just way more effective.”
DC: Being based in Finland, do you find that your fanbase is more European-based or would you say it's a wide mix across the globe?
TFA: It's hard to say, really. I don't really follow my own stats that closely. In our digital era, people come to us from all corners of the world and every walk of life. Music and art in general always brings us all together, as it should.
DC: You are also in another project, Denial Waits, with Amanda Jay/Star Madman (@starmadman) and Ryan Thomas Mitchell (@ryanthomasmitchell). Since all members are in different states and countries, what does the songwriting and production process look like?
TFA: It's a different kind of mental discipline for me. I know I am very difficult to work with in regards of creating songs, as I am notorious for “writing the song full” in a way that there is not much room for others to write parts. I've been called out on it before.
So with DW, I made a real effort to not do that. With perhaps an exception of “My Dark Road” and “Tumbleweed” (the latter being mostly Ryan's creation), I rather wrote a skeleton of a song and let both Ryan and Amanda jam with it, add their parts, and hand it back to me to finish the production. Both of them are armed with such talent and intuition that our workflow goes smoothly.
DC: Has the pandemic hindered your ability to create and publish music or has it allowed you to be more creative?
TFA: Honestly, this pandemic hasn't changed my life habits much at all. I've been a notorious hermit for a decade prior to the whole thing. I don't draw any pleasure from it, but I see many people have had a very hard time adjusting to their personal isolation, although a very short one at that. I've just been happy doing my thing in my studio, just as before.
DC: Who are some of your biggest musical inspirations and would you say those inspirations have shaped The Fair Attempts into what it is today?
TFA: I get inspired by other artists mostly in their spirit and how their art reflects on me. I've been inspired by a wide variety of artists doing various types of music, be it edgy industrial sounds of Nine Inch Nails, Ministry or Velcra, or Scandinavian metal such as Opeth, Katatonia and the like. Nick Cave, David Bowie, Portishead, and all of these have shaped my approach tomaking music for sure. Lately, I've also been digging Metric and St. Vincent and stuff like that. There is a lot to learn and draw from all these great artists out there.
DC: What is next for The Fair Attempts?
TFA: We are going to release a couple more singles down the line, until somewhere in November we will release our new album, Signals. It's been such a pet project of mine for the last year and it is finally taking its final shape, and I can safely say that it is my best work to date. I just love that this cycle keeps going on and I keep on improving my processes.
And get this — as Starwing wrote her novel Dreaming Your Dream to be a companion piece for our last album Dream Engine, she is continuing her book series together with our new album Signals. Our art has become our life at this point.
However, summer is a great time to try new things and recharge your batteries a bit. After that, I will get back to work and see what comes down the line. Our brains are dynamic things. Static conditions are poison for them and kills your creativity. It is my experience that taking a break leads to better results. In the end, our ideas are already forming in the back of our minds without us even being aware of them at times.
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