Back With Fable Cry: Interview With A True Entertainer, A Real Artist

Hi everybody!

Congratulations on your video for Dead or Alive (For Now) and for your album.

Listening to your tunes and watching your visuals, I came out with a few questions: The most surprising in your music is actually the way you present it. Your imagination, is quite out the box, with characters reminding us of the bad guys in animated movies (which makes you quite endearing, even if spooky; and it seems to be the core of your artistry.

1) You made a big impression wih your visual for Dead or Alive (For Now).  Can you talk about the video making? How went the process? What was the vision for the direction? How do you manage to create such a dense and unique universe (becoming your trademark)?

Visuals have always been a big part of this band.

All of my favorite bands tend to be those with a very specific sense of aesthetics, and ones that know how to match visually with what is going on sonically –

Where you can see a band before hearing their music and still have a guess at what the music may be like.
With Fable Cry, so much of it goes hand in hand.

When I write a song, the story is playing out in my head and I’m immediately thinking of ways to make it into a video or what types of theatrics we could bring to the stage.

With “Dead Or Alive (For Now)” I knew I wanted it to be in black and white with crazy sets and costumes.  It needed to look like we were “painting” a story, and the living portrait concept took over!

Also, I’m very influenced by silent films.  Robert Weine’s “Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” is one of my favorites and definitely had some influence on the video, along with the works of Georges Méliés – speeding up the film, ever so slightly, to match the frame rate of films from a hundred years ago.

We took a LOT of time on this one, hand-painting backdrops, costumes, props, and ourselves, and then compiling it all together to achieve the desired look.

We may have shaved off a couple of years from our lives with as much paint and makeup we drenched ourselves with.  But, worth it?   Yes, worth it.

2) About the art cover, it almost religiously puts you all in light, posing with no smiling. Plus, it contrasts with the dark and shady background where all the monsters lay, and they don’t look as calm as you. Can you talk about this cover? What did you want to reflect with this? How much does it define the concept of your album? 

One of the major themes in the album is the duality of our own natures.

Dealing with the monsters within us and, often times, using them to our advantage.

The album art is meant to reflect some of that, with us standing in front, and all of our fiendish allies being darker facets of ourselves, hiding just under the surface.

But the metaphorical symbolism should be thought less of as “good vs evil” and more as “night vs day”.  Neither is good or bad, necessarily, but both are necessary to complete the whole.  

3) What fascinates you about horror shows, the morbid lexical (Dead or Alive, corpse hanging in Fancy Dancing)? 

It’s difficult to put my finger on something that I’ve liked for so long.  I like the more exaggerated nature of horror.

Life is chalked full of actually horrifying things, but horror as a genre tends to accept that and turn it up to a point of almost cartoonishness.

The truth is (here comes the morbid path, so come along) dying is literally the only thing we can guarantee in our lives.  I don’t feel the need to focus on death, but accepting its inevitability and putting a silly mask on it, can be helpful in dealing with it.  

4) How did you get the idea to make your songs all so theatrical? 

My goal for Fable Cry has always been to be my own favorite band – I think that should be every musician’s goal, but that’s just me.

What would I want to hear in a band?  What would I want to see in their videos?  What would I want their live shows to be like?  Would I want their tights to be striped, or polka dotted?  Sequins or glitter?  Fog or confetti? 

Ya know, the difficult questions that all of us entertainers have to ask. We’re still working every day on getting closer to what we want this to be.  As for the songs, they’re all wrapped up in this world.

Making songs fantastical and theatrical also helps me tell a story better.  There are less limitations, and I can choose other characters to confess my own feelings.  They may be scapegoats…

5) How do you feel with the introduction ‘Favorite Worst Nightmare’?

Nightmares are an enormous part of what we do.  So if we’re your favorite, I guess we’re doing it right!

6) I must admit I was referring to the Arctic Monkeys’ second album ‘Favorite Worst Nightmare’, as they used to propose some hints of a gloomy atmosphere in their music and visual (‘This House Is A Circus’, ‘If You Were There Beware’). If you listen to them, which song is your favorite?

Ah, I didn’t even catch that!  Honestly, I’m going to have to do some more homework before I can answer this…

But, since you mentioned it, I’m listening to “This House Is A Circus” as I type this now and I’m having fun with it!

It’s always cool to find out what our music makes people think of – often they’re bands that we don’t necessarily even listen to.  I’ve found out a lot of music I like that way, actually!

7) When is your next show?

Rick’s Comics (Nashville, TN) on May 7th

The Boro (Murfreesboro, TN) on May 21st.

Then back to New York for NorthSide Fest in June!  

8) What should people expect when they come to see Fable Cry? What kind of concert should we get ready for?

We’re bombastic, and there to entertain.

We tell stories and jokes between songs, we banter with the crowd and each other, call for crowd participation, and basically never stop moving when the songs are going – it’s a real ruckus time! 

For our bigger shows, we bring other performers on stage to add to the antics, from puppetry, to fire breathing, to sideshow, to burlesque, and anything in between!

To all of you, consider this an open invitation – we would be delighted by your attendance, and think that you will be too!

… If only I were living in the USA. Thanks for all your time and answers, it’s been fun reading you, and I absolutely feel what you say about being an entertainer with your music, with your band.

Plus I’m so glad I made you discover the Arctic Monkeys, who were my favorite band ever once upon a time, haha!