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Last Updated:
Feb 2nd, 2010 - 13:42:13 |
The Faint
Space Age Scrolls
The Faint is music from the future broadcasted from the past. Hyper cyber crescendos crumbled with bombastic blips, warped warbles, cyborg croons, equal parts Atari and Playstation 3, The Terminator and The Matrix, Depeche Mode and … well, that’s where it stops. Since their sexually synthesized sophomore effort, 99’s Blank-Wave Arcade, this Omaha outfit has been one of the pioneers of the new-wave renaissance — long before Cut Copy, The Killers and LCD Soundsystem arrived. Their fifth album, Fasciinatiion, is a complete D.I.Y. Draconian dance party percolating with Orwellian themes that skews a sort of digitalized Bob Dylan philosophy that tries to make sense of the Wall•E-like bubble life we live in today. Real Detroit spoke with singer Todd Fink at length — cracking the code of The Faint’s mechanical memes.
BUILT. NEW. STUDIO.
It’s a very narrow but deep building across from a huge stone church; it’s beautiful. We always talk about hijacking their bell programming, we have an idea of whether or not the bell up in the bell tower is actually just a speaker and a tape recorder, but whatever it is, something plays those bells and it’s not human. It'd be nice if we could figure out how to play our own music to it.
STARTED. OWN. LABEL.
I think there are reasons why a band in our position should put out their own records because we’re basically telling Saddle Creek, “OK, hire the same people that we would hire,” and eventually the label becomes a middleman more than something you have to rely on. We listened to other record labels that said they could do different things for us over the years, but it never sounded as good as putting out your record yourself. The only thing that’s tempting about it is they tell you they can bring your music to millions more people and we wanna believe that, but we also wanna stay realistic. But I dunno, better to blame yourself for your mistakes than other people.
BARE. SOCIAL. COMMENTARY.
Well, because you heard somebody say something and you think, “If it stands out, it’s silly, if it means something to you right away, they should’ve been more subtle.” If people say something, you assume for a second that they mean it and sometimes you have to listen a little closer to figure out what they mean. Otherwise, it’s a ridiculous set of lines to start the album with, and they're stupid in a way, but that’s what I felt like sayin’.
PRESIDENTIAL. PAPARAZZI. “SEDUCED.”
It’s funny to watch TV when it's something that really matters and they treat it the same way and got the same format as the narration of WWF wrestling. It’s sometimes hard to take the war seriously when they put in all these slogans, logos and flashy stuff.
“WE. DON’T. KNOW.”
That’s one of the most important things that I’ve realized through my life — your opinions only hold you back. They’re nice and comfortable and can bring you in contact with like-minded people, but as soon as you believe them too much you don’t really have any way to learn anything. All you have is you listen to everything through the filter of, “Well, I already have my mind made up,” so you can only be backed up — you can’t be taught anything, really. I think philosophers tend to not have really strong opinions about things, and scientists as well, they say the evidence that I’m aware of points to this, but I can’t wait to get some more information about it.
HOW. YOU. LEARNED.
I find myself thinking, “Dad, you know, it’s not all black and white, it’s not that clear, you can make opinions about it and you can draw the line wherever you want, but the world is gray and open to interpretation and you’re not always right.” I think it’s just good to remember that they’re just opinions like everybody else’s and everybody’s wrong constantly.
LEARNING. TO. LOVE.
Well, there are good reasons not to like anything, especially if you’re looking for ‘em. But there’s also great stuff to be found in anything if you’re looking to find something that you appreciate. I think Fugazi had a line that says something to that effect, lik, “The mistakes are all here if you’re looking for them.”
SEEING. “STRANGE. PHENOMENON.”
The more we use our memories, the less reliable they are. And this song is based on a memory of an experience that definitely happened where my friends and I learned to shoot each other up in the air on a lever built on a seesaw type of thing. I ended up having a whole lot of broken bones. I broke my arm in maybe four or five places and dislocated my elbow and shoulder and had to have pins put in my elbow. It’s a nostalgic story of that, that ends up going into dream territory where you wake up from pain medication or shock and seeing the world a little differently. So I put some instances of me thinking it was really strange, like a nurse, they were giving me whatever I wanted, I could say what kind of food I wanted and they’d make it for me at the hospital, and then somebody gave me an autograph book and all the nurses started signing their autograph and I just thought, “What is the deal? Whatever made you think that I wanted all of your signatures?”
“PYSCHO.” LOVE. PERCEPTION.
"It’s hard for me to admit that you were right. I’m still pissed off and I’m not quite ready to calm down and realize that I was just the one freaking out," is basically the gist of the song to me. "It really doesn’t have to do with you and I was just pissed off and in the wrong, but it takes me a second to calm down and realize that." It’s a twisted apology.
LIKE. BOB. DYLAN.
But right now it’s not really that cool to say anything in your songs.
CRITICS. MOCK. MESSAGES.
It only matters if you respect the people that are making fun of you. A lot of times, critics have good points, but so often it’s fueled by the intention to make themselves feel cool that it's not really worth reading ‘em. It seems like so many critiques of art are made by people who don’t make their own art. If it’s your only way to feel cool, you tend to put things down because it helps.
“MIRROR.” SHOWS. CHANGE.
A lot of people say when people change or try something different that they’re not being themselves anymore. I reject that; I don’t think that’s a healthy way to go through life. If you think somebody’s not really being themselves, I think you didn’t understand who that person was that made that decision to change. I guess that song to me is about how convinced you are that you need to be the same person every day.
ALBUM. ART. FIGURE.
I think of him as a thinker, a mystic, scholar of some sort. A wise man kinda assessing humanity, where’s it going and where’s it been and what it’s up to and how long it's likely to last and whether or not technology is gonna save us. He’s kinda just scratching his chin in a cave and we kinda made him mechanical and robotic to give him the idea of a timeless cyborg.
HUMAN. TECHNOLOGY. EFFECT.
Humans were bound to crowd the planet and technology isn’t something we could choose to have or not to have. It’s been in motion for hundreds of thousands of years, and before we were actually even humans there were tools being used, so these things just developed. I think the only way to escape ourselves is through technology, to be able to impregnate other worlds with life or just escape it and start over someplace else. It’s really our only hope because otherwise the clock is ticking and a lot of people have ways to ruin the whole planet — or at least all humans. | RDW
The Faint • 12/15 • Majestic Theatre
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