Since forming in 2009, the group have released two albums, the most recent of which â this summer's It's 1983, Grow Up â was first introduced to the UK when the band toured here this spring. It hasn't, however, been the easiest of roads travelled. Guitarist Evan Van Reekum suffered a serious fall from a fourth floor window just ahead of its recording, and singer Kier 'Fist' Griffiths underwent gender reassignment surgery, both events that informed the making of the album.
Whilst the resulting record could understandably have been one of introspection or rage, its strongest sensation is one of catharsis. Due to its sheer sense of abandon, you imagine the lyrics to standout track 'The Creeps' ("Will you drive a little faster? I wanna die in a disaster") being delivered by one with eyes wider than the sky, and intimidating though it can be, itâs difficult to not get caught up in the rush.
When Griffiths isnât hurrying along his own death â or perhaps playing characters who are â he's lyrically more astute than you might initially give him credit for. Take 'Boring Kids', in which Fist City raise the subject of the mayor of their home town. Punk rock band talks politics is nothing new, sure, but the angle is slightly different from what you might expect: here they're unleashing their wrath not on the politician, but on the opponents who ran a racist, homophobic smear campaign against him. Despite such insights being barked in Griffiths' best Guy Picciotto-like yelp, you do have to work for the lyrics, buried as they are beneath a strange but exhilarating sort of wall of sound punk, imbued with unusual panache, conviction and melodic flair.
Speaking with the Quietus over the phone, Kier Griffiths explains that many in the punk rock community were supportive of his transition, although local fundamentalist Christian groups have been less approving, calling him a Satan worshipper and "reptilian hermaphrodite". He discusses how these personal experiences have been brought to bear on the music of Fist City, the influence of growing up in Canada's Bible Belt and the importance of music as a conduit for joy and release.
You've just been to the UK for the first time, but it's been four years since you formed. Â What's different for Fist City these days, as opposed to 2009?
Kier Griffiths: Originally myself and my twin sister [Brittany Griffiths, bass] had this band called The New Danger Kids. Evan and Ryan [Grieve, drums] played in another band called Endangered Ape. We both broke up at the same time, and we'd been smitten with each others' bands for years, so we decided to join forces. Immediately after we put up a couple of demos on the internet, this guy from Dead Beat wanted to put a record [Hunting You] out immediately, which put a fire up our butts. It was a very hasty beginning, very slapdash. These days, we're a bit more into refining the sound, planning it out maybe a bit more. And we just got a new bass player, Lindsay Munro; my sister's gone to Australia for a bit.
Reading about all the Satan worship and occult stuff ahead of hearing your records, I was surprised when I ended up hearing this quite joyous music. Â What made you want to present yourselves in that way?
KG: I guess our aesthetic is better matched to doom metal or something like that. In terms of the cult stuff, we live in a small town [Lethbridge, Alberta] on the Bible belt of Canada, with lots of people heavy on the religion. That just sparked an interest in cults in general. Here it's so pervasive that it's nice to take a piss and be all "Hail Satan!" once in a while. That really gets people going, which is really funny. The occult, Satan and shit. It's cool stuff.
How did you come to be accused of Satan worship?
KG: We had this music video that was made by Colin Askey, for 'Debbie Get Yr Boa'. There were all these flashing lights, really crude cartoon drawings, a totem pole, Michael Jackson barfing into someone else's mouth, weird imagery of snakes. This fundamentalist Christian internet forum who hunt down Satanic people in the media saw it on Much Music, and thought they saw weird occult symbols.
Sounds like you wear it like a badge of honour, almost.
KF: Oh yeah. I'm definitely proud. I was so stoked the entire time reading it. Being labelled as a "reptilian hermaphrodite". Amazing. I love that. I want to get a patch that says "reptilian hermaphrodite". Fantastic, hilarious.
Does it worry you that people don't see the inherent humour in that kind of way of presenting yourselves? Or are you trying to rile people?
KF: We definitely weren't trying to rile people, but it's hilarious that they were riled. I know there are some super religious people out there who are just so staunch that they can't have any fun, but... whatever, the fact that they exist and made that little forum post, it gave me joy. So, they can exist. It's fine.
All this talk of cults, and things like having your band's name in your own surname now - would it be right to think there's quite a gang mentality to Fist City?
KF: We're pretty faithful to whatever we have going here. We each have Fist City tattoos. Lindsay and Brian did those on the road in the UK, just little stick and pokes. We don't have matching jumpers and stuff like that, but it's all in the works.
What's the story behind the title of the album, It's 1983, Grow Up?
KF: It was spray painted in an alley downtown. I assume it'd been there since 1983. Everyone knew about it, occasionally you'd get drunk and go take your photo with it, but it was painted over the year that we wrote the record. It's a nod to this town and the scrappy times we had growing up in it. It's one of those small towns that, after doing a lot of travelling, you see how unique it is to live here. Especially in a place that has more of a religious leaning, you meet a lot of people who really know the true meaning of straight up boredom. But there's also a culture of growing up by doing your own thing, making your own fun. People from this town ended up being in bands because there was nothing else to do, and you were forced to find the other weirdos to hang out with.
You've been very open about your gender reassignment surgery. Did you ever consider not mentioning it at all, or did you always want it to be public knowledge?
KF: In the beginning I didn't want it to be an issue. It's an awkward process, transitioning and all. But I learnt pretty quickly that that's impossible, being in a band. I found that, if I didn't put my two cents in, that some very ignorant things were being printed. It made me a bit upset, so I decided, fuck it, it's going to come out anyways. It's also about positive images. There are not a lot of trans people out there in the punk scene. If I can be part of that, that's pretty rad. If I was transitioning and I saw more trans people in the punk scene, I'd be pretty stoked.
I've always thought punk could be very receptive and open about some things, but also very cliquey and insular about others. What's been your experience going through it all?
KF: I find that for the most part, to my face at least, everyone's really accepting. It's actually been a pretty positive experience. I feel like there's a tendency to take transsexuality and give it this freaky, subversive connotation or label. I feel like that's where people think that it fits, even though it's far more complicated. That's why it's maybe a little more comfortable being part of the punk scene and being trans than it is being a banker or something. I think at some point you've just got to wear the badge with pride.
It doesn't sound like any of you have exactly had the easiest of rides, and though there's this aggression and power to your music, there's also this real sense of positivity. Where does that come from?
KF: We like to make music that's fun to dance and flail around to. It's good to have something upbeat for that. Â We all have our tough times, but it's fun to drench these sad whiney lyrics in this upbeat music, because it's cathartic. If you have something you can bop your head to, it feels better than having sad droney music for your whiney life story, you know? Listen to the Four Tops, they're heartbreaking.
But they sound like they're frolicking in a meadow.
KF: Exactly.
There's a point in 'The Creeps' where you sing "I wanna die in a disaster", in a way that makes the disaster sound like a really great time. It's one of a few moments on the record that might touch on nihilism. Do you have that side to yourselves?
Do you think people should be looking to bands to say profound things, or is that kind of an old fashioned thing to look for from music now?
KF: I think it's definitely seen as old fashioned. Nobody wants to be too serious â punk rock now is more about having fun, it seems. It's really not political anymore. There's so much that can and should be said, but I also feel like people just know all of that, people know that shit is shitty, and for the most part they want to get wasted and thrash about. I don't know if people listen to the messages in punk rock music like they used to. That used to be the driving force, you'd have four chords and then you'd be calling out whatever government institution was crapping on you at that moment. There are a couple of songs where we talk about our mayor, and racism and assholes and fickle youth, but I don't even know if people pick up on that.
The song where you address the mayor, though ['Boring Kids'] - isn't the personal message in it as strong as the political one?
KF: I'd agree with that. We don't really get into picking apart policy or anything like that. These days, it seems like politics are so much more personal. There's so much you can attach yourself to politically, you sort of have to have your own mini political identity. I think there's this whole history of action being overwhelming, but being ineffectual. The Occupy movement, people rallying against the rip-off that was the financial crisis â you can say all you want, but nothing changes. I think people feel like whatever they do politically is ineffective. You can sign a million petitions a year on Facebook, but you get no real life reward from that. I think there's less immediate satisfaction from being political these days, and that's important, feeling like you can affect something. I think most kids these days probably don't feel that.
Does music have any sway in changing that?
KF: Music's a good way to get people together, get their juices flowing, get people talking. But we're done with the days of having that monolithic rock star who can sway a whole group. Musicians and subcultures are so fragmented that there's no one thing that big you can attach yourself to. Even the Occupy movement was fragmented inside of itself. There's no big, effective beast.
Fist City's It's 1983, Grow Up is out now via Black Tent Press
Personnel: Kier Griffiths (vocals/guitar), Evan Van Reekum (guitar), Lindsay Munro (bass/vox), Ryan Grieve (drums)
Intelligence:
"We like being road crazy, it makes life manageable." So says Kier Griffiths, singer and guitarist in lo-fi punk-pop types Fist City, summing up the band's approach to organised musical chaos.
With two albums of scratchy, sugary songs behind them and a live show that comes alive in dark sweaty rooms, Fist City are doing all they can to make suburban Canada worried.
"We like to have at least three or four songs in a row that we don't stop," says Keir. "If you're not sweating in the first three songs you're not doing it right. You have to come out of the room dripping head to toe in sweat and beer."
Formed from the ashes of bands that had imploded in their hometowns small but busy scene, this is a band that isn't hanging about waiting for things to happen. "January 2010 was our first show, so it's been three years," says Keir. "Hunting You was our first full length, and it was thrown together in about a month.
"We wrote twelve songs, just f**king blasted through them, and then all of a sudden we had a record. That was picked up and put out on a label. But then we were very happy to take our time with the second record. We put it out Black Ten Press, and that's It's 1983 Grow up.
Recording in basements and touring as hard as their pockets will allow, the members of Fist City come from a scene that makes the most of what it has: "This is a really small town with a lot of incestuous bands where we're all sharing members and stuff, so we came out of that," adds Keir.
"In a small town there's not a lot else to do so we play music together. Pretty much since this band has started we've been touring as much as our finances will allow.
"We're all super in debt - if we were in it for the money we would have quit a long time ago. The thing with the tours is that they keep getting better. Our first was in 2010, and every tour and every festival since then has gotten progressively better, which is pretty rewarding. If we didn't have to pay rent, we'd be on the road ten months of the year."
Hardware:
Keir â Danelectro electric ("with a broken pickup"), Fender DeLuxe
Evan â Fender Telecaster, Fender Hot Rod Deluxe
The city was flooded, Lindsay threw a huge backyard/house show party...
Flood Island
Organizers recall some of the weekendâs best last minute shows
Published June 27, 2013  by Josiah Hughes in Music Features
full article here
Mt. Pleasant house shows:
Fist City bassist Lindsay Munro already had some house shows planned with her neighbours, but the shows got much bigger with so many bands looking for last-minute shows. Over the weekend, bands like Cop City / Chill Pillars, Tough Age, Running, Burnt Ones, Crosss, UBT, The Beets and many others showed up, along with hundreds of people. âIt is unfortunate that the flood happened, but it stripped Sled Island down to this amazing DIY level that every band I interacted with was really happy to function on,â says Munro. âIt was really cool to see.âHereâs the full story from Lindsay Munro:
Oh the mania! Myself and my neighbours had organized some afternoon house shows during Sled. We figured they might be kind of thinly attended because weâre so far out of downtown, weâre in the northwest in Mount Pleasant, but we were okay with that. [It would] save us some trouble... HA! Thursday went off as planned, started around 5 p.m. at Kelsie and Ryanâs. She Divides, Open Relationship, Koban, Too Late, Freak Heat Waves and The Slabs rocked out. The crowd was big enough to fill the small jam space in the basement and feel like a party.
After, we rode bikes downtown in the rain, saw some shows, stopped at the 10th Street bridge in Kensington, saw some of the carnage, rode up the hill and went to bed. We woke up on Friday morning and friends Tough Age were being evacuated from their hotel, so I said âcome over.â Sled was cancelled, everyone was sad and soggy.
In an attempt to salvage some fun we invited Kelsie and Ryan and Burnt Ones, who they where billeting, over for crepes. I fed 16 people, moods improved drastically and we all got brainstorming, figured weâd just extend the afternoon show and cram as many stranded bands on the bill as possible.
The guys from Burnt Ones were really great. They got in touch with some buds, I made a hilarious poster that said ânice weather... for DUCKS!â We bought a tarp and put it up in case it rained again... it didnât. There were some rousing games of crate ball in the alley, music started around 8:30 p.m. and the last band played around 2 a.m. I think? The bill ended up consisting of Hag Face, Running, Tough Age, Cop City / Chill Pillars, Warm Soda, Cousins, Black Rat, Burnt Ones and Crosss. We guess that probably 200-plus people came, the ceiling in the basement got torn down, I mopped a thickly caked floor at 4 a.m. and the once white carpet in our jam space was spongey with beer and a vomit-inducing brown.
On Saturday, the requests came pouring in. We moved the tarp and the PA over two blocks to my house. It was hard to say ânoâ to anyone and we tried to start early, around 6 p.m., so we could fit as many bands in as we could: Nap Eyes, Monomyth, Hag Face, The Nancees, Sissys, UN, The Beets, UBT and The Slabs. We got shut down by the cops at around 1 a.m. but had we not, War Baby and Chlorinator were all proper drunk and ready to play as well.Itâs hard to say, my yard is quite a bit bigger, but probably 300-plus people came. Bikes were chained to every post for three blocks in any direction. The Beets insisted on playing outside once it got dark, without mics. It was magical.
Now our backyards are mud pits, our houses are trashed, windows are broken (kind of like a lot of Calgary, I guess), neighbours are pissed and weâre all pretty happy about it. I kind of wish it would rain one more time just to wash the beer smell away, and Iâm a bit bummed I didnât get to go to any of the other parties around town, but there was some rallying to be done â it all went pretty well. It is unfortunate that the flood happened, but it stripped Sled Island down to this amazing DIY level that every band I interacted with was really happy to function on. It was really cool to see.
IT'S 2013, LISTEN UP: FIST CITY, CHURCH OUTRAGE AND KILLER TUNES
Tuesday, 02 July 2013Written by Huw Baines
The road less travelled is often that way for a reason, but from time to time a trip along it proves to be the making of a band. Fist City have been through some stuff in the last few years and as a result their glorious, hook-laden record 'It's 1983, Grow Up!' is shot through with elements of an exciting, chaotic time.
It's a hell of a racket and one that marks them out as that rare thing: a rock 'n' roll band with something to say and the musical chops to deliver the message in style.
In the last 10 years, guitarist Evan van Reekum has spent time in rehab after jumping from a fourth floor window at a party and singer Kier Griffiths has undergone gender reassignment surgery. All the while, the band continued to forge a powerful live show and an arresting set of songs, many of which make up the backbone of their second full-length.
âWe were all kind of in a weird flux during the writing of that record, we were all in weird places,âGriffiths said. âThe record reflects a lot of our personal issues at times. There are some deep songs on there, some weird emotional relationship songs on there and then there are just some weird songs on there. We had some time to write that record, which was pretty nice.â
Hailing from Lethbridge, Alberta â two hours south of Calgary â Fist City revel in their âweirdâ songs and pitch black style, both of which are informed by their surroundings.
âWe're from small town Canada, where there's really nothing else to do,â Griffiths said. âYou find your freak friends pretty quickly and out of necessity. We're a tight group of friends in a small town, everyone in bands for the most part, making weird music and feeding off of each other. We grew up in a weird, religious, Bible belt town so we were romanced by these ideas of crazy cults, the occult and Satanism. I think some of that imagery gets mixed up in there too.â
Since their first steps into the wide world, Fist City have been at odds with conservative society. It's something that they enjoy and given the reaction to their video for Debbie Get YR Boa, aTechnicolor nightmare created by film-maker Colin Askey, it's easy to see why.
âWe were on this religious forum of sorts, one where they try to hunt down the Satanists in the media,â Griffiths said. âWe were called reptilian hermaphrodites. They tried to find all these secret codes and the devil in our music video, which was made by Colin Askey. He did a good job, it was really rad.â
Drummer Ryan Grieve particularly enjoyed their moment of church-baiting infamy, especially given the religious right's habit of searching out serious meaning in pisstakes.
âThere was a funny part on the thread,â he said. âThere's this thing where Michael Jackson like throws up blood into Willie Nelson's mouth on a totem pole. They were trying to depict this as though it had some cryptic, horrible meaning. But really, it was just, like, a goof. The whole thing was beyond funny to me. There's a dude puking out Pegasus too, so I think they were picking and choosing the imagery.â
'It's 1983, Grow Up!' has been doing the rounds in Canada for a year, but will only see a UK release on July 8 through Black Tent Press. Griffiths is still pleased with the collection and he has good reason to be. Beneath the weight of its influences it has remained strong and has a grubby voice all of its own.
âI'm pretty happy with it still,â he said. âWe want to do more songwriting and stuff, because we have been playing those songs for a while, but it's still a lot of fun to play. I'm really into over-the-top throwback pop, Evan is really into surf. I like surf and garage too. We're all over the place with what we like. We've got very diverse music collections and you can kind of hear a bit of a disparate sound there, but it comes together pretty easily in the end.â
Initially released in December, Alberta band Fist City will give their oddly-named album 'It's 1983 Grow Up!' a full UK release this week and they've sent over this fab video for single 'Boring Kids', so we thought it would be rude not to share it with you. Amongst the savoury delights included in the film are what look like Pagan rituals, devil worship, spells being cast and possible demonic possession. So perfect Saturday viewing for all the family then. In all honesty, although it's dark and contains a lot of fire, the video is so fast-paced its difficult to get to grips with exactly what's going on, but you do get the general idea.
'Boring Kids' also happens to be a pretty darn fine tune. Take your pick from these: punk, noise-rock, lo-fi, garage, psycho-surf, satanic-rockabilly - or alternatively just use them all. They all fit the style of the song; short and uh, the opposite of sweet at under two-and-a-half minutes. For something which could be described as so sinister it's a surprisingly light listen; the production isn't sludgy like you may expect, and they even manage to make the song sparkle just a touch, plus it's quite a melodic track. So if you don't want to risk summoning any nasty spirits from the pits of hell, just listen to the tune on its own and you should find it to be a thrilling, DIY rock 'n' roll riot.
Fist City's website
Buy the album
For those novelty-craving music lovers who long for the easily-listenable sweet jangles of pop and surf but yearn for something with the edges left on, Fist City are your answer. Hailing from Alberta, Canada, the four-piece differentiate their catchy, surf inspired tunes from the rest with endless layers of scuzz, dirt and aggressive delivery coupled with aspects of psychedelia and post-punk resulting in a raw package that can only be described as a clusterfuck of beautiful noise. Tellinâ Tunes caught up with the quartet and got some answers which only increased the love for this band.
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Fist City are most certainly a group whose music could not comply more with their attitude and collective personality and lifestyle choices (similar to that of FIDLAR). On their recently completed âamazingâ UK tour, âpintsâ, âgetting sweatyâ and ârolling down a huge hill and wrestlingâ seemed to be on the bill, as well as nine shows in nationwide venues. Bassist Lindsay summed the whole tour up with a description of 14th May, âThe best night was probably a basement show in Manchester, it was so sweaty and cramped and full of spiders and everyone danced and every band was amazing. Also both festivals we played, Sound City in Liverpool and The Great Escape in Brighton, were great, big crowds, lots of parties. Also we got in the NME, which was nice, something to bring home to mom and dad to prove that the last 10 years of being a dead beat wasteoid hasn't been totally in vain.â Dead-beat wasteoids or not, Fist City seem to be brewing up a storm across the UK.
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Their sound is one thatâs hard to pin down; sugary pop, yet unlikely to be covered on a talent show. Pop is a genre meaning âappropriated from its roots in what is popularâ. However, lead singer Kier Griffiths believes âpop is just music that's sort of naturally good... itâs catchy and tickles the brain. I donât think punk garage ethics and catchy, fun music are at odds at allâ. And this mutual, collective train of thought resonates through their infectious tunes. This was then followed by the most appropriate of sum-ups âWho gives a fuck if it's pop if it's good?â from drummer, Ryan Grieve.
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Their unique sound also seems to stem from a variety of individual influences that glue together perfectly, âbeing a group that likes a lot of the same bands. If you compared our music collections there would be some pretty disparate nuggets in there... Thereâs a decent amount of love-overlap for the Vaselinesâ. After some hefty decision making between Nirvanaâs Bleach (which didnât seem to be an option for Kier) and The Vaselines self-titled album, the group finished by choosing the latter. With a new âweird and awesomeâ LP planned for release in Autumn as a follow up to their 2012 LP âIts 1983, Grow Up!â, Fist City seem to be on the path to a promising future.
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