Lo Fidelity Allstars: From Brighton to Rocking America
Author: Benedetta Ferraro
Friday, February 22, 2002
Martin Whiteman, Dale Maloney and Phil Ward, from "England's best rock-techno combo ever" (Kirk Miller in Stuff magazine) are well qualified to compare America's escalating war on clubs to Britain's experiences through the 90s. Coming up via the UK's big beat wave of the mid 90s, they went on crack America, touring alongside Moby and Fatboy Slim and selling 400,000 albums stateside in the process. Half way through their story, they also went through the trauma of being dumped by their original singer Dave Randall and keyboardist Matt Harvey, on the eve of the US tour, courtesy of a message on their manager's answering machine.
That they both continued with the tour and cracked America so successfully pays testament to their talent and will power which continues to shine on their new album "Don't Be Afraid of Love". Likely to repeat their US success, the album is nevertheless somewhat at odds with Britain's prevailing trends though sitting in a north London hotel, all three are cheerful and optimistic. Skrufff's Benedetta Ferraro posed the questions.
Skrufff: Despite the well-documented setbacks, you're back with a new album "Don't Be Afraid of Love". How hard has it been to pick up the pieces after Dave Randall's and Jon Strong's sudden departure-
Lo Fidelity All Stars: "When they left we were not doing anything though America picked up on us right at that point. From then on, it was like a roller coaster for us, and we decided that we had to move on no matter what. The Americans had never seen us before and all they were interested in was our music. When we went there we were effectively a new band and spending a year over there was the best thing that could have happened to us, in order to get our heads together after the shocking news (a message was left on an answer phone, and that was it)."
Skrufff: How did your success in America start-
Lo Fidelity All Stars: "Our track "Battleflag" was chosen for "The Mod Squad" soundtrack, then Howard Stern started plugging it on his radio show. Many student radio stations picked up on it too and the same song was featured in a couple more films. We planned to tour the country for one month only, then to come back and start on the album, but our success was so unexpected and so sudden, that we decided to capitalise on it by spending a year touring and writing songs for the new album."
Skrufff: How easy was to complete the album in such circumstances-
Lo Fidelity All Stars: "Well, bits and pieces were written while we were on the road, but obviously, with the many distractions around us, it ended up taking us 18 months to complete it, much longer than we expected. We also were building our own studio back in England (Brighton) at the same time, which was quite disrupting for our concentration. We knew that we didn't want to include any fillers, just all strong tracks in their own right and that's why it took us so long to deliver it."
Skrufff: You have recruited some amazing vocalists (Bootsy Collins and backing singers The Brides Of Funkenstein, Greg Dulli from Afghan Whigs, Jamie Lidell from Super Collider). How did you select them-
Lo Fidelity All Stars: "They are all friend or fans of the band. We knew we liked their music, be we were pleasantly surprised to hear they were fans of our music as well, so when the time and the situation allowed us, we were ready to work together. The big mistake is to go for vocalists that are the flavour of the month, who charge thousands of dollars and turn up to do an afternoon's work. These guys have put an amazing effort into it, wrote their own lyrics, brought backing singers and guitarists they knew and so on, even though they didn't get paid that much. You can tell they enjoyed it just as mu Tags