Neil Sabatino, frontman of New Jersey-based indie rock band Fairmont, introduces their latest album, which showcases a dynamic blend of styles reflecting the band's evolution since its 2001 formation. Originally a solo acoustic project, Fairmont has released thirteen full-length albums and six EPs, gaining attention with their early works and making waves on the charts with recent releases like Recluse Jamboree. The new album features tracks that range from the raw punk energy of “Boring Dumb Song” to the dream-pop vibes of “Remedy,” while also nodding to influences like Spoon and David Bowie. Here is Neil Sabatino talking about the new music and how it came together:
Boring Dumb Song
I think the title says everything I wanted to say about being in a band. Most bands, even some big bands want to go on and on about this and that and literally nobody gives a shit. You got those couple hardcore fans maybe that eat it all up and devour every detail but you gotta be huge, like the top 5% of bands that exist for people to want to know more about you. This song is from the point of view of the artist knowing this and just going through the motions. I'm not saying that's me but it's kind of how I feel about a lot of modern music, it feels like kids deciding “Hey, I'm gonna do a band” and then they come up with these songs that are mega hits for 5 seconds and the lyrics are stupid and not well thought out. I tried to do that with this song, I wrote it in 5 minutes and tried to keep it, for lack of a better word, stupid. I also think this will be the only song on this album that gets noticed, so that's kind of what I'm saying.
Filthy Mouth
I own a record label and our theme for an upcoming compilation was the 1980's and as I started checking out more and more 80's music I noticed some cool things in 80's pop that I never really tried to incorporate before into my music. This song was on purpose simple in structure, both musically and lyrically. For the vocals, lyrically I wanted it to be that Smiths vibe of putting a jerk in their place. I really like the ending of the song, the melody and the lyrics “Wish on the stars at night, maybe they can make you into half a person", I feel like this song has a little bit of the bite that some of my earlier work had without the existential introspection attached.
Remedy
I've been very inspired over the last few years by shoegaze and wanted to write something in that vein. Originally this song started off heavier and weirder but then I got together with drummer Christian Kisala to start adding his part and the song to me ended up being slightly shoegaze with more of a Killers or Replacements chorus. I definitely did not see that coming when I originally wrote the song. Lyrically it's vague because I don't like to be super detailed with lyrics, I feel it makes them harder to relate to.
Gas Station Sushi
I was kind of going for a sound like Spoon's “My Babe”, just the feel, didn't want to rip it off, but then when my drummer got ahold of it I feel like it went more in a Blondie direction. I wanted to keep this record more standard song grooves, which I feel I did with this one. Like in the past I always tried to make the verse completely different from the chorus and would change the vibe up, where as more recently just listening to a wide array of stuff I noticed how simple some of the best songs are. Like this is basically two chords for the majority of it. Lyrically it's about know it all's and how they all eventually come crawling back with their tail between their legs. It's named "Gas Station Sushi" because I feel like these kind of people would argue why that's a good idea and then maybe admit their error as they are vomiting it back up.
is/as
This is another one that I tried to keep musically simplistic with a mellow groove to it. I love the ride cymbal throughout. This song was more about the story I wanted to tell about a couple of difficult people I work with that kind of mirror each other. What's also different about it, that I like, is the piano throughout which Christian Kisala who drums on the album does about 80% of the keyboards as well and added a really nice element to the song. We, as a band, don't use a lot of piano because Christian is not a fan. This one is one of the few that we re-worked the chorus melody about 4 or 5 times before we landed on exactly how we wanted it to be.
Ashes To Ashes
As I stated I own a label and we recently put out a 1980's compilation for which we chose to cover David Bowie's “Ashes To Ashes”. This song has a lot of parts to it and the main goal for me was to make it my own and remove some of the stuff I thought was a little corny in the original version. We tried to stay pretty true though to the overall feel of the song but adding our own flair. As I learn every time I cover something that these amazing artists like Bowie did some very cool stuff with the smallest details of this song. Like a riff that comes up once, talking in the background, chord patterns or these buried sonic details that only pop out when wearing headphones. We try to do one cover per album and this was the first thing we worked on before moving onto writing the record, so I feel in a way it was the starting point and helped determine the records feel.
Oracle
I think for this one I was messing with some jazzier chords and wanted to keep it rhythmically a rhumba. I also had some orchestral ideas for the verses that follow some of the vocal melody. In general I sat down and wrote this album in about 3 days and tried not to pine of over any of it, I just let it be what it is, what came out in those three days is what came out. I wanted this to feel like it could be in a musical and I think it achieves that. It felt like a grand but subdued end to this album.