We are less than a week away from Live Mic Music’s Battle of the Bands, and After Hours Review has another band from this lineup to feature for you! This time, we are switching gears from the indie-pop solo artist we interviewed on Monday to a four-piece, eclectic, funk-rock band, Fools and Fanatics!
From Massapequa, New York, Fools and Fanatics was realized in 2011 by high school friends Tom Rende and Mike Raymond. Since then, they have been developing their sound to make it uniquely their own, and asking members to simply follow their only rule: play what you love, love what you play. You can very well hear this philosophy in their most recent EP “Just Wait…”, where although each track has its own unique flavor and sound, there is a funky undertone that makes it recognizably a Fools and Fanatics EP. I had the pleasure of interviewing the band on who they are, their philosophy, and their aspirations for the year to come. Check it out here and be sure to check out Fools and Fanatics before and during the Battle of the Bands!
Band/Artist Name: Fools and Fanatics
Members (Please list name and role. You may also add your personal social media, but this is optional):
Tom Rende – Lead Vocals/Guitar
Mike Raymond – Guitar
Tom Finnegan – Drums
Jon Kurmanchik – Bass/Backing Vocals
Band Social Media:
Where can we find your music:
iTunes, Spotify, Youtube, SoundCloud, and our website
Established: 2013
Describe your band in a few sentences or less
Fools and Fanatics is a musical brotherhood of musicians with eclectic backgrounds that blend rock & roll, blues, and alternative music (with just a hint of funk) in order to make a blissful audio gumbo. We are currently working on our second album which is expected to be released in spring of 2019. When not recording, we are at our happiest when on gig trail, stringing together energetic performances that are sure to engage the fans and bring the house down!
Are you affiliated with any label or music group? If not, do you have any plans to?
Not yet and yes. When the time is right. Let’s see how the new album goes.
As a band that formed to “capture a sound that truly belonged to them”, can you tell me more about what that means? What do you feel makes your sound unique?
The two founding members were in several bands together since they were young lads. Every group they joined or helped form would yield great music, however, there was always a void, something missing. At the end of the day, they left all existing projects they were part of to form F&F with only one rule to follow: play what you love, love what you play. When Finnegan & Jon joined the band, instead of asking them to mold to any preconceived notions of what we thought our sound was, we instead just asked them to be themselves and follow our only rule.
What makes our sound unique is the melting pot of our diverse musical backgrounds. Everyone has their own unique flavor and skill set that they bring to our songs. The greatest part is that no one is held back from being themselves and playing the way they love to play. Instead of stifling ourselves in that regard, we accept our differences with open arms and it allows us to truly shine in a unique way.
How do you feel your music has changed since you first began making music?
With each member, our sound has adapted. We prefer not to think that our sound has “changed” as much as it has evolved. What started as more of an alternative/blues band, morphed into a rock & roll powerhouse when Finnegan joined up. Sometime later when Jon started laying down some funky/indie bass lines, we knew we were going to, once again, add a new complexity to our sound. Every song feels like it is better than the last and we are super excited for our fans to hear album 2 once it drops in the spring. If only we can record as fast as we write, we might be talking about album 3’s release instead of 2 but we will keep pushing on!
Tell me a bit about your album “Just Wait…” What inspired the title and the songs on it?
It’s funny… the one thing, as a band, we cannot do well is agree on names. Names for songs, names for albums, it has become the hardest part of what we do. Even before we were “Fools and Fanatics” we would change our band name so often, people wouldn’t know how to look us up. It was literally like the band MouseRat from the show Parks & Rec.
Quite frankly, “Just Wait…” was essentially a reflection of how long the entire project took. It was self recorded & self produced in several locations which proved to be a long and frustrating process. We had previously released a 6 song demo on SoundCloud to which only 1 song made it to the album. With so much material to cram in and so much time passing, we ended up with a very wide range of sounds and far too many songs for one album!
What has been your most memorable moment performing on stage?
It was probably one of our gigs at Connelly’s in Time Square. The night was beautiful, the city was busy, and the venue was packed out with fans! We had a killer set list and [Tom Rende’s] fiance sang as a special guest for one of our songs. She was in town and on break from performing in her own band that night. As soon as she joined the stage and we started rocking, I knew the moment was special and all my band brothers felt the same.
What are you most excited to do music wise this year?
Definitely our new album release, we put so much into it; the songs just keep getting better. Our friends down at The Sound Cellar have been doing an amazing job recording and producing…Special thanks to Dave Alini from The Sound Cellar for keeping us on track and being the best dang engineer/producer we could have asked for.
Aside from this event, where can people see you for your next show?
With album 2 being our top priority, we wanted to spend a few months completely focusing our efforts towards finishing. As a result, we took a brief hiatus from early winter till now but we will be booking several album release gigs for the early spring and will post all the information on our website & social media accounts. For information on upcoming events and gigs please visit our website here.
We look forward to rocking out with y’all soon!