Fred again… doesn't do many interviews, but he seemed genuinely pleased to open up about Nardwuar in a chat posted on Monday (October 14). “One of my absolute heroes, so honored to be in a room with him,” Fred wrote when he shared the 45-minute chat.
The pair cover a lot of ground during their talk, discussing everything from a night Fred had in New Orleans after an Ed Sheeran show and his thoughts on Sheeran's live shows in general, to his current roommate Fred (Henry Counsell of Joy Anonymous) until he got his first copy of Logic when he was 11 years old.
Fred tells Nardwuar that he previously used a complex analog method to create multiple tracks, and that his world opened up when his guitar teacher gave him the software that would allow him to layer as many tracks as he wanted. “That was kind of the beginning of the biggest love affair of my life,” says Fred.
Talking about his long history of working with friend and mentor Brian Eno, he also talks about how Eno turned him on to UK electronic legends Underworld, who he recently went to see at London's Alexandra Palace with Skrillex. “Sonny walked in and said 'This is the rarest crowd dynamic I've seen in years,'” Fred recalled of the show. “Phone, present, in it, everything was relaxed in the best possible way.”
Fred also explains how he prefers working in coffee shops to studios. “There was a coffee shop in the center [London]”, says a coffee he particularly liked. “They were taking out the extension cord and I felt very comfortable to the point where I was taking out interfaces and a microphone… It's nicer to be out in the world as opposed to some closed room with no natural light.
“I think the reason I like to write in non-studio places and out in the world is because you get this constant collage of humanity,” he continues, “that thing just goes by, it's always moving and changing… I think it just keeps the your brain alive and moving, while gradually still it becomes more and more still in the vacuum of a dark room.'
He also talks about the personal conversation he had with the Mayor of Perth, Australia, in order to convince city officials to let his team raise the decibel levels by two or three points during a recent show there. “Two or three?” Fred remembers the mayor saying, “You can put it at 15!” Shout out to the people of Perth.”
The flannel-clad Canadian interview icon then asks about Fred's frequent collaborator, Four Tet, specifically asking about Four Tet's first band, Fridge. “I think he has this very inquisitive, childlike mentality that makes everything he does have that kind of line for me,” says Fred. “I think he could do 20 different bands and they'd all have the same kind of Kieren-ness to me.”
At the end of the interview, Fred presents Nardwuar with a handmade card depicting highlights of Nardwuar's career and life and a small calendar with a circle around “September 29th”, which Fred calls “Nardwuar Day” .
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/fred-again-nardwuar-interview-skrillex-four-tet-1235800528/
