Fun Adults

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Fun Adults make music responsibly. When they make music, it’s done painstakingly and with great deliberation. The Leeds based band are skilled labourers, who would just as easily hold shovels and pitchforks in the place of guitars and keyboards.

In fact, to acquire a recording space they could call their own, they renovated a dilapidated 200 year old barn. Fun Adults do things the hard way, blending together experimental pop leanings and intricate harmonies, all to achieve a sound that doesn’t come without a hard day’s work. Having just released their debut single ‘Sap Solid/Acacia’, the band’s Declan Pleydell-Pearce shares a bit about what good a little elbow grease and an eye for detail can do.

Your name evokes a party band but your music is more mature that that – so what’s your idea of fun?

Don’t think we don’t mess around with autotuners… I quite like the disparity the name throws up. On its own fun is a sort of innocent word, quite childlike. The name hopefully mirrors the idea us pushing the envelope whilst remaining playful.

Where did you get the idea to corrupt straightforward melody in favour of stuttering beats and interrupted cadences?

That’s the sort of thing we haven’t actually set out to do. Melodically we’re just doing what comes naturally to us, and some of my favourite points in the tracks are when quite a poppy line jumps out. We might record some of the melodies and then use them in the construction of more textural aspects, but we’d always want there to be some sort of line you could grab onto.

What do rap, jazz, and folk have in common? How much does that matter, as far as your music is concerned?

I suppose that the connection between the three is intricacy. In terms of the lyrics in the folk and hip hop which we like, the interplay between words is extremely important. A famous folk example would be ‘It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’. The three are all very human but with a real dedication to the craft, which is something we’re very influenced by.

You turned a barn into a recording studio. How did that influence the direction of the album, and how did you get the smell out?

The insulation was nasty work, I’m not sure if I’ve got all that stuff out of my system just yet. I reckon the best thing it did for us was supply us with a place we could work in comfortably, without the pressure of being in ‘The Studio’. If you’re recording in an environment which puts you at ease, the music you produce and record there is naturally going to reflect that. It also allows us to be that bit more patient, which is a great luxury to have.

What does hard work mean to you?

We benefit directly from hard work. The four of us all ask a lot of each other in terms of the work that we bring to the collective band. Whether that’s in songwriting, lyrically, in the production or the visual elements, hard work means continually challenging each other. If you have four people who all have a massive say in what comes out the other side, it’s important to be honest and sort of say ‘that’s good, but come back with something better’.

Is your sound informed more by music, visual mediums, or just life in general?

Life in general, absolutely. Especially the lyrics. Our music isn’t directly informed by visual media, but we work very closely with the music when producing artwork. It seems like a very obvious thing for us to do to identify the colour and texture of a track, which will hopefully come across is our artwork and video.

Is Radiohead’s Amnesiac anywhere in your genetic makeup?

It’s a good record, really varied and sort of dysfunctional. The blend of the electronic and the acoustic is naturally something that would have influenced us.

How do you recreate such affected sounds live? Do you have to make certain compromises/alterations in order to accommodate/enhance the live experience?

Yeah, compromising your studio ambitions live is important. On stage we don’t want to sound exactly as we do on record. Essentially everything should be played live, including the samples. I wouldn’t say we stripped down our music though, if anything giving it a wallop live can really benefit the songs. Certain bits of the songs come out which you wouldn’t expect them too, which is fun.

What do you hope to eventually accomplish?

We’re all really excited about putting together an album, and honing the live set.

What excites you, and what calms you?

Tommy Wiseau’s ‘The Room.’

Talking Heads are amongst your influences. What do you think of David Byrne’s latest team-up with St. Vincent?

They’re both obviously excellent in their fields and it seems like a good match. It’s nice to see David Byrne still making good pop music, and Annie Clark’s melody in ‘Who’ is killer.

Fun Adults’ debut single ‘Sap Solid/Acacia’ is available now through Tough Love.