Hello fans! Though the release of Switchfoot’s newest album, Vice Verses, is only 77 days away (you can refer to the countdown on our homepage for a more exact number) we’re still anxiously anticipating the newest Fiction Family release. So, with that in mind, I decided another interview with Tyler Chester, Fiction Family’s bass player and nominee for nicest-guy-around award (well he should be…) to discuss the new album. We had already interviewed Tyler once, way back in 2009, before he was even an official member of Fiction Family, so it only seemed right that we talk with him again. Read on for the VERY latest scoop on the Fiction Family record… straight from the source! For future reference, this interview will be archived in our Exclusive Interviews section!
Land Of Broken Hearts (LOBH): Tyler, thank you so much for talking with us today. Our first question, I’m sure, is a given. When can we expect the new Fiction Family record to be released?
Tyler Chester: We nearly hustled and released it this last Spring- we were talking May possibly, but then we felt like it wouldn’t really get the attention it deserved, since the new SF comes out late Summer. So, at this point, some time next spring. Which is good news for the music itself, since we’ll have some more time to tweak with it.
LOBH: So is the album “done”? Or are you using this extra time to sort of refine the songs?
Tyler: I’d say the album is… 88 % done. We might overdub a few things here or there. It isn’t yet mixed. But probably all of the songs that are there, will be there when it’s finished.
LOBH: Do you have a title for the new album yet, or artwork?
Tyler: No artwork- a few titles, but they’re sort of tounge in cheek. Fiction Family- 20 Greatest Hits. Haha! Maybe.
LOBH: That’s brilliant.
Tyler: And there’s only maybe 13 songs!
LOBH: I love it. I vote for that title. But I assume the “official decision” won’t be made till much later?
Tyler: Yeah, we’ll probably decide on something down the road a bit.
LOBH: Have you discussed possible singles yet, or is that also further down the road?
Tyler: Hmm – I suppose if we had one, it’d be ‘Give Me Back My Girl’. That songs translates immediately. And it’s quite catchy.
LOBH: I love that song! Out of all the songs you guys have played live recently, that one has gotten some of the best responses.
Tyler: Yeah, that’s a good one. One of my favorites.
LOBH: Just Rob Me has also become a fan favorite, and many fans are wanting some official confirmation that the song will be on the next release. Will it? Are you able to share the tracklisting at this point?
Tyler: Yeah, Just Rob Me is on there for sure. A very good version of it – with a great Sean Watkins guitar solo. I can give you a rough list of songs. Besides those two (Just Rob Me & Give Me Back My Girl) there is Damaged, Fool’s Gold, Guilt, Notch on the Tally, Up Against The Wall, Monster, My Forgetful Baby…. and my personal favorite, God Badge. There are a few other’s as well, but I don’t know if they are named or not. God Badge is maybe my favorite Jon Foreman song ever – up there with Vice Verses.
LOBH: I was planning on asking you what your favorite song was from the new album, but you already answered that! So maybe you could elaborate on WHY it’s your favorite? That’s certainly high praise for the song. Vice Verses is shattering. Amazing.
Tyler: Yeah, Vice Verses is amazing, and I’d put God Badge on the same level. God Badge says a lot of things about love and fairness and forgiveness that are hard to put into words. One of the great things with these FF songs is that I feel like I can stand behind each and every one, both musically and lyrically.
LOBH: I like that – it always feels different when the artists believe in the songs. So what’s the overall theme of this record? Is there one yet?
Tyler: I’d say the over-all theme is really the chemistry between the four of us. Most of these songs were recorded essentially live (with a few overdubs), often the four of us sitting in a circle, without headphones. It was very much like the first few times we played together – in Sean’s living room, singing and playing and listening. There’s definitely a certain groove and chemistry that has grown between us four.
LOBH: So how has the sound evolved now that the band has more members? You and Aaron are “officially” part of the band now right?
Tyler: Yeah, Aaron and I are part of it now, and having Aaron has been huge. The first Fiction Family record was built on acoustic guitars, mostly. But this one is almost without exception built on drums. Not in a jazzy way or anything – more like Levon Helm or Jim Keltner drums – deep, lazy grooves. Sean plays some electric guitar, which is pretty amazing for a bluegrass kid, and there are a lot more keyboards throughout. And there’s simply nothing like tracking together at the same time. Most records these days aren’t made that way, but that’s the old way it was done, and since that’s where the inspiration for the songs largely came from (the ‘old days’ of Dylan, The Band, John Lennon, etc), us tracking together as much as possible was important.
LOBH: That reminds me of your guys’ live cover of Idioteque – where the three of you gather around a mic and sing.
Tyler: Yeah, those types of moments have always been the best. There’s a part on Up Against The Wall where it was the 3 of us overdubbing these huge background vocals on one mic.
LOBH: So what’s the process like while working in a band where all 4 of you have such busy schedules and other musical endeavors?
Tyler: It’s tricky – this album was recorded over nearly 2 whole years, usually 2 or 3 days at a time. But we were all able to put our full attention into it for those 2-3 days, so I don’t think the music suffered – it just took a long time!
LOBH: I always felt fiction family’s music aged like wine anyway. We asked for questions from fans, and a few bass fans have wanted to know how much bass will we hear from you on the new record?
Tyler: Ha – well, there’s plenty of bass, although no bass solos or anything silly like that. And I played lot’s of keyboards as well- piano, rhodes, pump organ, moog…
LOBH: Another fan, Chris, asks, “Any unique things you did in the recording?? Alternate tunigs? Effects? Counter-rhythm lines? Counter-melody sounds?”
Tyler: Hmm – we recorded on open Rhodes top, which is pretty unique, on God Badge. And there are some very cool string parts on Fool’s Gold (Sara Watkins played those), and an electric guitar solo (Sean – a very unique sounding electric guitar solo). Our focus was definitely on songs, and making the songs come across as good as they possibly could. So, there aren’t any weird time things, but there are some very sick grooves.
LOBH: How is this record different from the first Fiction Family album?
Tyler: Well, the songs on the first one were good, but the songs on this one are REALLY good. Because they were built amongst us 4 (as opposed to the 1st album which was more Sean would work on this song for a bit, and Jon would work on it for a bit), they were very often completely deconstructed and then built back up and then, while still exciting and visceral, recorded. And like I said – awesome songs.
LOBH: What’s the most exciting thing we can expect from this new album?
Tyler: These songs really stick with you, the way classic old records do. Like old friends you haven’t seen in a while. That’s the best part.
LOBH: You’ve had a tour with Fiction Family and a number of live shows. What’s your favorite moment at concerts?
Tyler: There’s a great camaraderie playing with these guys. No one ever phones it in – every night is important and exciting and totally new. And that, believe it or not, is a rare thing in the music industry. So my favorite moment… is the part between when we start and when we finish. haha!
LOBH: Hey that’s our favorite part too – well.. not the finishing part. We’d rather it go on longer.
Tyler: Ha – me too
LOBH: To wrap up, you’re in a band with 3 other members from very different musical backgrounds and all with diverse personalities. What’s one (or two if you must) word(s) you would use to describe each member of the band?
Tyler: Aaron – The backbone
Sean – Virtuoso Guitar Player (sorry that’s 3)
Jon – Fearless/Energetic
LOBH: Tyler, thank you so much for your time! We’re super stoked about the new record, but details have been scarce so we really appreciate you chatting with us!
Tyler: Sure thing – excited for you to hear it! And I’ll see you back out there on the road somewhere.
Discussion Point: It’s Monday, so of course it’s time for our Monday Comes Around Song Discussion! In the spirit of the update, let’s take a look at a Fiction Family song today… so let’s discuss Betrayal! This was the song that started it all for Fiction Family, and it’s been near and dear to our hearts for some time. Head to the comments below to discuss the story of the song, the lyrics, your favorite lines (Mine? “someone always wins and then they write a book”), and your earliest memories of this tune! We’ll see you there!
Great interview! Thanks for doing this!
Thanks so much for the interview– so much good information in that! Do we know yet if there’s any chance of Fiction Family actually touring properly?
Betrayal is my favorite Fiction Family tune, and the one that got me hooked on them. I was pretty late to the Fiction Family party, since I had it in my head that it would be basically really low grade folk. I greatly regret my hesitation now. I think one of the things I love about Betrayal is how totally stripped down and raw it is. I love the opening line. It’s just ridiculously vivid. I also love the line “all of my defenses came out red.”
ha just bought the old FF cd yesterday, so maybe ill chip in on the MCA discussion later:) really enjoyed the interview, glad its more of a ‘group’ effort this time ’round:) I love ”War in my Blood” on their first release!
Great interview, really excited for the new FF record now! Glad the Fool’s Gold (I’m assuming thats Ashes of Rock and Roll) is going to make it, thats probably my favorite FF song.
Betrayal is a song with pretty amazing lyrics, as far as creatively, and poetically. The music is a little lacking, but the lyrics outweighs anything the music is missing. I really like the story in the song, and the message i get from it, is his love was so strong for this girl, that it blinds him (as its mentioned in the song) to not even notice that she’s betraying him. I think the song is just a song, with no deep or spiritual meaning, though it just has a life lesson in it, sort of. Love is great, and enjoy it, but it can fool you sometimes, too (as i’ve had done to me in the past, haha)
Also, this is off topic a bit, but did anyone else notice Switchfoot’s twitter yesterday? They said what we would think if they released some live tunes from the Hello Hurricane tour… um, yes please! They mentioned there would be “more news soon”. I wonder if it would be a real, official live record, or something like the Bootleg record they did before. Can’t wait to hear!
I have a conference call with management this week – i should get more info on that for you guys then
Awesome, thanks. And I must say, I think everyone Switchfoot fan is jealous of you! Though you have had to work to get here, and I think everyone (I know I do) admires you for it.
I remember you saying that you were able to listen to Hello Hurricane before it was released, have/will you get to do that with Vice Verses?
*laughs* thanks I think? HA! I do feel fortunate, but I did work hard to get here… so I guess I’m just grateful!
Yes, I will be previewing Vice Verses early. I’ll be sure to review it for you guys!
Good, I really enjoyed when you and Job reviewed Hello Hurricane.
im proud of you jeanna, you are a really lucky person
oh and hes right about fans being jelous! i do get jelous sometimes
Oohh lovely interview! Betrayal and Mostly are my two favourite FF songs. I like betrayal, because it tells a story and it has beautiful imagenery (is that a word?). Some of the parts I love are: ‘holding secrets only winter knows” and ‘love was red, love is red’. The ending always hits me: ‘so I’m not dead if what you did don’t hurt’. I hear a certain stubborn bitterness in there.
I find the bridge kind of confusing.. I mean the ‘someone always wins..’ part. Could someone explain that for me?
p.s. I may have miswritten some of the lyrics. Sorry for that!
Betrayal is the song that really got me into Fiction Family. I love the story in it. It’s kind of simple, but songs like that leave you wondering how someone could write something so simple and awesome.
I agree. The simplicity of the song is what makes it so great.
Now I am more excited than ever for the next Fiction Family! Jon offered to let me listen to it on his phone at Bro-am, but in all the commotion I didn’t get a chance. Sure would have been fun though!
Betrayal is such a great song. My favorite line: “A gunshot was the only word you said”.
What is that device called? A metonymy? Synecdoche? Is it a metaphor? I need an English major to help me out…
Am I the only one who has only heard wbout 1 Fiction Family song and doesn’t own the cds? I really need to listen to them I guess…
You really should! They only have one CD out so get it now!
I’ll take your advice and try to find that cd then! What’s the name of it? Or is it self titled?
it’s self titled!
Here: http://store2.bandfarm.com/fiction-family
or here: http://www.amazon.com/Fiction-Family-Dig/dp/B001KL3GYK/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1310440406&sr=8-4
I recommend getting it from the first link, as more of the money will go towards supporting the artist
Awesome!! Thanks so much
Yeah, I should do the same, I have only heard one (maybe two) fiction family songs, I am really glad I’m not the only one though!
Haha me too! I thought I was! Once I get home I need to buy the album!
Thanks for using my question, haha
. I’m ALMOST just as excited for this as ViceVerses 
.
Oh Betrayal. I really really love this song. The melody is just awesome. I remember when I first got into Switchfoot, I was watching a podcast, and Jon was singing Betrayal. I couldn’t get the melody out of my head for months. I was searching all over the internet, looking for a way to buy this Betrayal song. I didn’t even know it wasn’t a Switchfoot song.
My favorite line is the first line, “I don’t remember much about that night, but I’m pretty sure it rained the day I died.” I love a story-song.
Great interview! Looking forward to new cd.
Do you think fiction family will ever tour internationally? that’d be awesome! Would love to go to a fiction family show!;D
Oh No! I missed last weeks song of the week and I even checked what it was but I didn’t have time to respond! Darn, oh well. I’ll get this one. Anyways, good interview. I let me look at how this next album will be. I liked the first FF but there were some parts in there that were just random and weird sounding to me. I think this one will still have that random parts in it but it’ll have a smoother tune to it. Can’t wait!
This song is one I enjoy a lot. There are some FF songs that I don’t like but this one is a good one and very poetic
I was always disappointed with the lyrics in Betrayal, but not because they’re bad. Just because it’s another aching, sad love song (doesn’t seem like Jon writes a lot of those?). It’s an INCREDIBLY well-crafted song, though. Despite my desire to stay away from it’s sad story, the art draws me in– the melody makes you feel like the song was always buried deep somewhere in the universe, and Jon just dug it up (or Sean?). Jon’s called himself an archaeologist of sorts in regard to his finding good songs, and I would agree. I also really enjoy the simplicity of the arrangement. It couldn’t have been done better.
I would say Jon writes a bit of those… maybe not a lot, but certainly a few. I finds he writes those mostly for Fiction Family. I really like the way he writes them though, usually really creative, and not the trashy love songs you hear on the radio all the time.
I’m not really a fan of the song though it is well done. Whenever I listen to it it’s always on my shuffle or in a random playlist. The music itself is great, the story is rather interesting but.. I’m not really into it I guess. Feels like an old western to me or something. Like the ending of the song just sounds like it would fit in a old western. My absolute favorite FF song is Not Sure for sure. Beautiful song
Fiction Family is the best. theyre like a modern day beatles. (when she’s near=such an awesome beatles sound) they really went back to the roots of rock music w/ FF. all of those really loud cacophany of sounds at the ends of some of the songs is all very beatle like.
And Betrayal almost sounds like a prelude to please dont call it love. Like PDCL is him being really angsty about betrayal
WHAT? I just read what you tweeted. You know, the Jon quote. WHAT THE HECK DOES THIS MEAN?????
How does that confuse you?
Jeanna, i just dont understand what he means by this statement. when he says that Christ will never be cool, does he mean to society itself because some of society would never find Christ cool? or is this one of those things like John Lennons “more popular than Jesus” statement? it just confuses me
Are you talking about the quote when Jon said (along the lines of), “Jesus will never be trendy”, and “He’s not my homeboy”? If so, i can understand why you would be confused, but i’ll offer you what I take from it. I agree with Jon here, because I feel he’s saying that Jesus is not ever going to be cool, because not only will society never allow it, but because thats not really the way it should be. Jesus isn’t going to be trendy because doesn’t “fit in with the crowd”. He was not the kind of man that most people thought was cool. He didn’t do what people wanted. Granted, he had a large following, and obviously still does (i’m proud to follow him) but on the scale of the world, he’s not exactly “trendy”. Not sure how it could be confused with Lennon’s “we’re bigger than Jesus” comment, however.
I’m not sure if this helps you at all, might actually make it worse, because I found this difficult to put into words… I know what Jon was trying to say, but I’m not explaining it well. Hopefully Jeanna, or someone else, will be able to explain it better than I did.
He’s saying Christ has never and WILL never fit into what society finds “cool”. Christ didn’t fit into human molds, or ideals, he utterly and completely shattered them. Christ is above all. As believers, we often try to make Christ “cool” or “palatable” or “trendy” by our slogans, our t-shirts, our bumper stickers. But Christ will never fit onto a bumper sticker.
You said EXACTLY what I tried to say, but just couldn’t put it into the right words. That is a perfect explaination, you nailed it right on the head. Thats exactly what we (christians) try to do. Make Jesus look cool and trendy, but he is not. He will never be. He is so much more than that, and we try and reduce him to, as you put it, a “bumper sticker”. Who are we to think we can fit Christ into what we try and make him?
“Who are we to think we can fit Christ into what we try and make him?”
I like that! It’s very true and it bothers me when people (and myself included) try to do that. Nicely said!
what happened to the 3 questions you always ended each interview with? i always loved those
Glad to hear! Tyler had already answered those in our first interview, so I didn’t ask him again