Q&A with Neil Sabatino of Fairmont

By: Kendall | in: Music |

Fairmont wait hope

Recently I received an album in the mail from New Jersey band Fairmont. The newest release is called Wait & Hope. Instead of doing a simple write up I decided it would be more interesting to get in touch with the band and spend a short time chatting. I got a hold of John McGuire the bassist on my first call, and ended up having to call back due to problems with my phone recording setup. When I called back, I was on a different line, and John answered again saying something along the lines of, “Hey Beautiful, I’m glad to hear from you.” After an awkward moment of silence, and a hello from me, and he quickly realized that I was not his girlfriend. He passed the phone off to Neil Sabatino, lead man. Andy Applegate, the drummer, was present, but I didn’t have a chance to speak to him.

Fairmont - Since the Day I’ve Been Plotting

The band was driving through Indiana. I caught them right as they were pulling into a Steak and Shake restaurant. On this tour, the band decided that it would be a swell idea to stop at all the fast food restaurants that they don’t have in New Jersey. They had been to a Sonic drive-in during their previous stop. After chatting about Frisco melts and cheddar fries we got down to business.

Fairmont wait hope

K: “So you have a new album out, in your words, what’s the best way to describe the album?”

N: “Do you mean musically, lyrically or as a whole?”

K: “As a whole.”

N: “As a whole, we just set out to make a good rock record. Lyrically, it’s pretty much autobiographical. It’s of my experiences in the music industry over the last seven years.” “It’s kind of like if you took, like, Husker Du, and the Pixies and other bands like that and threw them in a blender, you kind of get the sound that we are going for. So, I mean it’s not for everybody, but the people who enjoy those bands really seem to be digging the record and the direction we went on this record. It’s a little less acoustically than some of the past stuff we have done and a little more punky then some of the past stuff we have done, as well.”

K: “Now originally the band started of as an acoustic project, right?”

N: I started the band in 2001, and I started it as a solo project and I did the first record by myself. I played all the instruments on it, except for drums.” “At That point I started finding musicians, and we went through a bunch of line ups, until I got the lineup that I’m playing with now. Pretty much, from the second record on it’s the lineup that we have now. Andy the drummer joined the band in 2000 ‘2, andy?’ (he yells back 3.) Oh in 2003, for the record Anomie, which is our second record. At the time we were actually a three piece, with an acoustic guitarist, I played clean electric guitar, and there was drums. Then shortly after, John the bass player, he joined.” “It’s been us three, and the one guy who was the additional guitar player.” “Eventually he found he couldn’t tour as much as we wanted to, and keep up with what we were doing, you know, so he left the band. So we have been a 3 piece for the last 3 years now.”

Fairmont - Lack of Luster

K: It’s seems to be working pretty well, you managed to find yourself on some reasonably high profile tours, right?

N: “Yeah, well, we’re still at the point where we’re booking everything ourselves, but we’ve managed to get ourselves into some of the best rooms in the country. On this tour we’re playing the Creepy Crawl in St. Louis.” “We’re headlining 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis, that’s like, you know, the venue we’ve been dying to play, for our last five or six trips through Minneapolis.” “The areas we do really well in are the Northeast, and the New England area, and Chicago and Minneapolis. We try to hit those areas about three and four times a year.”

K: “Ok, I’m going back now, and I apologize. But, on your new record you have a video out now.”

Fairmont wait hope

N: “Yeah, basically it’s just on YouTube right now. We had a director approach us from the Chicago area that said he would do a video for us free of charge. We were on tour in Chicago, and we took the day off to do the video.” “We came up with the concept with him on the phone and he found the actess for us, for it, and we kind of went back and forth with storyboards before I had even met him, and he kind of, storyboarded out the whole thing, and found locations and everything. It worked out pretty well.

K: “That about covers my main questions at this point. Is there anything you would like to say or add, yourself?”

N: “We’re one of those bands that have the people that get our music, and what we do. We have those fans that don’t just love one record by us. They usually end up buying our entire catalog and loving everything about it. We’re one of those bands you can’t just go out and pick up one record, or that one hit single and that’s all you want buy them.” “All four records kind of tell a story; where the band comes from, the trials and tribulations. I think that’s what people kind of enjoy about us, and I think that’s what they get from us at the live show as well.”

Suspicion Haunts The Guilty Mind

[youtube]Wk-MN2jbpF0 [/youtube]

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Posted on August 27, 2007

Comments

7 Responses to “Q&A with Neil Sabatino of Fairmont”

Tibi Puiu on August 28th, 2007 4:49 am

hahaha the intro was so fun :)), you cracked my up with ‘Hey Beautiful’, that was trully an awkward moment.

Kendall on August 28th, 2007 5:40 am

I was actually speechless for a minute trying to figure out how to break the sad news that I am not beautiful, or his girlfriend.

Neil Fairmont on August 29th, 2007 6:44 am

Just an update, we stopped at over 3 Sonics, 2 Steak and Shakes, 1 Popeye’s, 1 Indian place, 1 Thai place and tons of 7 elevens. Unfortunately we had to skip out on Rally’s, BoJangles and Church’s Chicken, there’s always next tour.

Neil Fairmont on August 29th, 2007 6:45 am

Oh, 2 quick corrections, the album is WAIT & HOPE and we played at the Creepy Crawl in St. Louis.

Charbarred on August 29th, 2007 6:57 am

Thanks Neil, I corrected the mistakes. You guys should pick a theme for the next tour…how about just Chinese food?

Kendall on August 29th, 2007 8:57 am

Neil,

If you read this, did you guys end up trying the Frisco melt at the Steak and Shake?

Neil Fairmont on August 31st, 2007 1:11 pm

Only Hambone ate food at all these weird Fast Food Chains, I think he had the frisco melt… And actually the theme of our last tour in June was ese, we had japanese, vietnamese, thaianese, and chinese every night of tour. Can I tell you the midwest has some of the worst ese food all except Chicago. This tour we found a great bar in St. Louis that served Sushi until 3am, we spent two nights hanging out there. We can’t wait until we’re a bigger band that can demand gourmet chef’s in our contracts to tour with us at all times. Anyway thanks for the interview!