(L-R) Andrew Dost, Nate Ruess, Jack Antonoff
“Hey I still want to make music and I want to do it with you guys so let’s go to New York and do this” was all it took from singer/songwriter Nate Ruess (The Format) to tell piano/keyboardist Andrew Dost (Anathallo) and singer/guitarist Jack Antonoff (Steel Train) for the band fun. to form; and within in a year they have put out an album, sold out a vast majority of their headlining tour dates, and opened up for sold out crowds on the Taking Back Sunday tour this past month.
They recently were in Chicago not once, but twice in the last two months. Once for a sold out headlining show at Schubas, and then again last week as a supporting act for the sold out Taking Back Sunday show at the House of Blues. Whether it be supporting or headlining these boys are playing their music to sold out crowds all across America; not bad for a band that formed only a year ago.
After fun.'s performance at the House of Blues Chicago I got to chat with piano/keyboardist Andrew Dost and one thing that he was tight lipped about was the bands upcoming tour plans, "Nothing yet, well we have a couple of things on the horizon but nothing set in stone enough to where I would be comfortable saying" explains Andrew. As of 2 days ago it was officially announced that the tour on the horizon for fun. is going to be supporting Jack's Mannequin early 2010, but no Chicago date has been added to the bill.
Fun. has been touring non-stop in support of their ten track debut album Aim & Ignite which was released August of this year. The boys packed their things and headed to California to record, "We went to L.A. and we stayed in a friend/managers house, like a guest house and it was just awesome. It was like going away to summer camp, just magical. We watched Mad Men every night, we built a dollhouse, and we made up games…" Andrew explains. I stopped Andrew in the middle of his sentience to inquire further about this dollhouse the boys built, because it seems like a rather unusual task to accomplish. Andrew explained it came from an idea that kept building, "We spent two-hundred dollars on this ridiculous dollhouse. I think either Jack or Nate wanted to build a model car, and then it was like, why don’t we build a battleship, than it was like no we need to build a massive dollhouse" no dolls were used in this massive dollhouse, but they did complete the entire thing while watching the MTV Video Music Awards.
If you pick up Aim & Ignite on iTunes not only do you receive the ten tracks, but also two bonus songs which include vastly different versions of "Walking the Dog" and "Take Your Time". The bonus tracks were recorded two months after the album was finished, "We went back out to L.A. and worked with our producer again, we just put a mic in a room and bashed them out basically. “Walking the Dog” was just a completely different version that I worked up on piano and changed all the melodies to the complete structure of the song. We just wanted to do something vastly different' explains Andrew. I listened to both versions of "Walking the Dog" back to back and was amazed at how they sound so incredibly different. The album version is bouncy/uplifting where as the bonus track is haunting/melodramatic both are intriguing and unique in their own right which is hard to pull off when re-working an original thought only two months later, yet fun. did it with ease.
Their new video for the latest single, "All the Pretty Girls" debuted today at AbsolutePunk which you can view below:
To read my entire interview with piano/keyboardist Andrew Dost head on over here where we talk about why there is a period after their name, how legally their band name will always be in a lower cased f, how big of a Vampire Weekend fan Andrew is, and much more!
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