by Michelle Singer
Tonight Foxy Shazam are returning to the Theatre of Living Arts to put on a show unlike any before. They surprised fans with their new album Gonzo by releasing it out of nowhere for free online and immediately experienced a complete traffic overload with so many people trying to download it. Gonzo reveals a different side to Foxy Shazam and in my interview with frontman Eric Nally I was able to get a closer look at the recording process, concepts behind the record, fears, and the plans for their notorious live shows.
One thing’s for sure, Foxy Shazam is a hardworking band that deserves every ounce of success they get. They have been together for almost 10 years now and in one year alone have been known to play over 250 shows. So after a long tour supporting their previous album, The Church of Rock and Roll, Foxy Shazam decided to strip down and return to their roots. “We basically took the year off and we played everyday from like 11-3pm and we just worked everyday on writing songs.” Back at home, in Ohio, the band put the most energy and passion they have ever put into a record yet. After being completely satisfied with their creation they “brought that to the studio and recorded it. The whole album was done, we even had it [the tracks] in the right order.”
Gonzo was recorded at Electric Audio in Chicago with infamous producer Steve Albini who is known for albums such as In Utero by Nirvana. Albini was the perfect producer for exactly what Foxy Shazam needed in their career. He is most talented at giving the bands the creative freedom to do their thing while simply doing his job at capturing the essence of the artists at their best. With Gonzo written, laid out, and rehearsed it only took one weekend to record.
“We recorded the album in sequence all the way through. So we’d start with “Gonzo” [the first track] and play that a couple times till we felt like we got it, and then once we got it we’d move to the second one immediately, “Poem Pathetic”, and go through that a couple times. But we never did one song more than like four times and it was always one take through we all did it together.” Avoiding overproduction of the songs to keep the sound raw and by performing the album front to back really captures the emotion and passion behind the lyrics of the record.
Gonzo is Foxy Shazam’s fourth studio release and each of the albums are a bit different sonically, lyrically, and even concept wise. Each album has built off the experiences of the last and their music as maturing artists only keeps getting better and better as the band pushes themselves to new heights. With Gonzo, Foxy Shazam decided to try a few things they have never tried before. For instance on this album Loren Turner, who is normally on guitar, and Daisy Caplan, normally bass, decided to switch instruments, giving the album a different sound.
For a frontman who is known for his stage theatrics like dangling upside down from stage rafters, swallowing a handful of lit cigarettes, or dancing to their song “Killin It” naked, being scared about baring it all takes on another level of meaning. But tuning outside world out and forcing yourself to examine who you are really can be the scariest of all. As a person who really absorbs his surroundings for inspiration it was a different approach.
“I wanted to pinpoint and use myself as inspiration. I wanted to take the inspiration I got from inside myself this time as opposed to hearing outside inspiration, which I do enjoy and think is important, but every once in a while I think it’s good to tune that out and just worry about what your trying to do and just listen to yourself. So that’s what I tried to do for this one and that’s the first time I’ve ever done that before.”
There are multifaceted meanings to the word Gonzo as the album title. On one hand their independent style of writing, recording, and the surprise release of the album on the Internet for free reflects the concept of Gonzo journalism. The definition of Gonzo journalism “involves an approach to accuracy through the reporting of personal experiences and emotions, as compared to the traditional journalism, which favors a detached style and relies on facts or quotations that can be verified by third parties.”
On the other hand, and on a more personal level for Nally, the word Gonzo means “crazy”. For a band with so many live outrageous antics, the word Gonzo as “crazy” automatically makes sense. However, the lyrics Nally writes delve into a much darker more personal place. “I think that’s the definition of gonzo journalism going through one source that your experiences and that really like and there is an attachment to that word and that’s kind of how we thought about making the record. But what it meant to me, it’s more about the definition of the word itself- what you said…crazy.”
Nally sings about the relationship with his dad who, over time, has seemed to develop and suffer from a few mental issues and his fear of becoming like that himself. In “Gonzo” he sings “I’ve gone gonzo, I’m going gonzo” and in “Poem Pathetic” the lyrics recite, “Hope I don’t end up like you did, I turn the shower all the way to cold, a poem pathetic more like a fucking joke, you still don’t get it, feel that neither do I.” The album all the way through is really a story of Nally facing his fears head on, but most of all finding out who he really is through the process. The album ends with a song titled “Story Told” and softly recounts the nine tracks on the album through a nine line poem before bursting into Nally screaming “who are you, you better ask yourself, who you are.”
Another fear or challenge all musicians must face is unfortunately the pressure of success for many reasons, including financially and being able to support yourself. For Nally this means supporting his family as well. “Yeah, it is because it’s scary, you know…there’s a lot of people in the business that think you have to do it a certain way and if you don’t or you won’t be successful and that’s always a threat to an artist trying to make a living. It’s based off of that which isn’t really true so it takes a lot of guts to kind of ignore that theory and you just kind of got to go with your gut. I don’t know. I think it was a cool thing to do. I feel like we did it and it feels good.”
In their music video for “Tragic Thrill” they also took a risk by going in a different direction, but Nally couldn’t wait for it to come out and for people to see it. They even filmed it before the release of the record. It’s a very subdued video compared to their past ones and it adds something really special to the darker eeriness of the record and the difficult but thrilling experience of looking into the past, to and inside oneself, to discover who you really are. The lyrics recite “Tragic thrill, I’m finding out, who I was, who I really am, tragic world tuning out what I am, who I’ve always been.”
Nally loves contributing to the music with a visual aspect through videos. “We plan on doing more for this record, too. I want to do one for every song!” If you check out their YouTube channel, you will find many video shorts of the band performing little skits and many of them are absolutely hilarious. He recalls how, as a kid, he would dress up and put on plays for his mother. He always enjoyed being wacky and showing off for people so the videos are kind of his release for that as an adult. He jokes about releasing those videos on the Internet, but then retracts that statement laughing how he made sure to destroy those tapes a long time ago.
Foxy Shazam has a personality and essence unlike any other band. If you are a hardcore Foxy Shazam fan who has seen them before you will not be disappointed with this tour. “We’re doing the whole Gonzo album live right before your eyes and we’re going to do it in sequence. We’ll do that first, play the whole record straight through, take a five minute break and then play different songs from all of the albums.”
Having seen them last night at their sold-out show in New York, the energy and emotion they put into their show is unlike any other. Foxy Shazam is honestly one of the best live bands today. Not only that, but they have some of the best fans I have ever met and being in the crowd is a memorable experience in itself. If you have never seen them before expect cigarette eating, keyboard crowd surfing, stream of consciousness stories from Nally, and amazing energy. This tour is looking to be just as sweat-soaked, chaotic, and cathartic as ever. So “step right up and see the show, we’ve gone gonzo, throw a tomato.”
