Article in June 1999 Express Magazine.
Used with permission of author.
fez:
Letting the Music Speak for Itself
by Gail Wilson
People who have been lucky enough to catch a rare Mobile fez
performance know that they’re likely to hear anything from disco to swing to surf to
heavy metal, all in the course of one show. But now, with their debut album World
Domination on $3 a Day, fez is giving all the rest a chance to be initiated into the
ranks of the fezbyterians.
Since Mardi Gras, fez has received weekly radio airplay on 92
WZEW’s Sunday jazz show. On hearing a pre-release copy of the fez album, Uncle Tim of
the ZEW exclaimed, "Smokin’!" Fez received a hometown send-off from the ZEW
on Joe Cain Day when they were headed to Nashville to begin recording World Domination,
which is to be released on the Crazy Owl Records label this summer.
The Hawaiian Monkey Boy, guitarist for the instrumental rock
band, says they’re known as a surf band, but that’s not quite all there is to
it. The Monkey Boy listens to surf, but that’s not the only style he listens to; and
this shows in the music. The boys of fez—Chaos, Mr. White, and Monkey Boy—like
many different styles of music and have succeeded in making World Domination
"like listening to (tracks from) 11 different albums."
Monkey Boy explains that the songs on the fez album are all
different, but they still make sense when taken together because of the instrumentation.
"Everything that we have is basically guitar-bass-drums," he says.
"There’s an underlying flavor of surf in everything, with the drum beat and bass
style of playing, and with the guitar reverb."
Reverb is one of the defining elements of surf, but fez puts a
definite jazz twist on many of its songs. The jazz element takes a catchy melody and makes
it more musically complex (Monkey Boy played guitar for eight to ten years before he felt
he was ready to play jazz). The band also uses elements of heavy metal, exotica, and pop.
Their operatic Hurricane Georges Bizet has an unmistakable heavy metal feel, and
the band says it’s like "standing at the gates of hell itself."
Alternatively, the album sometimes sounds like a Frankie and Annette beach movie and other
times like the theme to a modern sequel to Hawaii 5-0.
World Domination was recorded over two weeks in February and April, which was
amazingly fast for what the band and their producer accomplished. Producer Scott Baggett
worked long hours and, luckily for fez, understood exactly what the band had in mind. Fez
rehearsed their best-received live numbers heavily for two months prior to recording so
that there would be no wasted time in the studio. They ended up with nine originals on the
album and two cover tunes. Baggett helped the boys keep their songs interesting without
the hook of vocals by using different guitars, different effects, and different drum
sounds. He even arranged for keyboardist Reese Wynans, formerly with Stevie Ray Vaughan,
to appear on several cuts. For the recording, fez played as they do live then went back
and pushed the songs over the edge in order to reproduce on disc the band’s visual
and musical stage energy.
Fez was beyond pleased with its producer. A friend of a friend
guided them to Baggett, and a better producer the boys couldn’t imagine. Monkey Boy
says most people think of the Beach Boys when they hear the word "surf," but fez
is more akin to the Ventures and Dick Dale, and Baggett understood that without
explanation. More even than these influences, Monkey Boy was first exposed to surf through
covers by punk bands such as Agent Orange and the Dead Kennedys. Surf a la fez is
therefore more thrashy and aggressive than classic surf. Other influences, like Webb
Wilder and Bill Lloyd, turned out to be people that Baggett had actually worked with
before, so the sound was right on. Chaos says that Baggett put things on the album they
didn’t even know they wanted, but there it was and that’s what they’d
wanted all along—"It was like he read our minds."
Fez was lucky enough to meet Dick Dale at a local show, and he
advised them not to call themselves a surf band; he told them not to limit themselves that
way, to just play what they play and let the music speak for itself. The band put its
album together in a way the boys hope will be an ongoing multi-course feast for the ears.
Vocals? Who needs ‘em? Fez lets the music speak for itself.
World Domination on $3 a Day will be available at Peaches Music
and Video
From Quennie & Alphonse-
"QUEENIE: I really liked fez. I saw them for the first time at Uptown Jam
and when I found out they were back in Columbus, I made sure I got to see them
again."
WZEW-FM 92.1 throwing itself a downtown party by Carol Cain (Entertainment
Editor), Mobile Register-
"...fez... has gained local acclaim with gigs at BayFest and First Night
Mobile. With its twangy guitars and precise drum beats, the group pays tribute to surf
music pioneers such as ... the Del-Tones."
Review by Baby Doe at Tiki News-
"Yeehaw! It's not often when one comes across an original surf band in a style of
music that has been around for 30++ years.
It quickly became clear to me that fez has the ability to gather from an array
of genres and make it into their own unique Surf Par-Tiki! In their rendition of
"Don't Mean a Thing, if it Ain't got that Swing" they use a swing sing merely as
a point of departure into what becomes a classic-style surf tune with an aggressive
Batman-esque bassline. After that one I was ready for the laid back loungey surf tune of
"Monkey Boy Stroll", which I might point out should go hand in hand with some
kinda banana elixir!
Ah, and one of my favs was the "Pipeline" cover where they exaggerate the one
second wave crash on the original into a slow-eerie beginning! Scary!