On a profoundly chilly yet exciting night, up and coming alternative rock band Fatalist invited me to their ‘secret lair’ to review their newly recorded 5 track CD – live and in person. I was intrigued as to what might lie ahead. And rightly so.
With Gary McCarthy on Guitar, Sean Hammond on Bass, AJ Pepin on Drums and Lloyd Ghose on Vocals the band Fatalist began the serenade with extremely heavy and bass-laden instrumentals… Which were electrifying. This intro instantly got me wanting more; ‘Greed’ was the first song of the evening – Lloyd’s use of angst-ridden screaming vocals were genius, emotional metaphors hidden within the lyrics. The chorus whispered ‘I know what you want from me’ repeatedly as Lloyds vocals crept up, louder in each sentence, building up to a climax of loud screams to finish…God this feels like sex. Sean on bass was like a kid in a candy shop; I have never seen a bass played like that before, almost as if it were a lead guitar. AJ definitely kept to his side of the bargain as beat-keeper, and even added in some additional beats to mark his territory. The band playfully broke into a jam of heavy instrumentals and beats as the echo sounded like a scream from hell.
“Wait and See” was every bit as exciting as “Greed”, however, starting a little more softly. It made me want to mosh, yet I contained myself and continued to be a professional (just about!). The eerie sound effects and vocals made me feel like I was in a movie, but then the pogo-like guitar ad bass pricked up and once again I felt like a punk in the mid-80s.
Lloyd began to jump around at the end of the song, as an introduction to ‘Krakatoa’; not named after the Volcano, but after an incident which left Lloyd without a toenail… “Krakatoa” seems to reflect the angst of teenagedom, the confusion, the paranoia, with lyrics like ‘I do want this…I don’t want this’ repeating themselves over and over.
And then they jumped into a rocked-out and tricked-up version of Destiny's Child's ‘Survivor’. I hardly recognised it, it sounded completely original and strangely inviting. It had heavy instrumental breaks, aggressive vocals and screams in appropriately angry moments and drum beats that could surely deafen the most hardened of ears. Lloyd rapped sections as guitarist Gary sang backing vocals, a nice mixture of overlapping rap with rock lyrical brilliance.
They hardly broke between songs, they just kept jamming, with Bassist Sean making up jazzy solos of his own throughout.
But they had to finish, and when they did BCR sat down with the band to get down to the nitty gritty of who and what was Fatalist.
Vocalist Lloyd Ghose and Guitarist Gary McCarthy started the band around four years ago, whilst original Drummer Matt and Bassist Ross left due to musical differences in regards to style and taste. Sean Hammond and AJ Pepin soon replaced them and it was evidently a good move for the band, as their sound has developed and matured and they have a real grip on their pieces (ahem).
I asked the band why they call themselves ‘Fatalist’, and queried whether it was due to a lack of positive thinking in their lives. They laughed off my probing Freudian questions and told me that they had simply closed their eyes and picked a word from the dictionary.
Fatalist do not seem to take themselves too seriously, as musicians and in their lives as a whole, again, this became evident via the ‘Mooney’ Lloyd pulled to his band mates (which they assured their female fans he does at regular intervals!).
While the ice had well and truly melted during our meeting I decided to probe a little more into the guys as a band:
BCR: Has the band always been called Fatalist?
Lloyd- erm (laughs and appears hesitant as if hiding something)
Gary- ‘erm, yeah always been Fatalist! (Laughs and glares at Lloyd)
BCR: Something tells me you’re not telling the whole story here…
AJ- ‘Yeah, ‘Fat-a-list’’
