“It’s pretty much going to be the best day of my life. I don’t think I’m exaggerating.”
It’s safe to say that Fat Robot bassist Bryce Daigle is looking forward to his band’s set at the Wolfe Island Music Fest.
Just one dark, creepy alleyway removed from Lee’s Palace in Toronto, Fat Robot are drinking beer in a parking lot and reflecting on the fact that they, along with fellow campus acts The Radical Dudez and Khaki Snack, have now played on the same stage as Kurt Cobain. It’s not a particularly glamourous scene, but neither is heroin addiction, and everyone’s got to start somewhere.
Fat Robot act exactly like you would expect four university-aged guys who spend a lot of time together to act: talking over each other, making fun of MySpace (“ ‘I hate my weekday life, but I love my MySpace friends’—can you make that the article quote?”) and trading brotherly abuse, with singer/guitarist Tristan Whitehead particularly liable to disappear into a black hole of sarcasm. And it’s hard to sustain the brief illusion of rock stardom created by their tight performance to a surprisingly large crowd at Lee’s when drummer Chandler Burton’s dad borrows my camera to take pictures of his son.
But despite being relative unknowns outside Queen’s, Fat Robot share the Wolfe Island bill with some of their own favourite bands—Canadian indie heavyweights the Constantines, Jon-Rae & The River, and Wintersleep—and if you forget that Fat Robot rehearse on Aberdeen Street, the combination begins to seem slightly less ludicrous.
Their influences aren’t elusive to any thoughtful modern rock listener, including a simple, meaty Strokes-style breakdown here and an Isaac Brock-ism there. But the result comes off as tastefully studied rather than derivative, with fluid basslines and interlocking guitars dominated by Whitehead’s tuneful rasp.
“I think I model my singing more after Eddie Vedder and Bry Webb [of the Constantines]; those are the two big huge ones. I listened to Pearl Jam all growing up, that’s what I’d always try and sing like, but then when I heard the Constantines the first time a few years ago, that’s what I wanted to sound like: the growl.”
Fat Robot formed in October 2006 from the ashes of two other campus bands, Modus Operandi— “You’d have to be really indie to have heard about us … Like, so indie that you’d have to know us,” says Whitehead—and Average Lime.
Whitehead’s recruitment into Modus Operandi offers hope to ghetto stoop guitarists everywhere: “I was sitting on my porch playing guitar, just hoping … ‘Today is the day that someone will come! Maybe if I play on the porch … someone will ask me to be in a band with them.’ And it worked.”
Both bands dissolved when key members graduated, and Daigle joined what remained of Modus Operandi: Whitehead, Burton and guitarist Bernhard Isopp. They caught the ear of Grad Club manager and Wolfe Island Music Fest booker Virginia Clark en route to their February QEA Battle of the Bands win.
“Lately, we’ve just been learning how to feel really comfortable on stage and kind of hold our own,” Isopp says. “When we played with The Diableros … and [The] Most Serene Republic—I mean, I definitely was really nervous, but I think—I don’t wanna speak for the whole band, but I think we’re all kind of over that. But I’m nervous about Wolfe Island.”
The band is currently recording an album with Radical Dude Adam Bell, which they are not optimistic about being able to record and package by the date of the festival. They may not be able to settle on an album title in time either.
“Tristan never agrees with my suggestions,” says Isopp. “I liked You Miss The Birds. You always miss the birds. I love it!”
“Fat Robot Goes Through The Wash,” counters Whitehead. “’Cause I was doing laundry and I had a bunch of sunflower seeds in my pocket, and they all went through the wash and they were still good.”
Fat Robot are concerned they didn’t come out of an encounter with the Constantines as successfully after the Cons played The Grad Club in February.
“I think the Constantines think that certain members of [our] band are assholes,” says Isopp.
“After the Constantines show, we were partying at The Mansion [on Aberdeen],” says Whitehead, “and I was just chilling with [their] bass player … and I was like ‘Yo, I’m in this band called Fat Robot, you’re actually going to hear about us in a couple of months’—being the biggest dick—and then I was like, ‘Why is your new record not as good as Shine A Light? Like, did you guys consciously try and do that?’
“And he looks at me like, ‘What the fuck, man? We were writing a record, we weren’t going out to try to make it worse than our last one!’”
“So, they’ll never talk to us again,” Isopp says.
Despite signs of serious commitment to the band—Whitehead, the only member who has graduated (Daigle is returning for a master’s degree), is living in the band’s jam space until November, and Isopp is still marveling at getting the “green light” from his parents to pursue music—Fat Robot are reluctant to openly acknowledge they might be making headway.
“We don’t really have any fans, per se, we just have people we guilt trip into coming to our shows,” Whitehead says. “We think we’re popular, but … actually, people feel sorry for us.”
Then, for one brief moment, someone almost manages to be serious.
“[Wolfe Island] is exciting ’cause it’s just, like, another step. Every time that we think there’s another step on the horizon, that’s what motivates us,” says Burton. His bandmates fall silent, suspicious of what might follow the incongruous jock jargon. “If we’re not growing, then we’re just, like, doing drugs.”
Fat Robot are seeking validation through MySpace popularity at myspace.com/fatrobot.
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.