Beat Magazine

Fort

by James Ridley

Big riffs, black tits and gold shiny bits may be the key to unlock the doors of the world. Ah, the wonders of a new, slick looking, huge sounding package. It's been three years since Fort's debut full length In A New Light, but the boys from Byron Bay have been keeping busy. Never Coming Down, an EP featuring new and live tracks was released in 2004, followed by a best of called Place In The Sun for Tronador record label in Brazil in 2005. Except for last year's supports with Clutch, Fort have been pretty quiet on the home front while writing and recording, while lead singer Andy Walker has been traversing the globe (especially the USA) drumming up support for the new album among other things.

"I spent a bit of time with Ed Mundell from Monster Magnet while I was over there. I definitely want to tee some stuff up with him. He just likes to jam, man," Walker radiates.

After supporting the likes of Nebula, Fu Manchu, Brant Bjork and most recently Clutch, Fort have made valuable friendships over the Pacific. "I was with Brant at Rancho De La Luna (famous studio used by QOTSA, Kyuss) and he said 'have you spoken to Ed? He's a big fan of yours.' I was like 'fuck, that's tripped out.' Brant gave me his number and I organised dinner with him. It happened to be the night he got the new Magnet album. No one had heard it, just him and Dave (Wyndorf, guitarist/vocalist) and Matt Hyde (producer). Ed had just got it back and I got to listen to it from start to finish in his car. Then he was like 'let's listen to yours'. It was a fuckin moment, man."

On a separate overseas excursion in Spain touring with his mate DJ Adam Freeland, Walker met Norwegian pop/electro singer Annie Lilia Benge Strand. Leading to his first ever duet; All The Pretty Evils. "Yeah man, that was pretty tweaked," Walker admits. "She was playing at the same club as Adam and I and the promoter put us up in the same villa on the beach. We hung out for a week. She's a fucking cool chick. She came and spent a month up in Byron after that. We had talked about her doing a track on the record for ages. I think she's got a great voice."

The song definitely sticks out on the album. "You probably got tripped out by All The Pretty Evils like most people will."

How did the other guys feel about it? "I didn't really tell anyone. I just did it," Walker reveals. "They were like 'fucking hell' when they heard it. They were into it. It was a bit of fun."

While Walker was overseas, the rest of Fort – George Christie (guitar), Stuart Hume (guitar), Brent 'Badger' Crysell (bass) and Deon Driver (drums) – were writing riffs and rhythms like men possessed and sending the demos over to their wanderlust struck singer. They also did some travelling, so keeping cohesion in the sounds was difficult. "Some of it had changed by the time I got back," Walker recalls. "It was pretty messy, but we spent a lot of time to nail it and choose the songs that fit best. We had some really demonic stuff that wouldn't fit on this one, but might fit on the next. Just to have it in our hand after all this time is…"

A feeling somewhere between relief and ecstasy perhaps, but why so long? "We're not working on anyone's schedule but our own, that's the beauty of being unsigned. No-one's pushing you. I don't think the record would be what it is now if we had to rush it."

Walker says there were over 40 songs to choose from. In the end it came down to which songs worked live and members felt most strongly about. "Everyone's got their favourites. We had a few fights and screaming matches and got it sorted out."

Walker says Falling From Grace was an early favourite of his, but the first track Hiding From The Humans, which has already been snapped up by some surf film makers, has taken over. "It cranks, mate. I'm digging it."

Walker sees picking a single as pointless, as their choice normally backfires anyway. However there is definitely a more polished commercial sounding approach happening on this album with plenty of harmonies and hooky choruses to go alongside Fort's trademark chunk factor. "There are some anthems, I guess", Walker concedes. "I wanted to work on that for this record, instead of just down-tuning the fuck out of all the guitars and getting as noisy and as low as possible. We tried to write better songs and hookier vocal lines. We experimented with overlaying and stuff like that."

Was there a risk of sounding over produced? "Not really, we don't have enough money to do that. We did it on tape. Actually we recorded over the In A New Light tapes, that's how tight the budget was. Luckily we know how to work a studio and know how to get the hell out of there as fast as we can, because we fight like motherfuckers in the studio."

Walker says the best thing they did was leave the distractions of hometown Byron Bay to record at Back Beach studios in Rye with DW Norton in May last year. "It was a big step taking a few weeks off, going down there and getting amongst it. It worked."

The packaging matches the sound quality. The cover features a naked black surfer chick with dreadlocks sucking on a lollipop of the world. It was Walker's idea. "I have this pop-art book. It has an old Chuppa-Chup ad with this really cute girl sucking on a lollipop. That wasn't really going to fit with the tunes, so we added a bit of a world domination theme, a bit of a darker vibe and a space-orientated feel. The girl on the cover, Renee Simone, is a bit of an enigma in these parts. Everyone knows who she is but no-one really knows who she is. She popped up at the right time. She was into it, so we got all voodoo and shit in the forest. It was a fun photo shoot."

Is there any meaning behind the image? "It a bit of a suck it and throw it away vibe for the planet, you know, just fuckin' use it."

Individualist, consumerist, destroyers of the Earth style? "Nah, more like we're here for a good time not a long time."

To finally hold the sexy black digipack in his hot little hand, Walker says it's been worth the wait. Something Fort can gig on and promote overseas. Deals with distributors and labels in the US and elsewhere are in the works and depending on sales here, bigger things may be on the cards. Fort will be jet-setting regardless, armed with the album they feel is their quintessential. "That's why we didn't give it a name. We are all so fucking stoked with it. That's our one. If it does something then awesome, if it doesn't then ay, we're used to that."

Fort play the Espy Gershwin Room Friday September 14 with Winterun, Uncut White Noise and Bravado. Fort is out now through MGM.