Fog Illuminated: Andrew Broder answered some questions.
The latest "Fog" album cover is rather patriotic looking and yet when we look closer its just a painted wall of a building with three men looking less than definite about their identities. Are you proud to be American? No, I'm not particularly proud to be an American. I think anyone that listened to our music closely could figure that out pretty quickly. The cover is meant to be a bit ambiguous on that subject, because it's undeniable: we are Americans, and you have to be honest with yourself, where you come from and the position you have in the world as a result, and try to live accordingly. The cover is just about being honest, I guess. I didn't want for us to present any identity for ourselves if we were going to have a picture on the cover, like, "We're these kind of people." It just is. A plain photo of three men. The listener/ viewer can make up their mind about the rest. Who specifically are the characters in your song "Your beef is mine"? The characters could be anyone in the imagination of who heard the song- to me, that's what makes it interesting. I wanted to present those lyrics as kind of a dream-like series of events and give the characters only a little bit of identity, so that it can interpreted differently by different people. Maybe a good comparison could be a David Lynch film, where you know just a little about the characters, and it's kind of up to you to decide what their background and motivations are. Of course, in my head, I have specific things that come to mind when I play the song, but I prefer to keep those to myself. Do your mentors come from religion, living artists or dead ones...or somewhere else? Definitely not religion. Both living and dead artists, my friends and loved ones, strangers, animals.... There is a sort of designer mess that American bands have created,a dirty complex yet clean sound often taking the foundations of the Beach Boys and the Doors and adding bits of Weezer style melodic Rock.Can you explain the growth of this genre and explain why no-one in Europe can seem to match it? Do you consider your band in this genre? No, I don't really want to be a part of any genre (particularly one that mixes the Doors with Weezer!). I know that's a very pretentious thing to say, but I can't help it. I listen to and am inspired by so many different styles of music, that I just don't really take that into consideration. I don't keep up with a lot of new music- some I like, but none fits into the above description, so I can't really say why there are lots of American bands that sound like that.
Do you think two musicians can have a healthy romantic relationship? Sure, why not? Johnny and June Cash, Les Paul and Mary Ford, John Lennon and Yoko Ono... the list goes on... Any projects outside music on the horizon? Or anything you'd like to try that you haven't dared mention to anyone you know? Eventually, I would like to have my own recording studio and commit most of my time to that. That's still working on music, obviously, but in a different arena. This issue is about women in modern society - do you think women's rights are being reversed? Well, in the States much of what happens with that will be determined by who gets nominated to the Supreme Court in the coming years. If it gets more conservative than it already is, then yes, we will see a whole lot of rights for women- women's health in particular- put in jeopardy. On the other hand, women are outnumbering men in college now, and that will continue, so ...I don't know.... How do you feel as a man in today's world? I just try to live my life the best way I see fit, and try not to let labels define who I am and what I do. I am also lucky to be married to someone with whom I can share everything and the male/ female power dynamic doesn't really enter into our life together. So, yes, men have fucked up the world in a big way, but I don't feel like I am a big part of that. Maybe because I was raised by a single mother, I have a different perspective. Fog's latest Album "Ditherer" is out now. www.fogtimewaster.com The official website where you can buy albums and merchandise and check out the latest news
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