In Conversation: FIZZ
Welcome to Fizzville – your new favourite indie supergroup has arrived. Fondly referring to their fans as ‘fizzlets’ and sporting bright, clashing colours, FIZZ is infused with the psychedelia, euphoria and sheer imagination necessary for when friendship is the only thing saving you from disillusionment with an extractive industry. Comprised of Martin Luke Brown, Orla Gartland, Greta Isaac and dodie, the band blend everyday moments with surreal levels of theatricality on debut full-length, ‘The Secret To Life’.
In spite of their respective successes as individual artists, FIZZ evidently provides the opportunity for a new era of experimentation for its members. ‘The Secret To Life’ is a cathartic release of emotion and tension, blending the band’s musical maturity with a charmingly youthful spirit for life. The process behind the record was crucial. Motivated by an inherent desire to avoid overcomplicating music-making, FIZZ’s time at Middle Farm allowed them to go back to basics and focus on the most crucial theme of all, friendship.
Describing this project as infused with play and a liberating sense of creative freedom, it’s clear that the four friends believe their solo work has been enhanced by FIZZ. Providing the perfect chance to embrace their inner child, ‘The Secret To Life’ is about exploring the weird and wonderful spectrum of emotion.
CLASH caught up with the super group to discuss origin stories, avoiding the tendency to overthink and the delirious laughter that takes over when four friends decide to record together over two weeks.
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This seems like an oddly appropriate first question: What is the secret to life? Why that title for your debut record as a band?
Dodie: I don’t think we planned it as a title. We didn’t really plan anything going into this project. We wanted it to be very free – almost like a holiday from our own artist projects. It was interesting that what came out was very loud and very maximalist. There’s a song about strawberry jam, there’s a song about a looming breakup, it’s grounded and also whimsical. ‘The Secret To Life’ was a phrase that came out and then we realised that all the songs made sense as the answer. But, for me personally, I think the secret to life is gratitude in little things. And I say that, I keep saying that, but I have to keep reminding myself to actually stick by that.
Greta: I think when we went down to Middle Farm, which is the studio where we recorded the album, we went in with no real agenda of how we wanted it to sound or whether or not we were actually gonna make it into a serious project. I think we just wanted to go down and make it about the process because I think we’d all in our own ways become very results-driven in our solo careers. So, it felt like a bit of a retreat from that process. Pretty quickly we realised that the trust we’d accumulated over ten years of friendship found its way into making music together; bridging the gap between youth – which is the more whimsical side of the album – and adulthood which is the more serious side. So, I think the secret to life is both of those worlds coexisting in this very beautiful mess. I guess that’s why we called it ‘The Secret To Life’. It just felt appropriate to celebrate such a wide spectrum of emotions.
Orla: I also like that it’s a bit culty. Not that we’d really thought as far ahead as the lead single or who our audience would be, but I feel it had a bit of a weird kind of energy that felt a bit culty. I like the idea that we’re selling an album called ‘The Secret To Life’.
Was there a specific moment when you all decided to form the band?
Orla: Yeah there’s many different versions of this story, isn’t there?
Greta: Yeah in the FIZZ-lore there’s multiple ways it came about, but I think there’s one sort of famous text.
Dodie: Famous to us.
Greta: That Dodie had sent to Orla (because me and Martin live with Dodie and we’d been chatting about it in the flat) a text message saying “Do you want to start a band?” And Orla said “Yeah I’m down,” and then Dodie was like “No seriously.” Like should we just go round to Middle Farm and see what happens. But I think by the second week, because we went down in one week in December 2021 and then a second week in July 2022, by the end of that week in July we realised we had a whole album. It felt worth pursuing seriously. Rather than just a joke.
What was it like recording as a group at Middle Farm?
Dodie: It’s the best bit for sure. We were writing and recording at the same time because, again, we were really trying not to think too hard about anything. Pete Miles is the producer at Middle Farm, which is the studio we went to. He really encourages play. He basically set us up little recording stations where we stayed and recorded. There was a lot of red wine and vibes. Yeah we had a great time. Lots of fits of giggles.
Greta: So many hilarious vocal takes that are probably still buried somewhere in the album if you listen closely. I think simultaneously singing together is so powerful, and kind of spiritual in some ways. But then also can be fucking hilarious if someone sings a bum note or pulls a funny face when they’re singing or whatever.
Martin: We tracked all the vocals round; we had four mics and we were all facing each other tracking vocals at the same time. By the nature of being directly opposite each other and being able to look at everyone – just the faces that people would pull while they’re hitting certain notes – we laughed a lot for sure.
Greta: There’s something about also singing with your friends, when you’re laughing in a recording environment and you’re not meant to laugh, because of time, pressure or tiredness and you just want to get it done. There’s something about that kind of laughing. It’s almost like vomiting, it’s like involuntary vomiting. You’re just like, I need to stop laughing but I can’t.
What are each of your favourite moments on the album?
Orla: The second verse of ‘Close One’ right at the beginning, where it goes “careful”, and it drops. That’s just so fun.
Greta: There’s a guitar solo in ‘The Secret To Life’ at the end where Orla is playing it, and it’s just so sick, and so sexy I always forget that Orla can play guitar so amazingly.
Martin: There’s a bit in ‘The Grand Finale’, which is the last song in the album. Me and Gret do a verse. We call it ‘Paul’s a Plumber’. That’s the section. And it’s like Thomas the Tank Engine meets…
D: The Beatles, I think.
M: Yeah, it’s just so so silly. It’s such a fun thing. Maximum, maximum silly. I love it.
D: My favourite is in ‘As Good As It Gets’. There’s a note that Gret hits, that when she was recording it I was literally like ‘Ahhh!’ It still gives me goosebumps, literally it will always give me goosebumps.
The album explores a variety of different emotions so effortlessly. How did you go about approaching the blend of emotional intensity and playfulness?
Martin: We honestly just did it. We just did it and afterwards we were like “Oh, it worked! Cool.” Yeah, truly.
Orla: I think so much of it was unspoken about intentionally because it felt like such an experiment. The only thing I was intent on, and felt across the board, was fighting the urge to overcook or overthink any decision. It’s not something that we’ve ever discussed as a band, because the whole point of it was not to discuss anything and build up a trust in your own instinct that I definitely lost in my projects. The speed at which we wrote with, lent into fighting the urge to overthink things. We would just go in and throw the vocal down, and the vocal you sing the first time is the final take. It’s like this really fast fever dream.
Martin: It’s how we were feeling on the day. We were just gassed and excited because it was this playground for us.
Greta: Yeah, the songs are like a huge mirror of how we were feeling that day. We were writing them and finishing them in a day or two essentially, there wasn’t much time spent on properly going through the tracks and tweaking anything. We just didn’t allow time for that. I think Martin’s right – each song is a true reflection of how we were feeling that day. We have sad songs and more funny, stupid songs, which is testament to the full spectrum we allow ourselves as a friendship group; to both be vulnerable and cry one minute, and then crack jokes and chat about Paul the Plumber the other.
Much of the album feels like they’re almost a guttural scream into the void. Were they cathartic to record?
Dodie: Yes, totally.
Orla: Especially ‘Hell Of A Ride’ for me. I think I was thinking about aging so much at that time, without even ever having acknowledged that within myself. There’s something really amazing that happens when you have a feeling in you that you haven’t said out loud, and then someone else suggests a lyric that is literally like a mirror to that. ‘As Good As It Gets’ as well, but in a different way. It was the three of us gals and our friend Soren Bryce, she was like a character in the studio for the whole album and her own projects are post-punky amazingness. We channelled her energy when all four of us were yelling around the mics. That was so cathartic.
There’s something deeply comforting about this album despite its wackiness and surrealism, especially because it evokes some of the nostalgia of music from the sixties and seventies.
Martin: I think the whole thing was kind of accidentally all of that.
Dodie: We didn’t know what to expect.
Martin: We were playing, it was just play. We didn’t really listen to references and stuff. We recorded a lot of it to tape, a lot of it was recorded live, so we had the drums and the bass and someone else playing at the same time. I think the whole philosophy of how it was done was quite old-school anyway. Then by virtue of us playing and not having rules and boxes that we were putting ourselves in, we were making stylistic choices that were a bit bolder and more theatrical. I don’t think that’s culturally a thing now. People are more humble and safe with their choices. I think all of us grew up on a lot of that stuff, like The Beatles, Yello and Queen, and that elaborate, theatrical pop stuff, but it definitely wasn’t deliberate, was it? It just kind of happened.
Greta: When we went to the studio we only really had our voices and the instruments, and some fun synths and stuff that Pete had in the studio. I think coming from London, where a lot of the sounds and stuff can be found in plugins or whatever, you’re kind of limitless in the possibilities of what your music can sound like and that can be quite overwhelming. But in the studio we had some sort of template of real instruments and voices. You just have to write the songs. I think adding that restriction actually allowed for a lot of theatrical, more complex arrangements for me personally. The excitement and the musicality came through the writing and rearranging, rather than sounds that you can just get on a computer.
The visuals of the band are as striking as the music. Were there any films or pieces of art that inspired the aesthetics of FIZZ?
Greta: I can think of a few films in particular when we were planning the creative of the album and how we wanted it to be put out: Alice in Wonderland, Willy Wonka, Wizard of Oz. Actually, what I’ve realised about those films as well is that there’s an alternate reality in those films, but ultimately there’s something farcical or fake about them. I think there’s something really charming about flawed adults wanting to create joy and the outcome of that is quite strange and wonky. Like Tim Burton, also a great example. Things that have a darkness or a twist to it but are quite alluring and charming. It’s creeped it’s way into how we dress and the artwork that we did with a photographer called JP Bonino, who helped bring Fizzville to life. We also worked with this illustrator called Miranda Bruce over in the States, who did ‘The Secret To Life’ album artwork.
So much of the music, live performances and visuals feel like they attempt to help listeners embrace their inner child. How important has FIZZ been in helping you discover your inner child and why do you think that is?
Dodie: I’ve spoken about this quite a bit, but in my own artist project I’ve learnt to be louder over the years but I still feel restricted. I feel like I have to be very careful and considered about what I’m saying in my music, and also making sure every single harmony is ‘correct’, whatever the fuck that means. Whereas in FIZZ I put that to one side. I can yell and I might be a bit flat, but it literally doesn’t matter if it’s right or not cause it sounds kind of cool. Is it my inner child? Maybe.
Greta: I think so.
Dodie: It’s play and a lack of pressure. That has been really freeing. It’s so interesting how I didn’t realise I could turn that off. But I can, thanks to FIZZ!
Greta: We should sell FIZZ medication…‘Thanks to FIZZ that voice in my head is gone!’
Orla: Yeah for me I think it’s like a learning not to shrink thing. With there being four of us in this, you’d expect it to mean there’s less space for everyone. But I think the energy of the other three gives us all permission to be the loudest, most grabby version of ourselves and I think, to me, that’s actually harder to do when you’re on your own. Whereas with this we push each other to the front. We’ve got the safety of the other three also shouting, which allows you to shout even more. It’s so sick.
What do you think your younger selves would think about FIZZ?
Dodie: Oh my god, she’d fucking love it. She’d be so jealous, which I have to remind myself because it’s so cool.
Orla: I think kids would love this. I really want us to do a kids tour. Maybe we could do matinees for under 10s.
Dodie, Greta & Orla: I should be so lucky, if you’d only hug me!
Orla: It’s so colourful and loud. We’re cartoon versions of ourselves. Baby me would definitely be at the barrier. Just rocking out.
Has working on FIZZ influenced your solo projects?
Greta: I think it’s definitely influenced my trust in myself. I think in my project I’ve definitely put a lot of trust in other people, which has been so valuable in so many ways. I love working with the people that I’ve worked with. But I definitely thought I needed other people to make music and to know what I want. FIZZ has been a really great exercise in knowing what I like and fighting for that: trusting that that is the right decision because it is my decision.
Orla: It’s learning to back yourself and pick your battles as well. I think that’s something that we’ve all learnt to do with all aspects of this project because you know there’s four opinions and all of us are used to having our way in our own projects. Sometimes you learn to let go and other times you can fight for your ideas. I think learning to respond to that is definitely something I’ll take back to my project. Know when you’ve got a little fire in your belly – it’s worth the airtime.
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Words: Charlotte Grimwade
Photo credit: Karina Barberis
