Fun Live Up to Their Name With Catchy Rock and Dirty Pranks

Posted on Sep 22nd 2009 2:30PM by Justin Jacobs
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Descriptive band names can be tricky business. If an act decides that, say, Best Band Ever is a fitting moniker but doesn't live up to it, they've blown it before even leaving the gate. Luckily for Fun, that isn't the case -- this trio of indie rock veterans make music that is, you know, fun.

Created by ex-Format frontman Nate Ruess, Andrew Dost of Anathallo and Jack Antanoff of Steel Train, Fun's debut album 'Aim and Ignite' is full of sing-along pop gems that smack of an indie rock Queen. In fact, the hook and harmony-laden 'All the Pretty Girls' could be an alternative-universe 'Bicycle Race.'

Unsurprisingly, such fun music comes from some fun guys. "Early on the tour, Jack and I decided we'd form a prank team," Dost tells Spinner. "We gave everyone codenames. For our first prank, we had a half-eaten vegetarian burrito from Chipotle. We threw it in a bag and lit it on fire, like a bag of s--- on somebody's doorstep. We were at a venue and tricked our drummer to stomp on it. That night, our two hotel rooms started prank calling each other."

The night escalated until the group was kidnapping and ransoming band members between hotel rooms. "It might sound convoluted now, but at the time, well, we were running around a hotel at four in the morning with our friends. It reminded me of being away at hockey tournaments when I was 10 years old," says Dost.

It might be the band's lightheartedness that's sticking to fans like the flu, but more than likely it's just the music. In less than a month since the release of 'Aim and Ignite,' fans of the Fun members' former bands and new fans alike have memorized every song and sold out most of the tour stops. Fun's show in Atlanta was full of kids singing and fist-pumping as if it were a 2004 Dashboard Confessional show. But instead of a bleeding heart Chris Carraba, Fun features Ruess' spastic dancing and jumping to the band's theatrical pop.

Bouncing back from The Format's very public disbanding in early 2008, Ruess didn't expect such quick fan adoption of Fun. "I was expecting at least a little backlash. Sometimes people have, for lack of better words, a bug up their ass. People like to be bitter and point fingers, but I feel like we made a record where we didn't have to answer so many of those questions," he says. "I think the music speaks for itself. I didn't give fans enough credit."

Fun aren't alone in the "new band of veteran musicians" crew. From Them Crooked Vultures and Chickenfoot to Drummer and the Dead Weather, this has been the year of the supergroup. But who would win in a royal rumble between these super acts?

"Oh, we would lose. I think just looking at the combination of all of our record sales, we lose by about a billion," Ruess says. "That's why we're not a supergroup. We're just a super group of dudes. There's a difference."

For his part, Dost is a little more optimistic. "In a fight, I'm deceptively good," he says. "I've never actually been in a fight, but in my fantasies, I always win."