FIDLAR Enjoy 'Cheap Beer' While Working Hard, Touring Harder (Free MP3)

It's reasonable to assume that a garage-punk band whose name is an acronym for Fuck It Dog, Life's a Risk might not take things too seriously, but don't dismiss FIDLAR as a bunch of lazy skaters. The SoCal quartet works hard, but still manages to work plenty of fun into its efforts.

"We're usually partying when we're working," bassist Brandon Schwartzel tells Spinner over a few beers and cigarettes at Lollapalooza. "Like, let's get stoned and make 100 shirts in our backyard. We'll do that and then it's like 'We're done. Let's go out and party. Let's record a song. Let's make a video.' We're functional partners."

"Sometimes people like to kind of hone in on the party aspect of us but we fucking work hard, man," drummer Max Kuehn adds. "There's definitely not this slacker mentality that everyone kind of thinks we have."

Listen to FIDLAR's "Cheap Beer" (Click Here to Download the MP3)

Despite not having a full-length album out, FIDLAR have already nabbed an opening tour slot with the Hives and a deal with Mom + Pop, and will support Delta Spirit this fall. With everything growing in stature for them, the band is getting more serious, in their own way.

"We decided not to take our skateboards because we just get wasted and end up skateboarding," singer and guitarist Zac Carper says of the Hives trek, adding that performing at bigger venues is all about "convincing the crowd."

"It's been a little different because we're used to a little bit more rowdy, smaller shows so it was definitely a transition going into the bigger theaters where people are cross-armed a bit," says Max, whose brother Elvis plays guitar in the band.

Keeping things the same no matter their success is also why they signed with Mom + Pop. "We made it abundantly clear that we wanted creative control with everything," Max says. "That was the selling point of the contract. They were like, 'You can do whatever you want. We support you. We want you to keep doing what you're doing. The end. We just want to help you.'"

"They just want to put out our shit," Schwartzel says. "We keep doing exactly what we've been doing and they'll put it out all over the place."

Speaking of that, fans can expect their self-recorded debut album within the next couple months. We're trying to find that balance between garage rock and good recordings," Carper says.

"Trying to make garage rock sound better than, you know, shitty," Schwartzel says. "It's definitely not clean."

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