Scenestar

BY CHERYL CHENG

After releasing fifth album Fasciinatiion this summer, The Faint has embarked on an extensive, nearly non-stop tour. Following the band’s August show at the Music Box, The Faint will return in November to perform at the Wiltern, just in case you got worked up so musically.

Singer Todd Fink found a moment in between his time on the road to chat with The Scenestar about the tour, the new album and what exactly those geeks were right about.

The Scenestar: Congratulations on the new album. Could you tell me a little bit about where “fasciinatiion” came from? And why the extra i’s?
Todd Fink: On the computer I was using to make the demos, the i key was broken, so when I titled the [album’s] folder of the demos, that kind of stuck. And it looked cool at the time. When we were thinking about the album, what the whole thing would be called, it was the only thing that came up, so we just went with it. To me it makes sense.

SS: It has been about four years since the release of Wet From Birth. Why did the band decide to take that time in between albums?
TF: We toured longer on each record that we did, which leaves you less time to make another record. It also didn’t come to us super fast. I think we went through some different ideas of what record to make. We’ve never been fast at making records honestly. The [albums] all seem to come together right at the end. We set a deadline, and even though we’re only halfway done with writing the songs, we’ll know that we need to record. I’ll try to finish up all the lyrical odds and ends, and we’ll try to make sure we have the right arrangement for each song. So sometimes there’s a couple of different versions or approaches to different songs. A song seems to want to be a certain thing and I think it’s wise to follow it, but sometimes in order to find out what that certain thing is, you have to try a few different approaches.

SS: The band self-released Fasciinatiion on its own record label, blank.wav. What was that experience like?
TF: We’ve always kind of taken on more and more of it onto ourselves over time. Recording the record ourselves is probably more significant to us just because it sounds just how we want it to sound. Not working with anybody else, it kind of feels purer or something. Not that it was tainted before, but we can really kind of understand it for what it is. There’s no other input. We take all the blame for it.

SS: Do you think it’s more personal?
TF: Yeah, it feels good to make something completely on our own. We’ve always done the other work and figured out … making a lot of decisions a record label would normally make and doing a lot of the design work that a record label would do, all that kind of stuff, so it’s not really that different for us. It just kind of makes sense for us to put out our own records.

SS: Did you name the label after the record Blank-Wave Arcade?
TF: Yeah, to us that record is kind of the main moment of eureka. In finding the sound for that record, we really found ourselves and figured out what we had to offer as a band and how we felt … the music that we had been searching for up to that point kind of came together for that record. So it’s kind of special to us. It’s also, we don’t go back further than [Blank-Wave] when we play live shows. We’re proud of everything beyond that, and it takes time to get to that point for non-musicians becoming pseudo-musicians. [Laughs]

SS: After ending this summer tour, The Faint has scheduled a fall tour. Why did the band decide to tour so soon after?
TF: Well, we’re just trying to get to every place. A few places we’re repeating, but not many. The rest of them are places that we skipped on the first tour in order to get around as quickly as we could, to be everywhere in the world around the release date in a lot of the bigger cities. I guess it’s just our job. We love doing it. We want to make sure we support the record.

SS: For the past August show in Los Angeles, you wore a lab coat and goggles. Was that tied into anything thematically?
TF: It’s what I’ve been in the mood … how I’ve been feeling. It probably doesn’t make any sense.

SS: Do you have other costumes?
TF: Well, I’ve always liked costumes but this particular one seems to make sense to me with the album and kind of my outlook on the world and what came out in the lyrics. There’s a lot of … I don’t know if I want to say ‘science worship.’ There’s a lot of thinking about the big things and little things, and science is a good way to understand those. So is religion, philosophy and so is time travel. To me, I feel like we’re in tune with that if I’m dressing up in a thematic way to reference it.

SS: I noticed that science theme as well as a futuristic theme on this record.
TF: Yeah, that’s what I think about when I write songs; it’s what makes it out of my mouth.

SS: The first single is titled “The Geeks Were Right.” What would you say they are right about?
TF: It’s a song taking a peek into the future through a dream sequence and coming back with that conclusion. It’s almost a prediction. It seems to be true, if history is any indication. So what specifically? I guess I’d say I’m referring to geeks as the ones who are thinking about or projecting the problems of humanity in advance and understanding about where we’re at. They’re understanding computers, the significance of the Internet, researching global climate shifts. The list goes on and on…

SS: I think that goes along with the music video, especially when your image is mixed with TV screen static. It’s like the blending of humanity and technology, which definitely alludes to the future.
TF: To me, it has an interdimensional aspect to it. That there’s individual pages of video behind each other and working into some kind of psychedelic future dream-like thing.

SS: It goes along with the lyric “Watch what humans ruin with machines.”
TF: Mmm hmm, yeah. I don’t even make a lot of the connections like that. It takes perspective and time away from it to understand why I said certain things.

SS: OK, so speaking about the future, what does The Faint have planned after touring?
TF: We’re trying to get started on writing the new songs sooner than we did last time. We kind of waited until we were done touring and then cranked up the song machine, and it was a little rusty at first. We’re trying to figure out, we’re not in the groove, we’re not in the habit of doing this, so it’s kind of awkward. But I think we’re going to keep it all flowing more fluidly this time. And now that we have our own studio, we get to make any kind of thing we want, whenever we want. I think it will change the way we write, and I’m excited about that. So we’re going to go in on January or February and do a couple of new songs. I don’t know what we’ll do with those songs or how they’ll turn out … we’re just going to write them.

In the meantime, in the near future, you can look forward to seeing the Faint perform at the Wiltern on Nov. 5. Tickets are $25.50 and available now.