FIDLAR is currently on tour with The Orwells and have a show coming up in Madison at the High Noon Saloon next Friday, Nov. 1. The Daily Cardinal got the chance to catch up with the drummer, Max Kuehn while they were on the road “drivin’ around in Salem, Massachusetts.”
Mary Sullivan: Can you give me a little background on the history of FIDLAR?
Max Kuehn: We’ve been a band since like 2009. My brother, Elvis [Kuehn], plays guitar and then Elvis and Zac [Carper], the singer, were working at a studio together and started jamming together. Then Brandon [Schwartzel] was buddies with Zac and started joining us. It wasn’t really a planned thing we all just started jamming together and made a few songs and were like, “OK we have a couple songs, let’s do a show.” And it just turned into a real band. There wasn’t anything planned about it. We basically all just liked hanging out with each other and started playing music.
MS: So the name FIDLAR is an acronym for “Fuck it dog, life’s a risk”—where did this come from?
MK: Zac0 was living with some skater kids in L.A. and it was kind of an L.A. skate motto and we needed a name to play shows, so we all agreed on FIDLAR and just went with it.
MS: Are you all from L.A.?
MK: We all currently live in L.A. Me and Elvis grew up there, but Zac is from Hawaii and Brandon is from San Diego.
MS: How has it been touring with The Orwells?
MK: It’s been good! It’s kinda crazy because they’re so young they can’t go to bars and drink, so we try to sneak them drinks and get them fucked up and just hang out. They’re super nice kids—they haven’t gotten to that point where it’s like, you’ve toured a lot so you turn into an asshole about it. They just really want to learn and we like showing them the ropes because they’re really good kids. It’s fun to kind of be the older brother to them and show them around.
MS: You’re touring with The Pixies in 2014, that’s pretty huge.
MK: Yeah, that was insane. They were one of the bands that when we started out we talked about how crazy it would be to play with them, so when we found out we were touring with them it was a huge mind fuck. We’re all really excited. We all grew up listening to The Pixies and they’re definitely one of our influences as a band, so that’s really cool.
MS: I saw you at Lollapalooza in 2012, it was great. How does the festival scene differ from private shows? Do you prefer one over the other?
MK: There’s definitely a benefit to both, but I think we all prefer smaller club shows just because they’re a little more fun. The festival scene is super rad too because there’s so many people and the sound is great and stuff, but we all really like the intimacy of smaller shows. I think especially with our band, since we’re so energetic, that the type of music we play translates a little better in a setting where everyone is there to dance and have fun and it’s sort of harder to do that at like noon on a Saturday.
MS: Where has your favorite city to play in been so far?
MK: On this tour we’ve actually had a couple surprises. We played in Fort Worth, Texas, and it was super unexpected because we played a show the night before, and not many people showed up so we kinda expected it to go like that—but then this huge crowd came and they were absolutely nuts and went crazy and people got naked, so that was insane. So yeah, I would say that’s been the coolest place we’ve played so far on this tour.
MS: Have you ever been to Madison before?
MK: I feel like I have been before at some point… we’ve never played there before so it’ll be cool. We’re excited.
MS: Any last words for the UW Madison student body before you play here next Friday?
Um… Get ready to rage out?
