Interviews

The Fallout Trust

08/02/2005

With the impending release of their debut album In Case Of The Flood, the Fallout Trust are a band on the up. Blending sharp, intelligent lyrics with epic, cinematic soundscapes, they might just be the band to fill that Radiohead shaped hole in your life. In the midst of their hectic first UK headline tour, front man Joe Winter takes time out for a few words with GIITTV.

How's the tour been going?

The tour's been exciting for us, it's our first headline tour. It's been pretty different, we turned up at Preston and there were a couple of dogs there so we put them on the Ark and drove off.

How have the audiences been?

They've been very good. Nice people. I don't think anything'll beat Stoke yet but we're getting there.

On your website you talk about riding around Berlin listening to David Bowie and Iggy Pop. Tell us a bit about that.

We were fairly disillusioned, both myself and Guy, and he gave me a call. He was doing science, I was doing art and we decided we wanted to bridge the gap between science and art, which I'm sure you'll agree is a very wide gulf. He suggested going to Berlin, it was his idea. I brought all the minidiscs and a couple of pairs of headphones and we just walked around listening to Bowie and Iggy all the time.

How did you put the band together after Berlin?

Well, half of us are family. My brother's in the band, and my sister-in-law. We'd been doing music, kind of messing around. We'd been in a band in Bristol, where we're from, before and Guy was in a rival band who were nowhere near as good as us. Guy obviously realised that and decided he needed to be in a band with us to make it worthwhile. He'd been in Newcastle and that was where he met the other two, Gavin Ellis on bass and Matt Watson on drums. They came to London and we just went house hunting and found a suitable place.

Is that the already legendary Q Quarters?

Yeah, Q Quarters. I'm not sure if it's legendary just yet but, you know, local folklore and all that crap.

What are your plans for the future? When's the album out?

It's out on the 27th February. We've had it for a little while so, for us, its been, I wouldn't go so far as to say frustrating because it's exciting that it's coming out, but we spent a long time making it. We recorded it at Q Quarters. We wanted to record it in our own house because we had the right acoustics. We kind of worked with what we had. It was quite a learning curve for us, recording a whole album, but I think it sounds great.

What really good stuff have you got on your rider?

Dogs. We don't pet them as such. We just have them around. Sometimes dogs, sometimes other species. All the species you can think of. In two's.