Ihate waking people up; it brings visions of my mother banging on my door as I abused my alarm clock. But it’s two-thirty on a Tuesday afternoon when I disturb the slumber of Ray from Fait Accompli.
He sounds under the weather, but assures me it’s all good.
“Oh I’m fine, a bit hung over. I just woke up with bad taste in my mouth; feeling a bit filthy.”
Speaking of feeling filthy, Fait Accompli will be rocking the My Filthy Riot at the Annandale. How was that for a segue?
Ray’s voice rises above a hangover induced whisper when he talks about the night, which I take as a sign that he is excited.
“Yeah we’re playing 22rd of March; we’re really excited; a lot of our favourite bands are playing; a lot of our friends, so I have the feeling it might be a crazy weekend.”
At the mention of a crazy weekend, Ray seems less enthused and more obligated, as if he knows his liver will take another hit, and he’d rather be in bed.
“It has been a tough few months on the liver. We tend to drink a bit before we write or record and it seems like such a good idea at the time, but the next day we’re sort of peeling ourselves out of the bed.”
There must have been a lot of bed peeling, self reflection in between bouts of vomiting, as the band is in the midst of recording a LP.
“Yeah, we have been keeping it under the lid; we’ve been recording an album; a full-length player. We’re nearly done; just looking through mixes, polishing it up, trying to find the right sound. But also when we play live we tend to be a bit heavier, but we wanted the record to be a bit more mellow; still have the heaviness, but not too overbearing.”
Ray could never seem overbearing. His voice is soft and angelic, a sweet seraphim’s.
But I’m not sure if that’s reflective of his nature as every syllable he utters is like a hammer to his skull. Still, as he tells me about the band’s early days I appreciate the soft sound, so unusual in rock n rollers.
“Well me and Doran and our original bass player, Matt — he isn’t with us anymore, he’s still alive though – we’d go to gigs together, hang out at different shows; we’d all get to talking. One day someone suggested a jam session and we agreed.”
“It was awkward and exciting at the same time, but we had similar tastes, so when we met up it came together really quickly.”
Coming together quickly makes everyone happy (sorry I couldn’t resist) and the band haven’t looked back.
They tore up Homebrand like it was an old Telstra bill, and are now preparing to take their hard drinking, heavy hitting, softly spoken style on tour with Ouch My Face and Wind & Brackets.
“We’re touring with Wind & Brackets and Ouch My Face: both great bands. So we’re doing an East Coast tour, then hopefully in May we’ll finalise our solo tour.”
Now for those of you not familiar with Fait’s music, Ray describes is as Hardcore Soul Punk, a term that is strangely fitting.
“Well we always get asked from friends and family; how do you sound? What do you sound like? So we tried to throw together a few words that would aptly paint a picture, soul punk I think describes us well, we kind of have a soul element with a bit of aggression.”
So you know how the band sounds, but what about the name. Fait Accompli is a French term, but Ray doesn’t seem like one of those people who speak pigeon French, which is, by the way, tres annoying.
“It is a phrase used by Napoleon during war time. It basically means when the battle wasn’t won and they were in a stalemate, they’d declare fait accompli, like unchanged fate. It is what it is.”
Sounds perfect to me.
Check out Fait Accompli at http://www.myspace.com/faitaccomplimusic
Also log onto http://www.thesilentlights.com/film for an exclusive look at the film clip for the track RIDE.
Art by Dan Clarke
