Who is in the band?
Fists comprises of siblings Joe and Theresa Wrigley on bass and drums respectively, lovers Angi Fletcher and myself James Finlay on vocals, synths and guitars and Pete Conway on guitars and singing as well as triangle and xylophone and washboard and anything else that he wants to have a go at.

How did the band come about?
Angi and I met Joe and Theresa at a fund raising event put together to buy local Montserrat ex-pat and open mic legend Saltfish John an acoustic guitar, we then spent many years writing and fighting our way through rehearsals in a multitude of bedrooms across the city. Pete joined about 5 months ago. He was lucky because we’re normally very choosy. Fortunately he had the right shoes on that day. 

Describe your Music?
We’re a mixture of the terribly amateur and the wildly experimental. We tip our musical hats to the mid-50’s skiffle movement as well as lo-fi tape artists like Daniel Johnston and proto-punk acts like the Monks. It’s always evolving though. Lately it started coming out all rockabilly so we added some analogue synthesizers to keep it a bit wrong.

Any memorable moments on tour?
The closest we’ve come to a tour is a gig in someone’s back garden in my hometown of Corby, which despite being in the heart of Northamptonshire is pretty much a Glaswegian council estate due to its mostly Scottish ex-pat population. It’s often mentioned in the same breath as Nottingham as statistically one of the worst places in the country to live. It’s not. Ipswich is. Pete told me.

Opinion on the local scene?
In Nottingham a lot of people on the music scene tell each other that their music is really great but then they go and tell everyone else that they think it’s shit. That’s what’s bad about it. All the acts in Nottingham are generally pretty disparate so I guess it’s hard to call it a scene as such and with that disparity I guess most bands are going to think that all the other bands are rubbish and their band is great. At least everyone isn’t trying to sound the same.

What's the most rock and roll thing you've ever done?
I once took a load of cocaine, went home and spent the rest of the night wildly masturbating until the sun came up and reminded me of how utterly pathetic and ridiculous I was. I can guarantee that every supposed rock star ever has had that experience. What is rock n roll anyway?

What was the last thing that made you laugh?
The answer we were going to give to this question but decided not to.

What last made you cry?
Angi’s brother-in-law died 2 days after New Years Eve from a burst ulcer. He was 32. His two kids picked a poem to be recited at the funeral, which was the perfect choice to utterly destroy everybody. That mix of raw emotion, reflection and valuing the life you’ve got coupled with terrible final music choices like that Nilsson tune Without You for example does it to me every time.

Anything exciting future plans?
We’re hoping to write and record lots with plans to enter the studio at some point in the spring. We’ve also roped Dan Toporowski into doing a video for us which we’re very, very excited about and we’re also hoping to play a couple of festivals on the continent as well.

Anything else you want to say?
Come and see us at The Orange Tree. You probably won’t like us but we’re very good and that’s from the horse’s mouth.

Fists on MySpace

 

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