I had the luxury of speaking with Chris from the Nashville based band, Arts Fishing Club. I discovered their music just over a year ago and have been infatuated with their sound from that moment on. For my 21st birthday, I postponed my plans in order to make it to Nashville for one of their shows. This was my second time seeing them at The Basement East in Nashville. Traveling such great distances is something I reserve for incredible bands. Arts Fishing Club is just that, incredible.
This is what he had to say..
What do you want to say to your fans?
Honestly, it’s still pretty surreal to even think that we have “fans”. For years, we would tour absolutely empty shows. We’re fully independent so it’s been a long slow build. Last year was the first time we started playing in cities and strangers were showing up and singing our songs… very surreal and humbling. Can’t thank you all enough. And it’s absolutely stroking the fire for the future. We’re about to release a full-length album that we think is our best yet. We have our first National tour kicking off in May… will be hitting just about every region in the country. So excited to get to places and people we’ve never been close to before.
What sets you aside from other artists?
That’s a tough question. There is so much brilliance out there. I guess one area that I hope (and feel confident that we deliver on) is that seeing us live is always going to be 5x the experience of listening to our recordings. I grew up listening to live bands/records and I have always been starry-eyed for “band bands”. We live in a world with all the production capabilities at our fingertips to make incredibly artistic recordings. This is a very cool reality, however, I’ve had my “heart broken” more than once going to a show and feeling like the artists’ recordings are so much better than the live performance. There is something about the sweat, energy, and immediacy of being in a room with strangers that has always had my heart. I always want our live show to lead the Arts Fishing Club experience over the recordings. Because we’re fully independent, with no label, no manager, just us, we make the music. We make (almost) all of the art and merch, market the shows, etc. It’s been a long, slow grind and we can use all the help we can get… 🙂 It’s been an honor that people are out there listening now. Very surreal.
Tell us about yourself.
Big family. Both of my parents are 1 of 9 so I have 31 aunts and uncles and about 100 first cousins. I’m 1 of 6 in my family. I grew up in Wisconsin. I love it there. The stillness and bitter reminder of human fragility make winter my favorite season. I started a music career late in my life at 26… and as a young boy, I always tried to live by the motto “go big, or go home” whether it was skateboarding, snowboarding, acting, or in music. If you’re going to do something, you may as well do it as BIG as you can.
You can find their upcoming tour dates on their instagram @artsfishingclub
A few songs to listen to:
Tupelo Honey
Tough sh**
Shaking for your love With us all
Devil on my shoulder
New music:
Space Cow
Bad=Woman=Bad
Keep on walking
