Meet Fleabustiers
Recently, we showcased their amazing track ‘Sinking Ship’ and had the pleasure of getting to know them better through our Q&A session. We’re talking about Fleabustiers, a musical collective born during the pandemic, which invites us into their enchanting world through their album ‘Time Can Wait.’
Dive into the interview below to learn more about the band—it’s totally worth it. And definitely give their album a listen; it’s worth every second!
Q&A
How did Fleabustiers come to be, and how did everything start?
We are a few musicians who have played together at different stages of our music career and I dare say it is quite possible that fleabustiers would not have happened without the COVID pandemic. For one thing we couldn’t do the things we used to do with our current bands so we had to find other ways to do music. Some of us discovered Jamulus, we also had more time to dabble with Garageband and Logic.
Also the pandemic made us reconsider what really mattered and realise that we didn’t have to put up with the downsides of being in a band to enjoy creating music together. This means that we could have a more relaxed approach about some music not necessarily fitting into a category. At the end of the day its the music that we are putting forward, the musicians only matter so much that they make the song proud.
What are the musical influences and inspirations that shape your sound and identity as a band or project?
We probably have an indie bias but we really enjoy a large spectrum of genres and sounds from the obscure (Deerhoof, Knower…) to the more mainstream (The National, Nile Rodgers…) and various others in the middle (XTC, Teenage Fanclub, Warpaint…). In fact we do not try to emulate any one, we are only giving each song the sound and the production we think the song deserves.
As mentioned before, we are doing fleabustiers for the songs, not for us. In that sense our identity is that of song crafters… with a conscience.
Your album “Time can wait” features your song “Sinking ship” as well, how would you characterize the album?
Our album is a journey across our musical universe, we have tried to put together a collection of songs that could stand for themselves and string them together so that the listener could experience a variety of music and topics. «Sinking ship» is definitely the deepest topic (no pun intended), but other songs like « About you » deal with the importance of putting love ahead of any prejudice. How do you approach the creative process as a band/project that does not rehearse?; do you have a sort of bandleader?
Basically we share ideas demoed on Garageband then we hop on Jamulus, exchange ideas and then we move on to recording a more serious demo on Logic so that we can toy with production ideas. There is no band leader, in fact the principle of fleabustiers is that anyone contributing to a song in one way or another will get an equal share of the proceeds, no ifs no buts.
What are the benefits and drawbacks of being part of a project like this?
It’s very liberating in fact because we know we can bring any song we think is worth being put out on its own merits. This means that we reduce the likelihood of having personality clashes, this too is a huge advantage. We have been in bands before where politics was more important than the notes so we know how blessed we are to work within this project.
The only drawback I could think of is that we are not quite a performing band, we have recently started to work face to face rather than Jamulus and it offers a different dimension to our music that we would like to share. So watch this space, you never know.
How do you manage your time and energy as indie artists, and what are some of the challenges you face?
We manage our time with difficulty, it’s fair to say. Things were easier during the pandemic but now that we are back to business as usual we have to be more creative. We have a DIY ethic so producing the album was a bit of a revelation in the sense that we ended up spending so much time tweaking, mixing, producing instead of playing music, let alone creating music. But that’s part and parcel of independent artists presumably.
Then the next challenge is to get our music heard and there is a whole ecosystem of people who claim they can get your listenership to stellar heights. It’s very hard to tell the genuine promoters from the dreamers so we end up doing our own marketing. Our videos for « Sinking ship » and « About you » are approaching half a million views, it’s not too shabby.
What are your opinions regarding social media, do you see it as necessary evil or a tool to spread the word?
Social media is a fact of life in music promotion. There are experts who have an innate understanding on how to increase your exposure, we don’t have these skills and it’s clear that it costs more than the £700 we are being asked by self-proclaimed promoters that crop out of nowhere.
What are the next steps for Fleabustiers, and what are your goals in 2024?
Releasing the album probably took about 9 months so it’s doubtful we will release anything but a couple of singles. Maybe we will experiment with live performance punctually if the conditions are right.
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