Fred to tread the boards

ON Easter Sunday 2009 Fred became the first band to play the newly renovated Thomond Park stadium warming up the crowd with the hits ‘Skyscrapers’, ‘Running’ and ‘Good One’ before Munster took on Ospreys in the quarter-final of the Heineken Cup. Heavily playlisted across the nation these indie-poptastic songs were anthems by then. For the new recording the band decamped to Monreal, Canada to record with producer Howard Bilerman who produced and played on Arcade Fire’s debut, ‘Funeral’.

“The album musically is quiet different, it is not as pop as the last record’’ says Fred’s bass player Jamin O’Donovan. “We had recorded our previous albums on computers bit by bit over a long period of time. With Howard he wanted us to play live as a band in a room and he wanted to record that. That kinda changed the way we wrote the songs as well. This time there is a lot more of the band on the record.”
The band’s relationship with Canada goes back a few years to a debut performance there at a festival, “We got signed on the strength of one gig we played that sold out. People are into music over there. They will watch the band and buy the record if they like you, it is part of the culture over there.”
Fred have a busy schedule over the coming weeks as the band tours the country for the first time since releasing ‘Leaving My Empire’. Included in the itinerary is theatre venues such as the Belltable in Limerick. The band thinks that the new material is best suited to a sit down audience, “We had done a few sit down shows almost by accident last January and they just seemed to go very well so we are going to run with it. See how it goes.”
Fred’s album ‘Leaving My Empire’ is out now on RCM Music. Fred will play the Belltable Arts Centre this Friday May 27.