‘I’m as insecure as anyone out there, all of this shxt is constantly flowing through my head.’
It’s been almost 15 years since I toured with Chris Farren and his old band Fake Problems – I spent two and a half weeks driving, doing merch and tour managing them whilst they supported Frank Turner all over the UK back in 2009 – but nothing seems to have changed when I sign into a Zoom call with him to discuss his new record ‘Doom Singer’. Even though it’s around 9am in Los Angeles and Chris has probably only just woken up, he’s still the amiable, charming, funny and self deprecating character that I knew all that time ago.
However, the idea of the ‘character’ of Chris Farren is something that has come to be associated with the singer/songwriter since the days of Fake Problems, as he’s become somewhat of a social media icon since he embarked on a solo career. At this point, some might says that he’s perhaps more famous for his outlandish gimmicks and promos that regularly end up going massively viral than his music.
Who can forget the time he sold a ‘The Smiths’ t shirt with a picture of Will Smith’s family on it as a merch item and it ended up being presented to the actor himself by American talk show royalty Jimmy Kimmel (I’m not sure if Farren ever actually received any credit for that)? Or his tour/album promotion videos which regularly see him smashing out of a cartoon wall before addressing the viewer with a comedy microphone and sometimes being chased and murdered by a weird cartoon character named ‘The Ghoul’?
MANCHESTER TONIGHT WITH GASLIGHT. I AM HORRIFIED TO REPORT THE GHOUL HAS WINGS pic.twitter.com/BGHQo9LJ9i
— Chris Farren (@chrisfarren) August 19, 2022
More recently, Farren went on all in on a promotional Chris Farren branded plastic cup as the gimmick for his last album, the experimental ‘Death Won’t Wait’, a mostly instrumental piece that he describes as ‘the score for a spy movie that won’t ever exist’ and features songs with ridiculous titles like ‘Car Chase’, ‘Hot Pursuit’ and ‘Chris Farren Noir’. Whilst that sounds like a truly bizarre tangent for an artist that had previously been preoccupied with catchy, hook laden rock and roll, when I tell him that it was a lot better than I thought it would be, he doesn’t miss a beat when he agrees with me:
‘That’s what a lot of people told me. It was a totally crazy thing to do but it became almost all encompassing for me. It had been kind of a long time since I had an idea that I was excited about and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was writing down notes and stuff in my phone about it all the time.’
That’s the thing with Chris Farren, when he gets an idea, he really rides with it – at times to his detriment – and this can quite clearly be seen in the case of The Cup too. The guy didn’t stop banging on about it for months and it ended up getting more over than any promotional cup in the history of promotional cups. So much so, that it somehow ended up being commissioned to write an op-ed for Spin about its experience at Coachella that year, aptly named ‘Cupchella’.
Go figure, it’s Chris Farren. Anything can happen – and most often it will.
However as evidenced by the opening quote to this article, there’s also a certain dichotomy to the guy that permeates throughout the vast majority of his music that may seem at constant odds with the online persona he currently displays to the world. How can a man that constantly gets up on stage every night to sing his own songs – solely with just the aid of his guitar and a backing track since the demise of Fake Problems – as well as regularly performing WWE wrestling style promos to promote these songs and tours, be so anxious over every aspect of his music and presentation, and almost every aspect of his life as well?
In fairness to Farren he isn’t exactly shy about his anxiety, as his worries about his ongoing life situation populate almost every track on ‘Doom Singer’ in one way or another, kicking off with album opener and second single ‘Blueish’. This track sees the singer question his place in the world and whether he still knows how to interact with people in society – probably at least somewhat a symptom of his overly online presence – whilst also lamenting whether he’ll ever really deserve true happiness or if he’ll ever amount to anything without the love of his wife on his arm.
On paper that lyrical content may sound like an absolutely terrible choice for an album opener, but in typical Chris Farren fashion the song sees him performing his best impression of Weezer with intricate guitar work over a sugary sweet chorus that will stay stuck in your head for days. He also manages to throw an absolutely killer guitar solo into the mix too a la Rivers Cuomo, whilst the video catapults us into another journey through the man’s warped psyche as he embarks on a ‘Beau Is Afraid’ style odyssey across a cartoon landscape, crossing paths with living statues, animated sticks of dynamite and horny space aliens.
The attentive amongst you may have noticed that Farren was accompanied by a drummer in that video and may be questioning whilst earlier in this article I said that since his solo career began, Farren had been appearing live with only the help of his guitar and a backing track. Well, that’s where the story behind ‘Doom Singer’ begins with the introduction of stick beater Frankie Impastato, whom Chris met when the two were on tour with Free Throw and Impastato’s band MacSeal back in 2019 and who he has invited to drum on this album and at his live shows for the foreseeable future. The pair of them hit it off so well that when it came time for Farren to play his own headline dates later that year, he didn’t hesitate when Frankie suggested that MacSeal should join him for those as well.
It was a totally rejuvenating experience for Farren – who had mostly been riding solo since the days of Fake Problems – as he shared a van with Frankie and the rest of MacSeal and gradually began to realise that he now missed the camaraderie and sense of brotherhood that came from being in a band. ‘There were times when I played a really great show and I just didn’t have anyone to share it with afterwards and it kinda sucked. I was lonely. I think I needed that again at this point in my career’, Chris explains to me, demonstrating a sense of isolation can also be heard in the lyrics on the closing track to ‘Doom Singer’.
The curiously named ‘Statue Song’ is somewhat of an outlier on the record as not only is it not an upbeat song, but it’s also one of the rare songs in Farren’s back catalogue that isn’t framed from his own perspective; instead we hear the thoughts of a huge ancient statue that has been left to stand on its own for centuries by its creators. However, when Chris sings the words ‘You packed your tools in your briefcase/but I had to stay/you’ve been gone for years now/did you find a new frontier out there?’ you can’t help but think that he might be viewing himself as the statue, left to stand up on stage on his own, as his former bandmates embark on their own personal journeys away from music, leaving him detached from the rock and roll unit of which he was so entrenched for so many years.
The song itself is very much in the vibe of Phil Collin’s ‘In The Air Tonight’ – a slow, sexy, escalating 80’s jam underpinned with moody electronics – but instead of a big massive drum beat coming in halfway through, Farren makes the somewhat unusual decision to put a super high pitched vocal in its place, singing the line ‘they could never hold me in their arms.’ ‘I wanted to make my voice sound very tiny like a mouse. That’s how the statue views all the little tiny people down below underneath him,’ Farren tells me and his explanation does make some sense within the context of the song, although there’s no denying that it’s still slightly weird. Nothing about that creative choice changes the effectiveness of the song though, which yet again features a yearning and earnest chorus that will stay in your head for days.
It’s unclear when Farren made the decision to involve Frankie Impastato with the writing, recording and subsequent touring for ‘Doom Singer’, but much of the press campaign around the record has revolved around how Chris only has terrible, horrible memories of making his first two solo records on his own. Every day, he would decamp to his home studio – not much bigger than a broom cupboard – and spend hours upon hours constantly obsessing over the micro details of his hi hat sounds and guitar tones.
That doesn’t really sound like something anyone would ever want to do once, let alone every day for three or four months so naturally, I was curious as to why he continued to tour and make records in this way if it was bringing him so much misery:
”When the band that you’ve been in since you’re a teenager breaks up, you’re like, ‘what the fxck am I doing with my life? So I wanted to build the infrastructure of Chris Farren to be impossible to deconstruct because if I just made everything myself, nobody could come in and ruin it for me. And that was my mentality for five years and it was great, it was kind of exhilarating at first and I was building momentum, but then after a while I started questioning it and wondering what I could do to make it better.’
Farren didn’t initially think that the answer to his woes during the recording process was to simply invite other people along for it and so instead decided to produce ‘Death Won’t Wait’ – that somewhat surprisingly took way less time than a regular Chris Farren record to complete – but making that album did eventually lead him to that decision. ‘I needed to see that idea through (Death Won’t Wait’) as it was something that I was really obsessed with and it gave me the perspective to reset my songwriting and realise that I needed to work with Frankie on the next one.’
The impact of Impastato’s live drumming on ‘Doom Singer’ can immediately be heard on the ferociously titled first single ‘Cosmic Leash’, which again sees Farren grappling with his insecurities and ‘the urge to romanticise the past yet inevitably succumbing to the sentimental rot of nostalgia’. Sonically there’s a major dynamic change within the song that is emphasised by Frankie’s pounding drums in the chorus as Farren scream/shouts ‘I need more time with you’ – a section that he claims was heavily inspired by Long Island punk legends Latterman. I’m not sure how true this is though as Chris has been know to make up stuff during interviews in the past and it seems awfully convenient that I just happen to have a Latterman poster on my wall during our Zoom call. ‘I’m a punk’, he insists, but I think he might have been rumbled there.
Nevertheless, whether the song was influenced by the Deep Elm alumni or not- I can sort of see Matti Jo Camino and Phil Douglas screaming out similar sentiments in one of their gritty suburban anthems, but it’s still a bit of a stretch – this shouldn’t detract from the fact that it’s a powerful and anthemic punch in the face, once again detailing Farren’s inability to separate the past from his present, beautifully accompanied by harsh guitar tones and Frankie’s relentless drums. It’s curious that it was chosen for the first single from the album when it comes in at track number 9 and is also so musically different to the rest of ‘Doom Singer’, but NPR and Pitchfork are already saying that it’s likely to be on many people’s ‘best of list’ come the end of the year, so I guess the team at Polyvinyl knew what they were doing there.
The video for ‘Cosmic Leash’ finds Farren really leaning into the news that he’s playing with a live drummer these days – in case you haven’t figured it out at this point, this is very much one of the talking points/gimmicks that he’s running with for this record (although he is releasing a new version of The Cup thats more like a travel flask too, the aptly named Cup 2 Go) – and details his discussions with a director about how they’re going to handle the big reveal. In typical Chris Farren fashion though, it doesn’t go to plan and the results are ‘predictably hilarious’.
Not only was Farren changing the lineup of the band and how he wrote the songs for this album – he had originally worked through seventy songs acoustically before decamping to New York City to jam out fifteen tracks that would eventually be whittled down to the ten found on the album – but he also decided that he wanted to work with a producer for the first time on a Chris Farren record. Enter Polyvinly labelmate and Los Angeles super producer Jay Som – also known as Melina Duterte – who gladly agreed to record ‘Doom Singer’ with Chris and Frankie at her studio, with the three of them taking a month to track everything and then another month to mix it all.
The introduction of other voices was also integral for the recording process as Farren had found himself constantly second guessing himself in his songwriting and production techniques. ‘I was alone and you don’t have anybody to even go like, ‘Oh, that’s a cool thing.’ Something as simple as like that really helps,’ he explains and it really does seems like the three of them really went overboard with the ‘cool things’ part of the mix as the album is full of what can only be described as ‘weird noises’ and effects.
That again might not sound like the best combination for a Chris Farren record, but audibly it really works and even though the album is a bit all over the place in terms of genre and theme, it still feels like a coherent piece of work thanks to Farren’s distinct voice and soaring melodies, Frankie’s powerful drums and these strange sounds that are scattered all the way through it. This fusion is perhaps best seen in one of my favourite tracks on the album ‘First Place’, which again sees Farren’s anxieties about his marriage brought to the forefront as he sings ‘What made you fall in love with me in the first place? Is it over now?’ on top of a lounge/disco beat that reminds me a lot of punk rock’s answer to the Sam Sparro classic ‘Black And Gold’. Jeff Rosenstock (of course) even shows up to throw in a bit of saxophone to crank up the sleazy groove laden vibes even further.
Somehow Farren managed to acquire the services of comedian, actress and writer Mitra Jouhari from ‘Big Mouth’ to direct the video to this one. The two and a half minute promo sees the singer playing a creepy character called Chris Farren who ends up becoming obsessed with his mailwoman, which also seems to be in direct contradiction to the lyrics of the song and another example of the conflicts present in the man’s personality.
It’s also interesting to note that Chris hated the song during the recording and only decided to put it on the record at the insistence of Melina. If he hadn’t chosen to make the album with collaborators this time, then in all likelihood it would have ended up with the other sixty songs that didn’t make the cut and we wouldn’t have been able to nod our heads along joyously to its throbbing dance pop. That’s definitely one of the good decisions he’s made.
Listening to the four songs that I’ve included in the article, you might assume that the music of Chris Farren speaks for itself but as has already been discussed, it seems like the guy is determined to promote every album with some kind of viral bonus gimmick to get people to pay attention. When asked about how he’s developed from this semi-shy indie/punk rock kid from sleepy southern Florida into a larger than life character living in Los Angeles who regularly cuts The Rock/Stone Cold style promos in order to hype up his latest tours and releases, the answer appears to be simple. Much like everything with Chris Farren though, there’s a complicated polarity contained within it that does contain some semblance of truth, but also at first glance appears to be in immediate competition with itself.
‘Doing all the weird wacky shit makes it just a lot more fun for me to do, even though it is kind of its own pressure. I definitely feel burdened by it at times. Ultimately though it makes the whole process of promoting an album so much easier and more palatable for me. If I can think of ideas that are at the very least funny to me, you know, it makes everything a lot more fun.’
Much like producing records on his own when it was making him completely miserable, this also seems like somewhat of a strange process for Farren to adopt when it weighs on his mind so heavily, whilst also inviting criticism of him being a weird meme guy rather than a musician. However, I guess it all comes down to him having an idea and running with it, and at least letting himself have fun in the moment and seeing where it gets him, regardless of the consequences – which normally turn out pretty well anyway.
Just like that previous method of making music, it’s also enabled Chris to get to where he is at this moment – and it seems like he’s fairly happy with his life when I talk to him on the eve of the release of ‘Doom Singer’. Especially as Polyvinyl have sprung for a gigantic billboard only fifteen minutes from his house in Los Angeles to promote the thing. Once again, only with Chris Farren.
It seems clear that Farren is somewhat of a paradox as a person and an artist and his attitude towards his upcoming September UK tour is another example of this. He may be some distance removed from his days in Florida indie punks Fake Problems, but his (questionable) DIY punk rock Latterman loving ethics are still somewhat intact as he tells me his plans for this.
‘I’ve hired a van and I’m going to be driving me and Frankie around for the whole run’, he delights in revealing to me, something I’ve literally never heard of any foreign band/artist ever doing in the history of touring over here. When I ask him if he’s nervous about the fact that he’ll probably encounter roundabouts every single day – remember those don’t really exist over in the United States – his answer is typically deadpan, especially for a guy who claims to be horrendously insecure: ‘I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos, that should help, right?’ Again, this idea might seem good now, but will it actually work out when he’s over here on tour? Only time will tell I suppose, but by now we know that he’s going to run with it.
Perhaps this warring duality within Farren can be best illustrated in one final anecdote coming all the way back from that Frank Turner tour all those years ago. Every night, Chris would encourage the audience to sing along with him and repeat the words to the Fake Problems’ classic ‘How Far Our Bodies Go’ and then acknowledge their efforts with a cheery ‘great job everybody!’ afterwards. That’s pretty much exactly what you would expect from a Frank Turner support band, so no complaints there.
The problem came when I decided to remark ‘great job everybody’ to Fake Problems themselves when they were (finally) on time getting back to the van one night. The smiley look on Farren’s face immediately fell and he didn’t use that line again whilst on stage for the rest of the tour – or perhaps at any Fake Problems show after that either. In fact, when I mention it to him again it sounds like that comment affected him more than I could have ever expected.
‘I think about that all the time. You so concisely shot through the aura of my performance and I was just like ‘fxck, he’s right! I was already insecure about it and questioning whether I wanted to be behaving like that on stage and that just put it all in perspective. It was working, but it just wasn’t good.’
And there I think you have it. Chris Farren is willing to try all his zany ideas out and put himself out there because even though he has these dark and anxious thoughts, his persona is more about conquering them rather than letting them stew inside him and never overcome him. Sure, even by his own admission not everything he tries might work out, but that’s just part of the process.
One of his final thoughts on our Zoom call almost sums him up completely: ‘Sure, maybe people think I’m just that guy Chris Farren with his dumb schtick, but who’s to say they would have even heard of me without it?’
