REVIEW: Fictionist is for real when it comes to playing
I can think of no better way to celebrate a 10-point Aggie Basketball win than to eat some Aggie Ice Cream and to listen to music.
After the Utah State and Adams State Basketball game Nov. 5, I wandered my way back to the best place in Logan, Why Sound. One of the many bands playing that night went by the name of Fictionist.
Fictionist is really cool live. They have really found the way to make homegrown, organic space rock not only easy to listen to but accessible and fun. I have seen them twice now, and they demand a bigger stage.
After their awesome set, I interviewed Stuart Maxfield, the vocalist and bassist of the band, and he gave me some insights on the band:
Utah Statesman: How long have you guys been playing as Fictionist?
Stuart Maxfield: About 3 1/2 years.
US: How did you guys all come together?
SM: I met Jacob (Jones) while studying at BYU, Jacob is the keyboard player, and he knew Aaron (Anderson), the drummer, and I knew Brandon (Kitterman) and Robbie (Connolly), who lived in Salt Lake.
I grew up in Salt Lake, and so Fictionist came together as kind of a super band of different musicians that played in other bands who knew each other and got together.
US: You guys were part of the Rolling Stone contest, and now you guys are signed to Atlantic, that is really exciting. How has that affected your style?
SM: It really hasn’t affected it. Since the beginning of this group, we’ve wanted to connect with people, and we also wanted to express ourselves.
I feel like playing music is a relationship, you can have a relationship with the audience, and we just want to continue having that relationship with our fans.They haven’t encouraged us to do anything, they just want us to write a lot of music so they can put together a great album.
US: Are you excited to keep working with Atlantic?
SM: Yeah, I’m super excited, but I’m getting tired of writing. We’ve got about 30 (new) songs right now toward the new album, and that is just me. Robbie has brought a bunch of songs on top of that, so about 40-45 songs.
My head is honestly swimming. It’s so full of songs right now that I sort of don’t have any idea what I’m doing on stage anymore, because I can’t figure out what song I’m playing. So I’m ready to be done with that, get in the studio, record things super well and just make sure the album turns out super fantastic.
US: Where do you draw you’re inspiration from?
SM: I’m a fan of really good writing, whether it be literature or poetry or whatever, and I read a lot. But where I draw my inspiration from? Everywhere. I mean if I hear something that sounds good to me or compelling, I sort of file that away and take it as inspiration.
I recently went through a kick and read a lot of Ernest Hemingway. I found that really inspiring, his writing is really stark and plain, and I like that. I try to emulate that sometimes in my writing, just try not to be so verbose but trying to get the point across in a compelling way. But I take inspiration from everywhere from Bono to Billy Corgan to Jeff Tweedy, Eddy Veder — anywhere. There are so many good lyricists out there, I just hope to be one of them.
US: Where do you think you found that chemistry? Where do you think you found that sound?
SM: Basically, just going through hell together. It helped us find that sound. We’ve tried a million things. We’ve dabbled in different styles. You end up coming around to what works, and what works for us is this spacey rock sound, and that is what we’ve stuck with.
It feels natural to us. Me, Robbie and Brandon — the guys in front of the stage — we’ve been playing together since I was 16. We’ve got so many hours into this that I can read Robbie like a book. I know what he is going to do, I know what Brandon is going to do, but they never know what I’m going to do. I’m unpredictable.
– alexander.h.van_oene@aggiemail.usu.edu