#ftbt

There’s a bright color scheme running through all of the visual media accompanying your music. Have you picked any colors in particular based on color theory? What feelings are you trying to evoke with your visual media versus your music?

I just like to kind of run with one. Sometimes I'll just go with a color scheme for a while because I think it helps support the music and gives the visual stimulation naturally. It's not really something that I'm thinking of, it's just something that I put together depending on how I'm feeling or what my favorite color is at that time. Since I've been doing a kind of fairy theme right now, I’ve been using green because it symbolizes leaves and nature and is just very pop-y. I have been gravitating towards orange lately though!

Do live performances play a key role in your creation process for new music?

Yeah! I think it's all relevant. The more you play the same songs, the more you want to write new songs. Sometimes I'll get a vision while i'm writing of what the reaction will be live, and if I get a good feeling then I'll keep writing it.

Do you feel like you get into a different creative headspace when you're on the road?

Yeah! Everyone has their favorite songs to play live, but it's really refreshing to have new songs to play. This tour has been really fun because i have all new songs to play after how long I've been playing the old ones. Keeping it fresh is a great feeling in the creative process.

You’ve partnered with Enjoy (Wyatt Shears) to curate a clothing store out in Fullerton. How have clothing and fashion influenced your life, and how did you land on your signature look?

I don't really know. It just came to me over time! I have this one white jacket that I got because it was weird, but it was way too big for me so i got it tailored and it turned into my favorite jacket and started my look. For the shop, I get a lot of inspiration from Japanese culture and the Y2K era, so it's full of stuff that I was too young to be wearing when it was popular.

The whole Vada Vada brand is about cultivating your own story and identity, are there any specific events or places that have helped you create Cowgirl Clue?

Definitely! I feel like bad and good experiences mold who you are. When I think about pivotal moments of my life where I've had a decision, it's never one straight line. When I met a lot of my friends, I met them all on the same night in 2013 and Vada Vada was a loose thing for them, and it's just grown as we've all grown. In our music, art, and fashion it feels like there's a lot of rules, but it's nice to be surrounded by people that embrace the weirdness of each other.

Have you been to any shows that have really stuck with you and inspired you to build up your own live set? If so, who?

I think when I started doing shows I had a rough outline of what I wanted to do, but it's always just about how you're going to get from point A to point B. I don’t even know if I'm there yet, but I'm happy that i have an album out. It's always been interesting to me to see an artist that’s big have sound problems because when I’m up on stage I think about how an artist I like had their mic screeching back to them on stage and it reminds me that it's OK. I recently went to Coachella and saw Rosalia and she was really good. I’m a huge fan of her right now, but there has always been a lot of DJ's that have inspired me!

https://cowgirlclue.bandcamp.com/

The musical, political, and literal landscapes have changed quite a bit for you guys over the years since your past releases. Have these changes created a positive impact on FIDLAR as a whole? Do you feel as though you will need changes consistently to keep the band going?

Since change is the only constant in life I think it’s important to embrace change.  We push ourselves to try new things and get out of our comfort zone.  That’s a very important part of our creative process.  

Were there any ideas thrown out during the planning of ‘Almost Free’ or the tours around it that you had to just stop and laugh at? Did any of those end up being used in the end?

The beginning of “By Myself” is a voice memo Zac made while he was in Hawaii, we ended up just keeping the audio from the voice memo because it’s funny and intimate, it wouldn’t have had the same impact if we tried to rerecord it in the studio.  

Toning down your use of so many musical elements between ‘Too’ and ‘Almost Free’ seemed to do you right. Was that the obvious direction of the album from the jump, or did it take some experimenting to come to that conclusion?

A lot of these songs came from demos either made in my studio or Zac’s studio, and a lot of the original tracks on the demos are used on the final album tracks, like guitars, samples, etc.  We pushed ourselves to try to strip down certain songs and take a “less is more” approach.

Highlighting the FIDIOT community seems to be an integral part of the FIDLAR brand. Do you feel like bringing fans and friends into FIDLAR on social media and in music videos helps to bring you guys back to Earth when you’ve been away from home for a while?

Social media isn’t the best way for me to get back to earth while on the road, it can actually be very disconnecting and isolating, but connecting with our fans is really important, and being able connect with them at shows is amazing, we would be nowhere without them.  

In a lot of interviews in the past you guys act like FIDLAR is ancient due to you guys hitting your 10 year band-iversary. Do you feel like your years are giving you something to pass onto the younger generation of artists, or do you feel as though your learning more from them?

We have experienced a lot as a band so far and I hope we can help some younger bands just starting out.  I think it’s very important to be constantly learning and growing, and that can come from young artists or old artists.

You’ve been utilizing more traditional instruments like horns and Spanish percussion as of late. Are there any other avenues that you’d like to explore for upcoming releases?

Utilizing strings and more orchestral elements would be fun.

To kick off the release of your latest record, you threw a string of shows that were smaller, cheaper, and completely accessible for fans. Why did you feel the need to bring the ‘Almost Free’ sentiment to your fans in that way?

Our fans have been with us since the beginning and are very loyal, especially in Los Angeles, we wanted to give them a great show for as cheap as we could to show them how much we appreciate them.