Fair Weather Friends are distinctive not only thanks to their energy but also thanks to their well-written hit songs. Their shared adventure started in 2011. The group was founded as a trio and gained momentum when a vocalist joined the band. Michał Maślak, who used to sing in the group Searching For Calm, joined the original line-up of Fair Weather Friends after one of their concerts. That was when their true sound began to form, based on a fascination with bands that used synthesizers to make songs in the pioneering era of the 70s and 80s.
Lately, there has been a number of groups in Poland with similar interests. Some of these groups, like Kamp! and We Draw A, refer to the aforementioned inspirations rather directly, others like Rebeka or Xxanaxx reach out to newer ideas in dance music. All of these bands are of a new class in Poland which appeared after years of rock bands being predominant. The members of Fair Weather Friends even used to play in rock bands themselves. Their vocalist still leads the band Worms Of Senses with his brother.
Fair Weather Friends, similarly to Kamp! and Rebeka, use not only synthesizers and computers, but also guitars and live drums. According to the Fair Weather Friends website, the band from Czeladź played its first concert in Katowice in 2011. Today the group consists of the founders, bass player and keyboardist Paweł Cyz and guitarist and producer Mateusz Zegan, with drummer Maciek Bywalec and guitar-playing vocalist Michał Maślak. They play fantastic concerts, during which Maślak establishes a great rapport with audiences - he knows how to engage listeners in a shared artistic experience and his moves are great. The inconspicuous vocalist turns into a beast on stage, additionally – what isn’t obvious in Poland – he knows how to sing and English isn’t an unknown language to him.
In March 2012. the Brennnessel label (which belongs to the musicians from the Łódź band Kamp!) released Eclectic Pixels, a four-song EP containing the best-known song by Fair Weather Friends - Fortune Player, which was accompanied by a music video showing an unusual ping-pong match. The same year, this song was chosen as the background music for the official clip promoting the Coke Live Music Festival. In 2012 the group also performed at the Open’er festival. A year later the radio station Roxy named them the Hope of 2013.
The single Fly By appeared in May 2013. This cosmic song celebrated the 110th anniversary of when, in the words of the muscians, “a Russian scientist of Polish descent, Konstantin Ciołkowski, proposed the idea of space flight propelled by liquid fuel-powered rockets. He calculated the speed and amount of fuel required for a rocket to escape Earth's gravitational field”. The song was remixed by UL/KR, No Drama and Gazella. The song Fake Love was released the same year. This composition was remixed by Teielte, Buenos Bros and Speedhorse. The music video for Fake Love was created thanks to the generosity of fans.
Haldor Grunberg is the producer of Fair Weather Friends’ debut album which will be released by Warner Music in the autumn of 2014. The first single to promote the album – Cardiac Stuff - was released in May.
Author: Jacek Świąder, May 2014
Translated by: Marek Kępa
Discography:
2012 – Eclectic Pixels EP
2013 – Fly By EP
2013 – Fake Love EP