Smack My Botch Up

On March 22, 2012, indie-rock quartet General Fiasco completed work on their second record Unfaithfully Yours. It was two years to the very day since they released their debut opus Buildings. Born of a sizeable amount of blood, sweat and tears, the LP comes out on July 30 and when we catch up with singer/bassist Owen Strathern, he tells us he can’t wait until it’s released into the wild.

“I’m very excited to get the second album out there,” says the frontman. “Making the record has been quite a long process for us. It was over a year ago since we first went in to lay down some of the tracks. We went away on tour for two to three week bursts, but all our focus has been on this album.”
A more, dare we say, mature beast than their debut, Unfaithfully Yours is the sound of a band who are happy in their own skin and also willing to take the odd musical risk or three. While Owen admits it took longer to make than expected, he feels the hard work was worth it in the end.
“Yeah, there was a little ‘difficult second album syndrome’ in there,” he confesses. “I guess when you’re making your second album you’re trying to do everything better. Because musical tastes change so quickly, you want to do things a little bit different as well. It takes a while before that settles and everyone agrees that what you’re doing is the right thing. We probably wrote 80-100 songs and actually had an album written before Stuart [Bell] joined the band. One of those songs ended up on an EP and the rest was scrapped. It took a long time for us to find out what we wanted to do, but there’s no point making an album you’re not completely happy with. It was definitely frustrating but we’ve now got the best record we could possibly have made.”
Part of this new, revitalised General Fiasco mindset can be attributed to the arrival of Bell in late 2010. The former Panama Kings, Queer Giraffes and Clone Quartet guitarist/keyboardist has added an extra dimension to their sound.
“Transitioning to two guitars was a smooth process,” Owen begins. “When we first started out we were actually a four-piece, but that was before people starting coming to our gigs and stuff. Our drummer Stephen used to be our guitarist and the original drummer moved to America, so for whatever reason we decided to play on as a trio. I always missed having another person in the group. Guitar, bass and drums can be quite restrictive and I don’t think we would’ve made another album that way. There’s a better dynamic now. As a band we were changing anyway and we wanted to make a record that moves a little differently. The first one was very Jimmy Eat World/Weezer-y rock and had elements of pop-punk in there. That was down to being younger and wanting everything to sound fast and loud and impress people who came to the gigs, but we didn’t feel like that this time around. We were just focused on the song and didn’t think about how it would sound live or what people’s opinions would be of it.”
Unfaithfully Yours also marks another milestone in the band’s life – they’ve switched record labels from Infectious to Dirty Hit. Was the departure from their previous home amicable?
“Depending on how you look at it, you can get positives and negatives,” he ponders. “We had a romance period with a few labels when we were first starting out and it was Infectious who wanted us the most. They worked hard for us and we massively appreciate it. They gave us plenty of time to get songs together and we wrote a hell of a lot of tracks, but ultimately it wasn’t their bag. We still have a lot of respect for them though, as they helped us get to where we are now.”
While the band have been dealing with more than their fair share of behind-the-scenes shuffling, you’d never realise it from the outside looking in. As far as Owen and the rest of the boys are concerned, it’s business as usual for the four-piece. In fact, at the time of our interview, they’ve just finished a recent jaunt around NI as part of the Olympics Torch Relay Concerts.
“It was fun,” Owen enthuses. “Every day we played for between five and ten thousand people and it was a good way of getting in folks’ faces. The whole experience was brilliant. My brother ran with the torch and it was a very positive thing, I have to say. The rest of our summer is focused on the album launch at the Stiff Kitten, Belfast. After that, we should have festivals and tours in the pipeline. I’m sure we’ll be kept busy.”

General Fiasco play the Stiff Kitten, Belfast (July 27) and Mandela Hall, Belfast (28). Unfaithfully Yours is out July 30 via Dirty Hit.