Fixers - Interview

Fixers are a band getting a lot of the right attention at the moment, they come from Oxford home to a thriving music scene of late. Although you wouldn't know it, Fixers are a very diverse and hard to pinpoint band, comparisons were previously made to the psychedelic MGMT and even to The Beach Boys, but with new single 'Swimmhaus Johannesberg', all these labels were shoved aside as they produced a song almost as worthy for Eurovision as any of Hurts' output. We quizzed Fixers on everything from the new single to alien invasions;

Your new single Swimmhaus Johannesberg is somewhat of a departure from your recent EP, is this to shrug off anyone pigeonholing Fixers' sound?

We were all listening to 90s dance and italian disco the week we recorded it.These are the kind of fleeting obsessions that last about a week for us.

The new single also sounds a bit Eurovision, are you fans?

I like ABBA.

Your new video for 'Swimmhaus...'just got released, what's the story behind it?

It is fairly subjective, it does have a narrative but it's a correlation between two artists, i.e the director Lucy Bridger and ourselves so it wouldn't feel fair to profess any kind of understanding.

Its fun, the pure naivety of everything that occurs in the video adds this beautiful innocence - its a treatment that is very representative of our band aesthetic, our headspace at the time was that we wanted to evoke fun without any cynicism.

I really didn't want to appear in the video, I couldn't see the virtue of juxtaposing my face with quite possibly the most beautiful Japanese girl ever.

It was always going to be a losing battle, I still love it though.

Oxford has a big reputation for up and coming bands at the moment, what sets fixers aside from these other bands?

I dunno, I haven't really seen any other Oxford bands.

Its great that Oxford is cultivating so much music though, that can only be a really positive thing.

Having people from Oxford who enthuse about championing the cities music culture has been integral to us and we are indebted to them in many ways.

We are friends with Chad Valley and a few other bands, its a shame but we only really get to see each other when we play shows or festivals together.

In terms of music taste, what have you been listening of late, and has there been anything that has influenced your work?

Do you prefer big studio productions or a more hands on DIY style of recording?

I like DIY in a big studio.

Its a mix of the two and it usually comes about when big record labels pump money into bands/artists that they realise are popular but they themselves can't quite see the artistic value in.

They are like cats in headlights, they panic and send bedroom pop artists into grand studios and wind up with this overtly exuberant and beautifully misguided collision of aesthetics. 

Its messy but fascinating.

Your EP "here comes 2001..." seems to be influenced by extra-terrestrial elements, do you think there is any chance of an alien invasion?

Yeah, I guess.

What has been your favourite album or body of work from any other artist so far in 2011?

Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact.

I'm looking forward to Brian Wilson's Disney record too.

What is next for Fixers as a band?

We are all going to sleep as caterpillars.

Hopefully we will wake up as butterflies.;

By Toby McCarron