What’s in a name? Not much in the case of the UK’s Fat White Family. I
get the feeling that they chose their name because they needed one, then went back to
making good music. That’s because I’ve seen a bunch of their shows, spent time with their
album Champagne Holocaust, learned they started their own label Without Consent, and
got to meet them on several occasions while they were in New York this past winter.
My intro to the band, now signed to Fat Possum Records, was an acoustic video they did at
South by Southwest. The Fat Whites amount to six guys (Lias Saoudi, Saul Adamczewski,
Nathan Saoudi, Adam Harmer, Joseph Pancucci, and Jack Everett), but this performance was
just Lias, shrouded in layers and sunglasses, and Saul strumming a guitar. Though the set
was stripped down, I could sense a devil may care attitude underneath those shades. Seeing
them in full band mode was on another level altogether. By then people were referring to
them as the “naked band” so I knew it would be wild. But yeah, their sets are crazy, as in
crazy good. Lias, who drifts off into his own dreamland, has a way of mesmerizing crowds.
He’s simply so into singing his song that stripping away his clothing and fondling himself
has become just a part of this transformative thing he goes into on stage.
So when it came time to meet these guys, part of me was not sure if they would be dicks or
what. They had to be aware of the response they’d been getting — that could certainly go
to one’s head, right? Some dude in leather pants even got up on stage to do a little strip
tease himself, as if summoned by Lias.
As it turns out, the Fat Whites are all right. After a brief meeting before their sold out
Baby’s All Right show in Brooklyn, we made plans to shoot the shit at their favorite NYC
watering hole, KGB Bar. And then things got personal.
COLLIDE . 45