Totally Dublin fans will be familiar with LA noise merchants HEALTH after we gushed out inky love all over their new polychromatic album Get Color in our last issue. With a show on the 1st of October and the album yet to vacate our brains we took the excuse to talk to the band’s bassist (and best dancer) John Famiglietti about the band and the brand.
What colour is HEALTH then?
Oh! We had this worked out in the beginning. Each of us were going to get our own colour.
Like Power Rangers.
We did up a template and everything. It ended up not panning out. I think originally we were pastel, then we moved to neon, and I’d say now we’re two good contrasting colours. Like mint and pink. Or red and blue.
Album two is just out now, but your tour manager was talking to us at the last show and he was already bigging up number three.
That’s all we’ve been able to talk about at the minute. Number three really needs to change the game. People who didn’t get it this time around, we want to pull them in. It’s the most important thing for us to get it out as soon as possible. We’ve expanded our vocabulary and got down what we do well now. With a second album you don’t want to rob fans of the parts of the band they enjoy, with the third one we can really go off the deep end.
You seem to have worked out how to get that energy and those textures that make the band special down on record with Get Color, much more so than the first album. Is the studio less hellish now?
It’s still very frustrating. We still don’t feel we’ve got the recorded sound we want with Get Color, but we do have a solid plan for how to make our music have the impact we want it to have for the next album, a bigger, more electronic sound. We’re looking at getting sub-bass and more modern recording techniques next time around.
The biggest success of the album for me with Get Color is that it does capture the sort of catalyzing energy the live show transmits…
Definitely, that’s a huge concern for us. The biggest struggle is that we get a lot of people complaining that what they saw live is not even related to the album. How do you get that? What is that? How do you relate the songs and energy across?
Do you feel like you’re on a wave at the minute? The original hype around the band was that typical sort of transient blog hype that passed by quickly, whereas now there seems to be this surge, and a lot more respect.
I feel that now the interest is a very different type of interest. The people getting into the band… It’s more legitimate, a genuine interest. It’s very positive that everything we set up with the first album is growing the way we wanted it to. People are getting into the IDEA of this band, and what it’s supposed to be. I think it’ll have come full circle by the time we get to album three.
Did I hear you guys are starting a sort of band brand?
Yeah, it’s what we see a modern band as being. We’ve always worked with all the different stuff under the HEALTH umbrella, it’s really important to us. Next year we’re going to be working on a lot more visual stuff, all our fashion things, a new set of remixes.
Do you think for being in a band full-time to be a viable career option you need to work on all these different aspects?
I think it would be a bad thing if all bands were expected to do the ridiculous shit that we’re planning to do, and I don’t know any other bands who are trying to! I don’t even know if it’s particularly good for the music, but I think when it comes to things that are very important to how the band is perceived, and how the band can make any money, like merchandise, that it’s good to pay attention and put the work in.
Have you have had any Color Ticket winners yet [66 colour tickets we placed in the first issue of the album with various prizes, including Little League tops and inebriated videochats with the band]?
Yeah! This kid from Brooklyn won the Golden Ticket [the winner of which gets flown to California to hang out with the band at a theme park for the day]. The problem is he doesn’t like rollercoasters. He said he’ll go, but he can go for a walk while we’re on the rollercoaster. I hope he’s a fan of the band, and didn’t just pick up the CD and is now being flown out to LA to be forced to have fun.
I’ve just been watching the Die Slow video you directed. The best part is the blue screen at the end with the credit card details with that quote “You don’t have to be 19 to like this band.” Are most of your fans 19 anyway?
Most of our ticket winners have been older, I guess because they’re the CD-buying people. At our shows though, definitely, it’s pretty young. It’s good to get people at college age, I think.
Looks like you went through a lot of fake blood shooting it.
Yeah, a lot. We didn’t even use all the blood! It was difficult to shoot, we did it in this Asian antique store, everything was extremely fragile and extremely expensive. We had to herd the blood away from the antiques. It was made from flour and coffee, which was pretty gross.
Are you going to assume the director’s chair for the rest of your videos?
I’d definitely like to shoot more, but our next video is going to be shot by a director we all really, really love. Next year we’re going to make an internet TV show. Every episode we’ll do something completely different. Like the Monkees, but with us, or a drama mini-series, or a series of comedy sketches, we’ll put a lot of work into it.
HEALTH hit the Village this 1st of October, and their fantastic new album’s in your favourite record shop right now.
