BC News|December 18, 2014 04:14 EST
Family Force 5 Guitarist Says Lead Singer Crouton Deserves Coal for Christmas Because He's too 'Fashionable' [INTERVIEW 2]
Derek 'Chap Stique' Mount of Family Force 5 took some time out to speak to BREATHEcast about the "Sweep the Leg" music video, crazy song writing tactics, and which member of his group deserves coal for Christmas.
This is part two of our three piece installment on FF5. Read part one here.
FF5's latest raucous music video, "Sweep the Leg" was spearheaded by DJ and keyboardist Nate 'Nadaddy' said Chap Stique. The band loved 'Karate Kid' and early and late '80s video games and cartoons like Voltron and Thundercats. This inspired them to make a crazy "futuristic weird battle scene" the theme of the video.
He said the fans have loved the video and they had a blast while making it because "Family Force 5 is about fun" he said.
Watch the video for "Sweep the Leg" below:
Mount was then asked if pop culture and growing up in general provided more musical inspiration than music itself, to which he replied, "The music is always a huge part of our influence, but it's just embedded in your soul. It's part of growing up and just sitting in your room all day and playing and playing and listening to records and trying to figure ot Van Halen and Zeppelin songs...Those things come naturally, we just play and it happens."
He shared that one of his favorite moments creatively came while writing a record on the Rock and Worship tour. "We had these little challenges that we gave each other everyday. So we'd show up to a writing meeting in the afternoon and it was like, 'Everyone has got to bring like five cool pictures that is going to inspire what we write'."
He continued, "Shark eating some kind of weird octopus...lets make something that sounds like that. We write a mean riff, something weird and bizarre. A week on acoustic guitars, a week on laptops.
"It's a different ways to get creative," he said, "It goes hand in hand with art."
With Christmas right around the corner, Chap Stique was asked about which one of his members is most deserving of coal. "There are moments when everybody deserves coal," he said pausing for a moment before saying confidently, "I would say it's gotta be Crouton."
"He looks so fashionable at all times that he makes people feel bad sometimes. You wake up and you are in your pajamas on the tour bus and the dude looks like he's about to go to his photoshoot for GQ" he revealed. "And you're like 'Man dude, you're making me look bad'."
He said it makes him step up his game, and also brought to mind one of his earliest memories of the band regarding Crouton's obession with fashion.
"One of my favorite memories of Family Force 5 is when i joined the band, he called me and said, 'Hey can I come over right now?' And I said 'Yeah totally' I thought he wanted to jam and make music or something."
Crouton came over and raided his closet, which was really just a storage spot in his friends basement where he was living. "'You can take that, and that, and put that on tour... don't ever wear that again. That's okay, yeah gimme that and I'll sew it for you and you can wear that a little bit differently'."
The guitarist said he made a list of things to buy for him. They went shopping and he was amazed. "I love how much he cares about fashion. He might have to deal with the coal for the anxiety he causes others for looking so good," he said jokingly.
Check back with BREATHEcast tomorrow for the third part of our interview with 'Chap Stique' where he will talk about Winter Jam and Warped Tour, "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, and music as an evangelistic tool. Also, be sure to check out part one of the interview with Derek Mount here.