Anfang talk to us about making music and the inspiration for their new material
PLEASE INTRODUCE YOURSELF FOR US WHO ARE NOT FAMILIAR WITH YOU AND
YOUR MUSIC AND TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF.
- Anfang is a Rock band based in Chicago. With all of us coming from different musical backgrounds, and sometimes different eras, our style has evolved into a grunge/garage/alt combination to assault your senses from across generations.
TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR NEW ALBUM OR SINGLE?
- We just released two new singles, Guerrilla Mitts and Legs, which are both streaming now! Guerrilla Mitts is a heavy, driving hard rock song, while Legs is also heavy, but with a bit of a ballady flair to it. We are always writing new songs and have a healthy backlog of songs ready to be recorded. We'll be recording a third single, (In) Circles, in mid February, and plan on recording and releasing singles on a fairly regular schedule throughout all of 2022.
WHAT INSPIRED THE ALBUM OR SINGLE?
- Guerrilla Mitts was inspired by a night out gone wrong; what started as a fun night out dancing with friends ended with an assault... and songwriting material. Legs was inspired by one of our personal relationships and the constant struggle of choosing between love for a passion and love for a person.
CAN YOU SUM UP THE ALBUM IN A FEW WORDS?
- Guerrilla Mitts - driving, dark, crooked
- Legs - ethereal, prominent, assertive
WHAT RECORD CHANGED YOUR LIFE AND WHY?
- Elephant by The White Stripes. A lot of people can point to one song or album that completely changed their perception of music when they first heard it. That was Elephant for me. Having been a 9 year old kid growing up in rural Indiana, surrounded by country music and Mom's Seal records, hearing Seven Nation Army on Fuse one morning utterly blew my mind. It was so completely foreign to anything I had heard up until then. I had to have it. It was the first record I bought with my own money. I think it took a couple months for me to figure out there were other tracks after SNA, but once I discovered the other 13 songs it became the only album I consistently carried with me.
DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE MUSIC VIDEO FILMED BY YOUR BAND OR ANOTHER
ARTIST?
- Time to Dance by The Shoes. Time to Dance is an upbeat, peppy dance song. The kind of song that makes you feel happy; makes you want to dance. The music video features Jake Gyllenhaal as a serial killer in a fencer's uniform, indiscriminately murdering dancing people in gruesome fashion as he becomes more and more unhinged. The juxtaposition is bizarre and brilliant.
WHAT WOULD WE FIND YOU DOING WHEN YOU'RE NOT MAKING MUSIC?
- As a group, you'd most likely find us attending a concert. We frequently take band field trips to see our favorite artists when they come to town. We've slowed down a bit due to the pandemic, but we did manage to see Dead Poets Society and The Fall of Troy this past fall.
DO YOU GET NERVOUS PERFORMING LIVE, IF SO HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THAT?
- We all get pre-show jitters in one form or another, but on the whole we all do a good job of managing our nerves. We'll run through the set a couple times at practice leading up to the show to build muscle memory so by the time we're playing it live we don't even have to think about it. That definitely helps. Other than that, we may have a drink at the venue to settle ourselves a bit, but as soon as we're all on stage and dive into the first song, any nervousness we may have felt disappears.
HOW DID YOU FORM THE BAND?
- Three of Anfang's current members, Andie Zaragoza (vocals/rhythm guitar), Mark Tonal, (lead guitar), and Christian Newman (bass/rhythm guitar) met while working on another project. In mid 2018, however, that project imploded in spectacular fashion. Nonetheless, Andie, Mark, and Christian wanted to continue making music together. Andie had been introduced to Nick Rissler through a mutual friend and invited him to audition for the vacant drum spot. One jam session later and Anfang was born
HOW DO YOU WRITE? - DO YOU HAVE A KEY SONGWRITER, OR DO YOU ALL WORK
TOGETHER?
- We typically all work together when writing songs. Whenever any of us have an idea for a song, we'll bring it to the band at a practice and flesh it out from there. Andie and Christian are the most productive and come to the band with the most ideas, but the songs are always completed by all of us working together to make them the best they can be.
WHAT INSPIRES YOU?
- We feel like there are certain emotions everyone feels that are indescribable. When we are writing songs, we are inspired by those emotions and are trying our best to express them in hopes of eliciting those same emotions in everyone who hears them.
WHAT IS NEXT?
- In the immediate future we'd like to record and release as much of our unreleased catalog as possible to get our music out there for everyone to hear... and also for our sanity. There are only so many killer songs we can sit on before we start losing our collective mind. We also cannot wait to start playing live regularly again (pandemic willing) since it's one of our favorite parts of being in a band together and is a fantastic way to continue building our fan base. We've talked about recording an album and touring further in the future, but we're taking things one step at a time. For now
PLEASE TELL US ANY SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS SO WE CAN SHARE.
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anfangmusic/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Anfangmusic/
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5Cru2hmOpqR8bB6YWm7zcH?si=5PFEMtbZR6OFKWBIPOyj7w
- Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/anfang/1464471165
- YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIYu8koC9kisA5E-4_d-elQ
- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBrZMNnzM5RIF8f4MsauiMw
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