Backstage at Warped Tour, I was lucky enough to catch the band I Fight Dragons. The five-piece group from Chicago is known for their quirky brand of “Chip-Pop-Rock” music. They’re insanely talented and most certainly know how to put on a show.
I spoke to Brian, Bill, and Packy who were warm and welcoming. Describing Warped Tour so far to be “pretty damn awesome”, they even said it was “Splenda…No I would go on ahead to say it’s full on sugar…it’s that sweet. It’s sweet hickory, man.” Their senses of humour made them personable and fun.
They’ve been coming on pretty early, even first, at some stops on the VWT, but even with that the turnout for their set has been astounding. “Especially in New York and San Francisco,” says Brian. “It’s been pretty great overall but there’s been a few cities that have really blown us away,” explains Bill.
While on Warped, bands are bound to see musicians they’ve never even heard of before. The guys in IFD found Bayside, Funeral Party (who was playing at the time), Streetlight Manifesto, and Skinny Lister noteworthy. They’d spoken to the Stepdad guys about touring together, but otherwise logistically the tour lineup wouldn’t make sense if they were to go on the road.
When asked about if there were any fun stories from the tour so far, the guys sarcastically answered “No, absolutely nothing exciting’s happened…There were no monsoons in Toronto that cut our set short and ended up sending gear down a muddy river… We should stop lying.” After cracking smiles and joking around, they say “It did happen. In Toronto, we played a set and it just started sprinkling. It looked like it was gonna rain soon, but we started playing an entire set as it started sprinkling. Then during the last thirty seconds of our last song, all hell broke loose. Thunder started, and just sheets and sheets of rain were falling…
Bill continued, “We literally brought the thunder. All of our gear was out and a river of water was pouring through the backstage. All the bands were on the truck drinking beers and cracking jokes, just waiting it out and somebody said that it felt like we were on the Titanic sinking, and Skinny Lister should be playing us to our graves.”
I asked what they were going to do after they got of WarpedTour, I got the answer “sleep” immediately. Also, “Go to Disney Land!” was enthusiastically exclaimed by Brian, followed by “no, I’m not gonna go to Disney Land… We could sleep at Disney Land. Take a nap at Disney Land. Just find a bench, and just lay out…… in Disney Land.
“We’re probably gonna tour again in the fall on our own, do like a club tour and maybe a little bit of recording a bit after Warped; it’sour goal to go in the studio.”
The boys had a bit of trouble coming up with three words to describe themselves, but Brian went with “horizontally polarized (inaudible).” Bill used “adjunct vertical quicksand” and Packy selected “having great times”, and they all laughed.
The issue the guys had was picking just one embarrassing song on their iTunes. Bill says that “Yanni at the Apocalypse” is the most embarrassing. They all agreed on Michael Bolton, too. “When that guy sings, he sings so hard… he goes so hard.” This was followed by the singing of “HOW CAN WE BE LOVERS?!”, which was absolutely hilarious. “He goes hard in the paint, it’s awesome” said Packy, who’s most embarrassing tune would “probably be one of my own. Probably a horrible cover that I don’t want anybody to even know existed, ever. I’ve recorded a couple tracks that I’ve erased completely from everything. They’re that bad.”
Brian went on to elaborate about having Urinetown and Disney on his iPod as well, along with other musicals.
I Fight Dragons were so pleasant and fun, and super down to earth. They put on an extraordinarily memorable show, and their sound was one of the most unique of the day. The video game loving, musically talented group is bound to go far. Keep an eye onthem before they get huge.