BOO! talks to Frau Pouch
BOO! caught up with Frau Pouch at their hometown show at Poco Loco to talk creative inspirations, what makes a cool band name and what is the optimum length for an album.
Frau Pouch are a three piece band who make energetic catchy 1-2 minute punk songs that somehow manage to tell a story or encapsulate a world in that brief moment. Their recent single/earworm Biscuit Beard got stuck in my head for weeks including the words which was kind of a nightmare for me as I’m a bit of pognophobic (scared of beards). They describe their sound as ‘Shambolic art punk disco filth played by 3 cretins’ but their music is mesmerising and intelligent as well as being fun.
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Formed by lead singer guitarist Joe Wise following the demise of his previous band The Contortionists, Joe was initially joined by Jim, a guy he knew from a metal band Repugnant Inebriation (BOO hasn’t heard this band but Frau Pouch all insist that we can probably glean what we need to know from the name). Knowing he was struggling to find a drummer, his then girlfriend (now wife) Suzanne, inspired and a bit merry at a Kong gig, offered to step in. Joe held her to this when she was sober and soon they were rehearsing at Sunlight Studios in Gillingham. The line-up was completed when Jim left and bassist Ollie Crook joined, following a one-off legendary gig where Ollie and Suzanne both played drums, sitting either side of the kit
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The story of the naming of the band sounds like it could have come straight from the Mighty Boosh.
‘My flatmates were in a cool electronic band, named after a place in Poland’ Joe explains. ‘And they were insistent that “bands aren’t cool unless there is a German word in there”. We came up with Frau straight away and kept trying out different words until someone hit on Pouch and we thought that’s the one.’
Although Frau Pouch doesn’t actually mean anything it doesn’t stop people thinking it does, usually vagina.
‘My girlfriend’s family are here tonight’ Ollie tells us ‘And everytime they ask what my band’s called and I tell them they are all saying “You mean vagina?”. They are all coming up with this independently of each other’
Despite this not being what they were going for with the name, the band find it hilarious that people assume this is what it means. This is a band who want to have fun whilst making great music and clearly don’t take themselves too seriously so I ask them about the playfulness of their music, which is even more evident to me in Frau Pouch than in the other bands they are all in.
‘In Frau Pouch I’m the Davros’ laughs Joe. ‘The evil dictator.’
‘The dictating Dalek’ agrees Suzanne. Everyone is laughing at this analogy as Joe and the band as a whole are some of the sweetest people you could meet.
‘Things stick in my brain and I have these strange ideas that have been in my head for a long time.’ Joe explains. ’At first I never thought to turn them into songs because I thought “Who is going to want to listen to my ramblings?” but then I thought I would try it and see what happens.’
Whilst this is very much Joe’s band, for the new album Fairymares the band have chosen to write the songs more collaboratively rather than always starting from Joe’s bedroom demos and this has allowed him to relax his dictatorship.
‘When I joined most of Space Chicken EP had already been written’ Ollie tells us. ‘This time Joe brought in riffs and I was able to write bass lines for some of the songs, including Ham Planet and Cat Curfew. This is the first time that we’ve all come in with ideas and jammed it out.’
‘I just do Krautrock drums to it and that’s it. ’ says Suzanne modestly.
Prior to the launch of the album (which is now out) the band put out a single of Biscuit Beard and Ham Planet and have been delighted and surprised that it’s got some attention and radio play including on Lauren Lavern’s 6 music show, so everything is looking good for the album.
‘The album is 10 songs – about 17 minutes’ Joe laughs.
‘I think Lauren Laverne referred to it as “an economic 15 minutes” on the radio’ Ollie adds.
‘Fairymares is fairytales and nightmares smooshed together’ explains Joe. ‘Some of it’s completely invented and some of it is based on stuff that already exists. Erotic Clocks is based on the Elves and the Shoemaker and the closing track is called Sleepstalker and that is based on ‘The Nightman cometh’ in the t.v show It’s always sunny in Philadelphia, which is a musical, although it sort of sounds like it could be based on Freddie Kruger.’
Although the band are keen to get out there to play the songs from the new album, because they love playing, don’t expect to find Fairymares being shamelessly promoted everywhere by the band themselves.
‘We are starting to book some more shows’ Ollie explains.
‘We’re not very good at the self-promotion bit though’ Suzanne adds. ‘It feels awful to be pushing things on people. I’m just like “here is the music”, make your own decision. I don’t want to be all like ”Check us out”’.
‘Because of the Lauren Laverne thing we can see other people’s comments saying that they think it’s good’ Ollie acknowledges. ‘So maybe there is more of an obligation that wasn’t there before that we should go out and gig a bit more and maybe further afield too’.
So, thanks Lauren, hopefully you have helped Frau Pouch to recognise their own genius and we can all look forward to hearing more twisted, fun earworms from them in the future.
Frau Pouch will be officially launching their album at Poco Loco on Saturday 24th March.
Buy the album: https:\\fraupouch.bandcamp.com\album\fairymares
