Rob Alvord from Fat Candice speaks to us about the root of emotion in music, his appreciation for ’90s rock, and the Donny Osmond homage on the band’s upcoming album.
Alvord has been a musician since his teenage years, playing in a myriad of bands within a wide variety of genres. The common thread he found in all these types of music was a certain emotion at each of their bases—rock, Alvord feels, is “rebellious and cathartic,” at its core.
Alvord grew up in a musical family and found his love of music through watching his brothers’ Rush VHS tapes, and decided to learn how to play the bass. After playing the instrument in groups for years, Alvord made the switch to guitar, finding it easier to not only to write music but also to play and sing at the same time. However, he still feels like he is a bassist at heart, saying that he’s “a bass player that’s here to play guitar.”
In his songwriting, Alvord cites many ’90s alternative rock and grunge bands as his influences. Alvord loved how bands like Jane’s Addiction, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana and Alice In Chains were able to take notes from the entire rock landscape and fuse it into singular artistic visions. In the 2000s, Alvord was finding that much of the edge and sophistication he associated with the rock of the ’90s began to morph and slip away. With Fat Candice, Alvord looks to create music not only that other people enjoy but that he enjoys himself.
Alvord says the upcoming, second, self-titled album from Fat Candice is an eclectic experience, with a wide-reaching rock soundscape that touches on the themes of “darkness and loss of innocence”—some straight-up rock songs, some songs like Rage Against the Machine, some more acoustic songs. Alvord discusses a couple of the processes for songwriting on this new album. One track was inspired by a tragic family story told to Alvord by the band’s drummer and newest member, Adam Ridd. Another started with a title “Donny Osmond Will Have His Revenge on Ogden,” inspired by a Nirvana track with a similarly structured title, and pays homage to the grunge heroes as well as Utah.
Fat Candice’s new album is coming soon, and you can keep up with the group at fatcandice.com and facebook.com/fatcandice.
Thanks for listening to SLUG Mag Soundwaves.
- This podcast was created by SLUG Magazine and produced by Angela H. Brown, Secily Anderson
- Associate Producers: Alexander Ortega, Joshua Joye, John Ford, Kathy Rong Zhou
- Executive Producer: Angela H. Brown
- Music by Fat Candice
- Soundwaves logo and art design by Nicholas Dowd
- Technical design by Matthew Rasmussen
- Photo courtesy of Fat Candice