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 Click for music events American idols Fischerspooner deconstructs the art of superstar spectacle
Actors, dancers, extravagant lights, choreography, costumes and
neo-electro music--is it some futuristic remake of "Chicago"? A
sci-fi musical? An average weekend in Boys Town?
The answer: none of the above. Instead, it's the international pop
sensation/traveling performance circus that is Fischerspooner, the
creative endeavor of Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner, and the
highest-profile duo in modern electro/dance music. The two took Europe
by storm two years ago with their chart-topping club hit, "Emerge,"
and built for themselves a deafening buzz before they even released a
record in the States. That record, "#1," released two months ago by
Capitol Records, has put the duo well on its way to conquering North
America as well. "We were advised that it was smarter to, especially
with electronic music, release first in Europe," says Spooner,
Fischerspooner's singer and performing focal point. "Specifically,
mainland Europe. And then take that success and release in the UK, and
once you release in the UK, you can release in the US."
But the music, a casual retelling of Depeche Mode/Human League and
any other early to mid-eighties electrotrash band you can recall, only
spills half the story. Fischerspooner's real raison d'être lies in
the
live show, a spectacle that pulls theatre, performance and visual art
and music together. The stage show is an enormous effort, using up to
twenty people including an actor, dancers, backing singers and enough
theatrical material to make David Bowie shed a nostalgic tear.
Of course, Fischerspooner didn't start as such an epic project.
Spooner and Fischer, who met while attending the Art Institute of
Chicago, were living in New York when the seed of the idea took hold.
"When we started initially it was a film project that Warren and I
were
working on," explains Spooner. "He was in sort of a creative crisis,
and had stopped making music. I suggested that he return to making
music, and that he make a soundtrack for the film. Eventually, we came
across a whole series of other ideas, and a band as a film project. We
were eventually invited to perform the one song we were working on, and
then we did this one performance for Starbucks, and we realized that
it
was an endless idea. Then we slowly set about putting all the elements
together."
That's not to make it sound like the project came together in six
months. "It went very slowly--Starbucks, then a nightclub, then
another
small bar," he says. "And every show we would develop new ideas and
build from there, and start to incorporate ideas of wardrobe and
lighting and choreography and dancers, and we would just take whatever
environment was given to us and perform everywhere and anywhere."
Once "Emerge" hit throughout European clubs, the duo's layered
building of spectacle came to fruition in the form of a major tour
throughout Europe last year. The response was positive enough to let
Fischerspooner know that they had found something special--even when
the
response was less than traditional. "It's a very unique and unusual
project, so we get some unusual responses--but it's not anything that
surprises us," Spooner asserts. "We know we're not two guitars and a
drum kit on stage. Everybody's been very warm, and it's exciting. It
feels like there's something happening."
One of those unusual responses took place in England, when a fan
threw a sandwich at the act while it was performing. "I felt that it
was a punk rock sign of love, a positive thing that was out of sheer
excitement and enthusiasm," Spooner says without a hint of irony.
"And
also, it happened at Royal Festival Hall, which is a very formal
concert
hall, like playing at the Metropolitan Opera House. I was more nervous
about people being cold and reserved. So we started the show and people
started throwing shit--I was immediately happy."
Although Fischerspooner's music sounds a world away from the
fast-hard-rules doctrine of punk rock, throughout the duo's recording
history they've both made repeated comparisons between what they're
doing and the music/cultural movement of the seventies. Obviously, the
comparisons are not strictly musical. "Rebellion," explains Spooner,
"or the clichés of rebellion, are so generic and codified, almost
conformist at this point. We are truly making a rebellious statement."
Despite the fact that the act plays to a large audience, Spooner
sees the rebellion as modernized dissent. "I don't have patience for
people that are making sort of these anti-corporate statements, and yet
are completely participating in a corporate system. So our goal is to
actually use the tools of consumer culture to do something interesting,
exciting and innovative, and try to share that with as many people as
possible. We're playing a dangerous game, where we are working with
the
beast. But thus far, everybody's been very responsive, supportive, and
we have a great deal of creative freedom. So as long as we can take
the
idea that we've been working on and share them with a greater number
of
people, I don't see anything wrong with that."
Spooner continues with the theme. "The underground is overrated,
and obscurity does not equal musical integrity. Oftentimes people think
that the more obscure, peculiar and elitist they can be, the more that
represents musical integrity. We're rebelling against the Chicago
tradition--but it's the same everywhere, it's the cliché of the
underground."
Fischerspooner is currently in the process of taking its first tour
of the United States, but there are plans for much more. At the top of
those plans is taking their act and ideas towards a cultural takeover
of
mass media. ("If Celine Dion can do it, we can do it too," Spooner
points out.) There has been talk of taking the show to a permanent
location in Las Vegas.
"We have very clear aesthetic ideas. We're very much interested in
creating new spectacles, and Vegas is the perfect place to do that,"
says Spooner. "It's very difficult to travel, so it makes a lot of
sense that we should just go ahead and build a permanent production
that
can sustain itself in Las Vegas. And also, everything about Vegas is
just perfectly American."
Just the idea of Fischerspooner taking over Las Vegas continues the
act's subversive, though highly artistic, orientation. "For me," he
explains, "coming from the avant-garde and the underground, it's very
frustrating working in the United States. Because as a fine artist, an
experimental artist, an underground artist, there's not a lot of
respect
ultimately, culturally, for these types of endeavors. And it's nice to
take what are ultimately the most American-themed ideas formed as what
truly represents the American culture, and try to inject it with
something exciting and fucked-up, make it interesting and not be
ashamed
of it."
And what of the film plans? Is the world ready for a
Fischerspooner-invented movie? "The idea is definitely still in
development. After `Moulin Rouge,' we started getting calls. Everyone
in
Hollywood started scrambling for material that would translate well to
the screen, and now with `Chicago' winning Best Picture, it's kind of
like everyone's cranking up the machine on returning to the classic
American musical. It'll be our own special version of all the great
clichés of musicals, but infused with some good music, and ...I don't
know, a more exciting aesthetic."
These are epic plans for an act that's yet to finish even half of
its debut American tour, but Fischerspooner has already gone from
performance-art idea to European number-one pop artist. "This is an
idea for us," Spooner notes, "and obviously it could change. I don't
know if Warren will want to make pop music forever, and I don't know
if
I want to be a pop superstar forever. But, for now, it's exciting to
have the opportunity to push this idea of pop as far and as hard as
can.
If we crash and burn, I'm sure I'll wake up depressed and then figure
do
something else out."
What else is out there for an avant-garde artist turned
international performing artist? "I don't know. I just feel like I'm
so
fucking blessed, because I have such peculiar interests and I never
knew
how they were all ever going to possibly co-exist at one time. My love
of crass entertainment, my love of high art, gathered into a
major-label
release. I was a receptionist, I was a house painter, I was a PA, I've
done it all...I've even been a male model, and failed miserably."
Spooner pauses for a moment, before adding a final sentence, with
complete sincerity. "Maybe I'll go Shakespearean." Fischerspooner plays April 18 at the Metro, 3720 North Clark,
(773)549-0203.
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