FAIRMONT CURRENTLY IS:
Neil Sabatino: Vocals & Guitar
Andy Applegate: Drums
Christian Kisala: Pianet, Synths & Percussion
Sam Carradori: Vocals, Tambourine & Glockespiel
Clancy Flynn: Violin (on occassion)
THE (obligatory and pretentious) BAND BIOGRAPHY
This all sounds kind of nice, like maybe there was a plan, but in actuality it all played out more like Spinal Tap.Neil Sabatino started playing guitar in the early nineties, before myspace hit counters and “LOL OMG I LOVE [Insert Band Name Here]” Facebook Groups.
Those were the days (supposedly) of street cred and artistic integrity. Neil found himself with plenty of both those thing, playing with a couple of popular bands with people that would later make lots of money. He first established himself in punk outfit Stick Figure Suicide (who appeared with the Bouncing Souls, Saves the Day, AntiFlag, H20, blah, blah, blah) and played on the Vans Warped Tour. Eventually, he joined NJ indie rock staplesPencey Prep, playing alongside future My Chemical Romance guitarist Frank Iero. It wasn’t long before they were signed to Eyeball Records and playing high profile shows with Thursday, Nada Surf, and The Strokes. They also played the inaugural New Jersey Surf and Skate Fest with New Found Glory and Brand New in front of 4,000 fans. Basically, they were starting to feel like rock stars and had a nice list of names to drop. But just as they could taste success (oh, sweet success--it melts on your tongue!) the band began to fall apart. Touring, disputes within the band, tensions with the label,all embittered Sabatino as he watched Pencey Prep implode.
From the burning wreckage of Sabatino’s former band a phoenix arose, and while Neil scoffed at this imagery, he named this fledgling bird Fairmont. Neil wrote songs thematically influenced by his disillusionment and began to experiment and grow musically, applying ideas he learned at art school to his music and developing his philosophy of “less is more.” It was this technique that allowed him to create material refreshingly different from the three chord and melodic emo being recorded at the time. Fairmont (which was at that point a solo acoustic project) was signed to Reinforcement Records in August 2001.Once a band was assembled, Fairmont released their debut LP Pretending Greatness is Awaiting. Their second album, Anomie, appeared in 2003 and featured current drummer Andy Applegate. It received some local airplay anddid well online, but it was Fairmont’s 2005 album Hell Is Other People that received the most attention. The album’s adoption of existentialist philosophy ironically garnered them the most popularity; it was in regular rotation on several college radio stations and received the occasional spinon huge commercial stations like Q104.3 in New York and even a live set on G Rock 106.3 in New Jersey. Some people in the press wrote about Fairmont like they were some new pantheon of indie rock gods. Case in point:
www.fairmontmusic.com
www.BlowUpRadio.com
released December 16, 2010
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