Being in a band is great but challenging once the songwriting starts and the members find their collective tastes running from Abba to Frank Zappa. What’s a wide-ranging crew to do when the ADHD meds haven’t kicked in and the internal radio stations are rotating through channels faster than The Gravitron?
One solution: Pick everything. Consider the Scottish trio High Fade, who whirl through genres like a fair ride in overdrive and somehow make it work. The official band bio declares “funk, rock, disco, jazz, metal, punk and soul” as core influences. High Fade sometimes sound like they’re playing them all at once.
We at PureHoney are advancing an evidence-based rumor — with the music as the evidence — that that these three lads were sired on a gambling cruise by a James Brown impersonator while Thin Lizzy and John Coltrane played simultaneous gigs on separate decks. There are high-strung instrumental runs, head-snapping stops, chatty lyrics and and the maniacally focused energy of a self-styled “three-man crusade to set dance floors alight.”
They look like furry classic rockers, but guitarist and frontman Harry Valentino, bassist Oliver Sentence and newest recruit Health Campbell on drums are tougher to categorize by decade or sound except to say they’re committed to the beat. Their arc from busking phenoms to international act is a story of willpower abetted by touring, talent and moxie.
For their just-released second album, Twice As Nice, the band laid claim to rock ’n’ roll lineage, splitting track time between London’s storied RAK Studios and East Iris Studios in Music City, USA, aka Nashville. Their label, RPN Records, is their own. Keeping everything DIY lets High Fade make the music they love without annoying “production notes” from the big-money, music-conglomerate representative who thinks he’s in the band. If the suits can’t pigeonhole you, they can’t sell you to a preselected audience, and when you find your own way and your own crowd by doing what you do, that’s when you know you’re making art.
High Fade play 7pm Tuesday, June 23 at Miami Beach Bandshell. highfademusic.live ~ Tim Moffatt
