Get to Know... Fruit Bomb

Fresh off the back of a new single, young Manc upstarts Fruit Bomb will bring an injection of pop fizz to a special gig at Manchester's Deaf Institute this coming Friday, 25 Sep.

The followup single to this year's giddily received Normcore Girlfriend, Goin' Home came out in August via Delicious Clam Records and is a sunny blast of carefree vocals and citrusy guitars – the ideal soundtrack to waving goodbye to the summer on this official first day of autumn, then...!

As they get ready for this Friday's gig at The Deaf Institute – where they'll be joining fellow Manchester outfit False Advertising and two of Leeds' most vital live presences, Weirds and Menace Beach – Fruit Bomb took time out to tell us more about their origins, favourite bands and regrettable tattoos... 

The Skinny: When and how (and why!) did Fruit Bomb begin?

Fruit Bomb: Three of us (Ben, Danny and Sam) all live together so we just started playing together pretty naturally, just for a laugh; then when we decided to make it a thing, Calum joined us on the drums and that was that.

How would you describe your sound in one sentence? (Trick question: sentence can be as long or short as you like…)

We’re all quite heavily influenced by garage and punk bands but other influences definitely creep in there, I think at the minute we like making fun energetic pop songs.

What are some records/live experiences that have been really influential on you as a band?

We all saw The Strokes together at Primavera in Barcelona this year. Even though we might not listen to them loads now, they were a band I think we all loved when we were younger so that was great to see. It was also Sam’s birthday so we were all especially drunk.

In terms of records that influence us I think a lot of our mates make the best music around. Best Friends’ debut album that came out this year was awesome and we can’t stop listening to the new Black Tambourines album, Freedom, and also that new Sauna Youth record.

Tell us something people would be surprised to learn about you.

Sam actually has an Oasis tattoo that he got when he was 17 in Magaluf, it reads “Live Forever”… inspirational.

Danny use to be an ice cream man, and Calum still is an ice cream man.

And Ben’s favourite band is the Stereophonics.

Your recent single Goin' Home has been getting a lot of love. What have you got up your sleeve – can you tell us what you're planning for your next records?

We have a single that will be coming out hopefully in February with another really cool label, we don’t really want to say who just in case it doesn’t surface. But we get to go to Abbey Road to get that mastered so that’ll be really cool.

We’ll also probably release something in between as well, we’re always writing and recording.

Oh and keep an eye out for Delicious Clam Christmas Compilation, we’ll be on that.

The labels you've worked with so far, Art Is Hard and Delicious Clam, seem to have a really great attitude. How did you get involved with them and what made you click?

Yeah! We’ve all been big fans of Art Is Hard for years so it was a real honour when they asked us to be on their Family Portrait compilation, that was really great for our first release. We went down to the Art Is Hard birthday party last year and on the drive back up, before we’d even started to writing together, I think one of us said that we’d be playing the Art Is Hard birthday the following year, and we did!

Delicious Clam is actually headed up by our very own Calum and Ed Crisp from Best Friends, and also collectively run by quite a few bands who are directly involved with it. It’s a really cool and sustainable way of practising, recording and releasing music and it just makes sense for us to be involved with it as much as we can.

What does Manchester mean to you?

It’s a great place to live, there’s probably a gig or numerous gigs that you’d like to go to every night so if you’re stuck for something to do you’re probably doing something wrong. We split our time between Manchester and Sheffield and are all used to the close community of bands that you get in a place like Sheffield.

Manchester’s quite different in that respect because it’s such a big place, but, saying that, some of our best pals in Manchester we’ve met through playing music and having an active interest in the scene, especially the Gorgeous Bully, Rains and Easy Kill guys.

We're really excited to see you play on 25 Sep, and to have four of the most energetic bands in the North right now all on one bill! Which of the other acts are you most looking forward to seeing?

The overall night will be ace, we’re big fans of Menace Beach and Weirds. Weirds got in touch with us as soon as we started as a band wanting to do a show with us. They run some DIY shows and do live sessions in Leeds which is really cool – similar to the kind of stuff we try and do in Manchester and Sheffield. We don’t know too much about False Advertising but we’ve been informed that they’re really great so really looking forward to them.

What does the rest of the year have in store for Fruit Bomb?

We’ll be playing shows, recording our single, but more importantly we will be concentrating on writing as many pop bangers as we can. Even though we’re still relatively fresh as a band, we’ve managed to play fair amount of cool shows, in Manchester and up and down the country. We think it’s now time to follow that up with a really great record.

And finally: What do you like to do outside of the band? Any projects we should know about?

We’re all very busy people and always like to be doing something. Danny and Sam run Family Tree, a promotions company in Manchester and Sheffield which they use to get the best new bands around to play shows in cities they wouldn’t necessarily be able to play. When Ben’s not busy making music with Fruit Bomb or Nai Harvest he’s also a pretty good illustrator and artist. He’s got a few exhibitions coming up in London! Calum is a full time ice cream man, but he still finds the time to run Delicious Clam Records and play in his other band Avida Dollars – along with other musical endeavours!

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Catch Fruit Bomb alongside False Advertising, Weirds and Menace Beach at The Deaf Institute, Manchester on 25 Sep. Tickets are just £3 in advance via dice.fm.