Amusement Parks On Fire

So many groups, so little time. Some come, make their little noise, and go away again. Others barely make an impression at all.

A precious few we’ll still be listening to in 20 years’ time, flash-frying our minds to the strains of their early, consciousness-altering music, but also keeping pace with their journey, going to amazing uncharted places in their sound – the audacity of their rock adventure laying down an ideal for the adventure of our own lives. Think Pink Floyd, the Cure, the Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth…and a younger generation including Sigur Ros and Mogwai.

In the ante-chamber, impatiently awaiting our Damascene realisation that they too warrant such devotion, are Amusement Parks On Fire. The band were initially the brainchild of one young man, Michael Feerick, then just 16 years old, but now, five years on, are a fully-staffed and firing ensemble, ready to unleash a glorious fantasia of a rock record called ‘Out Of The Angeles’, which should see Michael’s ambition fulfilled in millions of homes.

He started playing very young, soon after his family settled down in Nottingham, after stints in Manchester and Canada. His first inspiration came from his PE teacher father’s record collection.

“I listened to a lot of his prog albums,” he remembers, with an earnest lack of embarrassment. “Pink Floyd, early Genesis, Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer and some of the heavier stuff. The sleeves were so immersing, I used to sit there just getting into all the concepts. I soon taught myself how to play various instruments. Then I started a band when I was at school when I was 12, called Acupuncture. All I was trying to do was just copy those prog records.”

Acupuncture had been gigging around Nottingham’s pub venues (Feerick: “We were far too young to even be drinking in the places we played”), and by now had been switched onto noisenik bands like Sonic Youth, Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jr, Pixies, Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine. Suddenly, there was Nirvana. Then, Smashing Pumpkins, who really floated Michael’s boat. The sound now drifting through his creative consciousness was a fusion of prog and those punkier acts.

At 15, Michael attended a local music industry convention and met the man who was to become APoF’s manager, who endeavoured to get Michael a solo deal of some kind, but ended up funding him to record some demos out of his own pocket.

Feerick’s vision was bigger than a four-track tape, he wanted to show “the full spectrum”. Eventually, over an intensive four-week period three years ago, he recorded nine of his songs, playing all the instruments himself, with help from his engineer friend, Dan Knowles. He was thus touting around a finished album, whose rollercoaster coherence was reinforced by the linking drones and atmospherics between songs.

Geoff Barrow, formerly of Portishead, stepped in to release APoF’s makeshift self-titled debut album on his Invada imprint.

Micahel: “I thought my manager was taking the piss. It turned out that Geoff was almost more excited to meet me than I was to meet him. He really gave me faith, that people really listened rather than just following what’s fahsionable. And it really helped me get recognised, having his name involved.”

Word of mouth spread. Hip American alt.zine Filter picked up the rights for the US. Ex-Hüsker Dü legend Bob Mould listed it in his Top Ten. Other fans of ‘APoF’ would include Snow Patrol, Elbow and Bloc Party.

With such interest gathering at his hind, Michael had to put together a band and get out there. Dan Knowles became the band’s guitarist, with Jez Cox taking up bass and Peter Dale the drums. Gigging started in January 2004. By Summer 2005, they’d “done” Britain, Europe and North America. They’d also got a deal with V2.

To the mind of Michael Feerick, that first album had been hasty, almost unfinished. Having cost barely two grand to make, it had barely scratched the surface of what Feerick now wanted to achieve – especially that he now had a band behind him. “I wanted to be away from any other influence,” he says, “just lock ourselves away from the rest of the world. And I’d made a conscious decision to be somewhere magical.”

To that end, everything fell into place when another set of fervent APoF admirers, Sigur Ros, offered to let him to record at their studio near Reykjavik. Rhythm tracks were laid down cheaply at a friend’s place in Nottingham, but then Feerick and Knowles decamped to Iceland to do vocals, guitars, keyboards and mixing.

Michael: “The studio’s basically in an old swimming pool, which was built in the 1920s by a madcap designer entrepreneur. It’s in the middle of a forest outside of Reykjavic. You have to take a bus for half hour to get there. It was quite a small pool, but it’s an amazing, beautiful-sounding room. Part of the reason for doing it there was to borrow Sigur Ros’s gear. Some guitar parts were done using Jonsi’s cello bow.

“We went slightly nuts, but in a professional way. We hardly slept. We didn’t even talk to our families and friends, and barely even our girlfriends! We didn’t take lots of acid or anything, but we may as well have done.”

On their rare sorties outside the studio complex, they were surrounded by incomparably beautful and inspiring sights. Michael: “You could see the Northern Lights perfectly from where we were. The record was very much a product of those surroundings. It was like being literally lost in a little world of art and creativity.”

Feerick brought along his mate, Joe, to pick up the vibes and feed them into the artwork. Hence the angel sculptures on the finished article. Mixing happened on the in-house analogue desk, one of only two or three in existence which was bought from a French TV company. Additonal mixing happened back home – “to bring it into hi-fi,” as Michael puts it, “so you get the best of old and new.”

“I think that you can only judge your own Art according to what you set out to do, and, like, did you do it?” says Feerick, trying to assemble his thoughts on ‘Out Of The Angeles’. “This one definitely feels to me like the real deal.”

He talks very focused for a 21-year-old, and for someone who makes such sky-scraping music. There will almost certainly be higher goals to aim for in the future.

Thus far, APoF has been a rolling, organic “life” thing. It’s going to keep growing…and flying. Seatbelts fastened.