In a very short period of time San Francisco’s The Fresh & Onlys have released two albums and an assortment of 7”s and cassettes, hoisting forth what they’ve captured like a trophy fish on an unseen tether caught on currents that flowed backwards seizing at portions of genres rock, folk, psych, and punk. Before their performance at Crowbar on March 26 bassist Shadye Sartin offered candid explanations on a variety of topics including the origins of the band, their influences, the misconceptions of lo-fi, the failure of all pop, bands forgotten, and beautiful failures.

REAX: What do you do in the band?
Shayde Sartin: Play bass, co-song write.

REAX: When did you guys start getting together?
SS: In March of 2008, me and Tim Cohen the main songwriter and singer, he and I’d been buddies for years, drinking buddies, hangout and listen to records kind of buddies. He had been making music and doing bands and I’d been playing in other bands just doing bass stuff. Basically what happened is he had a batch of songs that were a little more guitar-centric than the previous stuff he had done with other bands, and it really resonated with me. He’d always give me things he was working on and I’d be like ‘Oh this is cool I like this.’ But he gave me this one specific CD and it was really cool. He had just read the 13th Floor Elevators book about Roky Erickson and I think it really inspired him. So it was a little more in the garage/psychedelia world. It was definitely something at the time I was really digging. I asked if I could come over and help record some of this stuff or maybe I’ll play bass on some stuff, or do whatever, we didn’t know. I ended up going over there and I got there about eight or nine in the morning and we just ended up recording all day. I called out of work for the rest of the week and he called out of work the rest of the week, and we recorded and recorded and recorded because for whatever reason, whatever alchemy was happening, we could just tell it was definitely better and definitely something cooler than before.

REAX: What album did that become?
SS: That became the first album, which is the album on Castle Face Records. That first week is pretty much that record. We ended up re-recording a lot of it. The band became a live band and we re-recorded it with a live band.

REAX: It sounds like there was a real common enjoyment of specific record that was inspiring. Could you name a few? You mentioned 13 Floor Elevators before.
SS: Yeah Bull Of The Woods by 13th Floor Elevators definitely, Honky Tonkin by The Mekons was a big one, Violent Femmes Hollowed Ground, Country Joe & the Fish Electric Music for Body and Mind that was really big one for me and Tim together. Those are four that come to my mind immediately.

REAX: A lot of the songs, they sound older, and I don’t want to mean that in the pejorative sense, but it sounds like you go through trouble to make your records sound a certain way and I was wondering what the major catalyst behind that is?
SS: We definitely don’t try to make things sound vintage. We don’t try to make it sound 60s, 70s, 80, or whatever we’re mining at the time. We just have a really fast way of working. Our equipment, we’re poor, so we don’t have a lot of money, we have a tape machine, and that tape machine tends to make things sound a little musky, older, and a little more vintage. But we tend to mix that up with a lot of digital sounds that kind of abstract that warmth.

REAX: Do you think that technology helps combining the multiple genres that you’re smooshing together?
SS: Just the ability to work that fast. Some of the stuff you hear on a record we wrote and recorded in thirty minutes.

REAX: Do you think if you had the opportunity, maybe you were in some sort of fancier studio, do you think it’d end up cleaner?
SS: Definitely, we are going to work with whatever is in front of us. Like I said we’re not consciously trying to make shit sound blown out or busted or lo-fi. We work with the best of our means, with what we have in front of us. The third LP that we just recorded that’s coming out on In The Red Records, we did that in the studio with Tim Green, who’s a dude in San Francisco that has a studio called Louder Studios, we did that with him and we did it super committed to the best of our ability on two inch tape on twenty four track and it still sounds like us, which is a true test because it’s the first time we’ve recorded with anybody else. It was a true test to us that we kind of know what we’re doing and we kind of know how we want things to sound, in our playing, in our commitment to what we’re doing. It does resonate, even in a studio, and not in some ridiculously over-charged diy studio.

REAX: On your website, it reads “Failure Of All Pop?”
SS: That’s a reference to a hardcore band from the late 70s, early 80s from Los Angeles called The Middle Class, one of my favorite bands ever. Definitely my favorite punk band ever. They had a song called "Failure of All Pop", and I always thought it was a really strange commitment to words.

REAX: Do you think the phrase is a touchstone for yourself?
SS: Kind of, in a way. It’s just, I like the idea of being so committed, really trying your best to do something beautiful and failing at it and it’s still somehow beautiful. That’s how I always felt about anything we’ve done musically. We do our best to make it the best we can and if it fails to me it’s still beautiful. I don’t expect it to be beautiful to everybody else, I don’t expect everybody to like my band. But Failure of All Pop, that’s why I like that, that’s why I always put that up.

REAX: Dumb question. What’s ‘Fresh & Onlys’ mean?
SS: Fresh & Onlys is literally babble. One of the original members was this girl Grace Cooper that’s in a band called Sandwiches?. We were trying to name the band and me and Tim had ideas about what to name it. We had the songs recorded and Tim randomly asked Grace “what should we call the band?” and she just started rambling off like she had a stockpile of band names. And then she rambled off and on like the 20th one she rambled off Fresh And Onlys. It just immediately stuck. It could be a feminine product, it could be a virgin, it could be creepy, it sounds kind of new-wave or punk. It was all over the map and it sticks with me. It sounds like something you would never hear.

REAX: Do you guys really know a Grey Eyed Girl?
SS:(short pause) It’s kind of a personal question I guess.

REAX: If I throw a rock in San Francisco will I hit a good band?
SS: Pretty much.

REAX: Do you think it’s strange that so many people not just in San Francisco but all across America that are embracing, it’s certainly a generalization calling it blown out or garage, but I guess taking and trying to replicate the mood of old records they enjoy. Like there’s this whole miasma of old records that you really enjoy, from about 20 to 30 years ago, very personal things to a lot of people too. And everybody just seems to be re-filtering that out. Do think there’s something in the water?
SS: I’ll only speak about San Francisco. A lot of what happens, the thing you have to understand is a lot of bands that do that, it’s unintentional, we’re working with the best of our means. Even bands from San Diego that are doing it. A lot of people that like to do things and put a little mystery on top of it, so it’s not just clear, it doesn’t sound postured and I think that when you do something and it’s a little carefree and loose and a little shabby and a little fuzzy, it just doesn’t sound postured, it doesn’t sound like you’re trying to achieve something too perfect. Me personally, my tastes, I really don’t like hearing music when it sounds like someone is trying to sell me something and I think that’s part of the charm of doing things that are lo-fi or blown out as you put it which is the most accurate way. I think it’s a little more nonchalant, laid-back, even if it’s the most aggressive music, when it’s not too labored. A lot of people have misconceptions about doing lo-fi music or blown-out music or punk music and it’s really not that simple. It’s just a way of making your stuff sound immediate. When it’s just an immediate sound. It’s a really frustrating thing always because I never get offended if people call our music lo-fi but we work really hard to make it sound as good as it can without sounding too labored. It’s not like we go in the studio and start mathematically miking shit.

REAX: But a lot of people really enjoy that, they’re drawn to it, that atmosphere really speaks to them.
SS: As it should, that’s what I’m saying again, bands like The Grifters, when I was a kid in Florida, as a teenager here I fucking followed The Grifters around the southeast and they are one of the greatest, for lack of better word, lo-fi bands that ever happened in the 90s. And the Strapping Fieldhands, Guided By Voices?, things like that really resonated with me and when I’d listen to the recordings I didn’t feel like someone was trying to pitch me a fucking car or sell me on a restaurant. It just sounded really awesome and immediate and beautiful and that’s all it’s supposed to be, it’s rock n roll and it shouldn’t be you know this oh, okay I’ll stop shit talking.

REAX: Do you think you’re just taking advantage and striking while the iron is hot? That maybe for a few months you’ll take a break and you won’t be putting out as much stuff?
SS: Even on the road we write. We’re constantly writing. We keep a guitar in the back seat of the van to write on because you never know when a song is going to happen. The thing for me and Tim, as a writing duo have an incredible chemistry and the band has its own life as well. So writing is really important and playing is really important but touring takes away from being able to record and that’s frustrating. But we’re going to continue to write as much as possible for as long as possible. And who knows? we’ll break up. I’ve always said personally, if you’ve ever received the brunt of my music rants, that most bands only have five albums in them. That might be the case for us. And if it is, we’re already three deep, as far as recordings.

REAX: You guys are already working on the fourth one right?
SS: We have a demo pretty much.

REAX: So by 2011 that’s the end?
SS: Well the third is recorded and mastered at the moment. We have about thirty or forty songs written for the fourth album that we’ll probably record a year from now. And who knows? we might have sixty songs by then, depending on what touring dictates because touring takes away from recording.

REAX: You guys are going to start touring a ton now?
SS: Yeah we’re going to tour as much as possible just because the opportunity is there and we actually can support ourselves. We’re not totally eating shit out here every night. We’re going to continue to do as much as we can, to play music as much as possible. When I go home I work in a record store and feed my cat. I don’t have any delusions of grandeur. I don’t think we’re going to be the next big thing or whatever. I know what we are and I’m comfortable with that. We all do. We’re all stoked. I’m stoked to be 3000 miles away from home in a town that I love and playing music and not be totally stressed out or embarrassed. I love it here. I’m just glad I’m somewhere else right now.