INTERVIEW: I Fight Dragons

We got to chat with the humorous I Fight Dragons. Read below to learn more about their latest record, body shots off Taylor Swift, and future tours.  

How would you describe your sound?

 I'd say we're something like Weezer fighting to the death with Fountains of Wayne inside a Nintendo 

What do you think makes you stand out from all the rest in your genre?

 We're a bit of an oddity in that we write pop rock songs but we use chiptune.  Most other chip bands are much less song-based than we are, a lot more electronic in nature. 

Even though you guys are not on Atlantic anymore, are you looking to get on a new label?

 Not particularly!  We're having a blast being independent at the moment, and we never would have been able to do anything like the Project Atma kickstarter if we were on a label of any kind.  The system just doesn't allow for that sort of thing. 

You guys raised an overwhelming amount $115,000 on Kickstarter in 2013. How does it feel to have that much support from fans?

 It feels a bit like taking a body shot of distilled awesomeness off of Taylor Swift's belly.  Which is to say, it was amazing, it completely blew us away, and we were incredibly humbled and inspired to have gotten that level of support.  It was completely way beyond what we expected.

You put out a new record called "The Near Future" in December. Can you tell us a little more about the record?

 Sure!  It's a beast of a record, the first 22 minutes are a 10-song song cycle with a companion graphic novel that tells the story of a girl from a parallel universe and a boy who gets superpowers, and the second half is more traditional individual songs like IFD fans are used to.  Musically, it's way more complex arrangement-wise than we've done in the past, far more intricate, yet also a little more stripped down in terms of the number of things happening at once.

What is your favorite song off the record and why?

Hmmmm, it's very hard to pick an individual song, but I'd say "Jimmy & Sally,"  the closing song from the record, is probably my favorite.  It's a 7-minute epic of a song, but it sort of sums up the struggle to integrate the nerdy and artistic sides of a personality, and also the urge to just keep pushing forward no matter what.  Also, it's definitely the most ambitious song we've ever tackled musically, when we went into the studio we had no clue if it would work, but I think it ended up coming together in a way that made us all really happy.

Any plans for a tour in the future?

Yes!  Well, more specifically we have plans to make touring plans.  Making those plans is high on my priority list and climbing, although we still do have one set of rewards from the Kickstarter to complete, in which we're writing 7 people's 30-second personal theme songs.