Chattanooga Pulse

I hope everyone is having a good October despite the rain.

So far, Chattanooga has had a pretty exciting month of music, with Moonlight Bride releasing their new album, and Superdrag coming to rock our faces off this weekend at JJ’s Bohemia. However, I implore you not to spend all of your rock and roll energy this weekend, as we have a pretty sweet line-up coming in Wednesday.

Fair to Midland, an alternative metal band, will be performing with House Harkonnen, who is traveling with them, and local favorites Mighty Sideshow. Fair to Midland is best known for their album, Fables from a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times is True. From this album came two of their radio hits, “Dance of the Manatee”, which held the 19 slot on our US mainstream charts, and “Tall Tales Taste Like Sour Grapes”, which came in at 38. They’ve played the Coachella festival and graced the stage with the likes of Smashing Pumpkins, Rage Against the Machine, Queens of the Stone Age and Muse, among others. Although if you were at the Fathom show a little over a year ago, where they played with 10 Years and Mighty Sideshow, you may best know Fair to Midland for their lead singer, Darroah Sudderth, being a crazy little monkey who scaled the rafters during the middle of their performance. It was a great show.

Fair to Midland was briefly signed with Universal records before taking up with the indie label Sergical Strike. When I caught up with the guitarist, Cliff Campbell, they were beginning the fall leg of their tour, trying to gain support for their soon-to-be released fourth album.

Hellcat: What can you tell me about Sergical Strike?

Cliff Campbell: It’s an indie label that takes baby bands and indie bands and builds them into a bigger band so that they can then upstream the band to bigger labels. They end up becoming an imprint of the bigger label that way, so they are all kind of sister labels.

HC: What can you tell me about the fourth album?

CC: We have blueprints of most of the songs. The album is slotted for a late spring, early summer release.

HC: How did you guys become a band back in 1998?

CC: Well, three of us went to high school together, and the other two were in neighboring towns. It was almost like we were the only musicians to be found, so we ended up together.

HC: Where did you grow up?

CC: Sulphur Springs, TX.

HC: So you really were the only musicians?

CC: (laughs) It did seem that way. It was pretty small.

HC: Is that where the banjo comes from?

CC: He really does play the banjo; it’s not just a prop.

HC: What’s up with your band name?

CC: Well, “fair to middling” is an old expression that came from cotton picking. When people picked cotton, there were three grades: fair, middle, and strict. It became a saying, when someone would ask how you were doing, a common answer was, “fair to middling”. The singer’s granddad used to say it a lot, so we just adapted it to Fair to Midland.

HC: That’s pretty awesome. Other than Fathom, have you played Tennessee before?

CC: We did play the Crawfish Festival in Nashville with all country bands, and that was pretty funny.

HC: Wow, I bet they were as surprised as you were. What do you think of it from what you’ve seen?

CC: Tennessee still has people that really love going out and watching shows. A lot of people are jaded by music and don’t come out as much in other states. Old country and rock and roll seem to still be thriving in Tennessee; it’s like a big party, which is cool because most rock comes from old country. That’s why we like to call our music, “folk metal” because it pulls from a lot of influences.

I also got a moment to speak with Alan Whitener to check in with our Mightiest of Sideshows, and this is what I found out.

HC: What’s going on with the Sideshow show?

AW: We just signed a new booking agent, who is putting together a tour for us. We head to Madison, WI at the first of November, to play with the LA Guns one night and headline the next at the Back Bar. We are about halfway through writing our fourth album. We are also working on changing up our show.

HC: How so?

AW: We are going to be playing a lot of songs we haven’t played live or don’t play often, from all the albums, to mix it up a little bit. We are going to make it better for the listeners and the fans.

HC: What is different about this upcoming album?

AW: It’s heavier. It’s going to end up being the heaviest of all of them. I think it reflects more of our personalities, because we listen to heavier music, like KillSwitch Engage and old Pantera. That’s the kind of stuff we like. It seems like it doesn’t matter what we do, we always get compared to Creed or Nickelback, and that’s hardly the way we want to be looked at or heard. We have a lot of big changes planned for the future—so stayed tuned to see where we go from here.
I encourage all the Chattanooga music lovers to come help Mighty Sideshow demonstrate to Fair to Midland how Tennesseans party.

Fair to Midland with Mighty Sideshow
$10
8 p.m.
Wednesday, October 21
Midtown Music Hall, 818 Georgia Avenue
(423) 752-1977.
www.midtownmusichall.com