Casper Indrizzo: The Blast Interview

In the last two years, Fever the Ghost has grown from a small recording project to a full fledged band gearing up for the September release of their new LP Zirconium Meconium. The psychedelic-pop group has worked with artists such as My Morning Jacket and The Flaming Lips. Frontman Casper Indrizzo took the time to talk to Blast about the band, their past year, and their upcoming album.

Blast: Can you give a run-down of the band? Who are the members, and what brought you guys together?

Indrizzo: The membership has been shifting since this whole thing first started. It began as a recording project with Shawn Davis, who plays the bass and drums on the EP, and me. Since then, the rest of us have come together in so many different ways. Part of it was through a single produced by Luther Russell. We’ve all come together through a lot of little connections. Right now we have Mason Rothschild on bass, Nick Overhauser on drums, and Bobby Victor on the keys.
Blast: What’s been happening with you guys for the past year?

Indrizzo: We’re still a pretty new group, and we’ve only existed for something like two years. So most of our time has really been working on this final record, and that was finished a couple months ago. We have also been touring as well, most recently with Temples who were a really great group. We also did a few things with The Flaming Lips, and were on their Beatles tribute album.
Blast: How are live performances for you guys? Do you prefer live shows or recording music?

Indrizzo: As I said we’re still pretty new, and so we’re always working on improving on our lives shows together. I’m personally more comfortable recording in a studio because you have the chance for experimentation, and the opportunity to grow as a band and make mistakes together. It’s all new so we’re finding ourselves. Recording lets us do that on our own terms, and live shows let us do that in front of others. Both of them help us grow as a band.
Blast: What is Zirconium Meconium? Was there a concept behind the album?

Indrizzo: A lot of the songs span a lot of territory. Some I wrote when I was just out of high school, and some of them have come out of the live dynamic the band has gone through together. Creating the album was a lot of fun, and I feel proud of what it’s become. Some of the older songs have been sitting since I wrote them a long time ago, and now they’re finally getting to be on an album.

Blast: What songs on the album are you the most excited about?

Indrizzo: I tend to be most excited about the newest things because I’ve worked with them most recently. “Peace Crimes” premiered recently, and I wrote that one later. “Equal Pedestrian” also gives you a pretty good idea of what the album and the band are like from that song.

Blast: The band is often given the genre of “psych-pop.” Does that resonate with you guys? 

Indrizzo: When we’re making the music, the genre doesn’t matter too much. We don’t think about it too much, and the songs aren’t formulated based around the genre. To us, it’s not the most important part of the process.
Blast: Are you trying to send a message or explore something with this album?
Indrizzo: The album was created song by song, but there is a broad theme that revolves around the idea of reincarnation and adjusting to 3D reality and how hectic that might be. By the end of the album, the way it’s sequenced the album settles, gets demented, and settles again.

Blast: The music video for your song “Source” has interesting animation surrounding it. Is there a story behind its creation?

Indrizzo: We found a video online called Elephant’s Garden by the artist, Felix Colgrave. His work is really on a different level. We were lucky to get him. We wrote to him out of the blue, and got him to Skype with us. After hearing from us, he was for the project, and it was the right time, and he created this animation. We really got lucky since he’s pretty selective in his work. The story elements in his videos was what really got to us.

You can watch the music video for “Source” here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RHFFeQ2tu4], and watch out for the band’s debut LP, Zirconium Meconium when it comes out on 2 September.