After some phone tag and a root beer float at the local Old School Creamery, I managed to find Andrew Dost of fun. outside the Seattle music venue preparing for their upcoming set. He kindly offered the touring van and we sat to talk about the in-store show they had just played for the release of their debut album. He then moved right along into some focused conversation about the band. Many thanks to Andrew of course and be sure to take a gander at our review of Aim And Ignite.

Thank you for lending Sun On the Sand some time to come out and answer a few questions. We’d like to start by asking you for your name and role in the band.

My name is Andrew Dost and I play piano, guitar, and sing in fun.

How was recording this album? How do you feel about how the debut turned out?

We’re really proud of it, it was a fun album to record. It was really a pretty painless process. Instead of every day having these unsolvable problems that we were trying to fight our way through, it ended up being more about exciting discoveries. It wasn’t like “This doesn’t sound good, what can we do? How can we fix it?” It was more like “That sounds great, that gives me an idea to do this, now we can use that sound on this track.” It was a really exciting positive experience.

That’s good, I really think that shows through on the album.

I hope so.

Which song would you consider a favorite on the album? Is there one that you liked especially recording or playing live?

Definitely. I love ‘Be Calm’ and we don’t play it that often since it’s sort of intense and requires a bigger stage and a better sound system but it is definitely my favorite song on the record. Definitely the one I’m most proud of.

How did you envision the vast instrumentation on the album? How was the writing process done and influenced by having a big catalog of instruments, and which ones are your favorite to be featured?

I think typically when we write and this is kind of true of all of my projects, I try to have an open mind about what it’s going to sound like. I guess I don’t write starting out with any set instruments in mind. I write the song and say what I want to say and then after the fact, use instruments to flesh it out and make sense out of it all. That’s a good way of saying what you want to say. There are some tricky aspects to instrumentation that things have to work together sonically. You can’t just throw everything together all at once, you have to use it wisely. We had a french horn and an oboe and whenever the french horn and the oboe make an appearance, I like that. I like oboe a lot. The oboe is one of the key instruments. And there’s a great trombone solo in one of the songs.

This album has got a lot of different vocal parts and arrangements going on. Did you write these just like you would any other instrument?

Yeah, I think so. Well, the voice has the added bonus that you get to actually say what you want to say with it. When a gospel choir comes in, you don’t just get to use them as an instrument but can actually be saying something with it. You can look at that in a number of different ways, you can use the beauty of choral vocals to contradict what you’re saying. I think that’s an interesting pull too. But for the most part, you write it like any other instrument in the sense like you hear the end product and you try to get there. You break it down piece by piece. For example, for a string part when you’re trying to hear the end product in your head, you separate it out in your brain. Vocals are the same way. You hear this end product and you try to figure out what’s going on in your brain and you try to like work through it piece by piece. I guess that’s how you have to treat each voice in the choir. You have to work backwards to figure out what their role was and what you’re hearing in your brain.

Do you feel that your songs change live since they’re scaled down while touring? How do you think they impact the show versus hearing them on an album?

That’s part of the fun challenge of touring. You can’t play with an orchestra, or you can’t play with whatever. You have to make it into a club/rock setting. For us, that means two guitars, bass, drum, Nate, piano too. It’s an interesting challenge trying to pare things down to be not just playing the songs but playing a great version of the songs. It required a little tweaking and a little adjusting. We really like doing that, it’s a fun challenge to present your songs in a new way.

I’ve been curious, what inspired the album art work? (can be viewed here)

Actually we didn’t tell Jake (creator of the album art) what to do. I spoke with him and basically just told him “We want something classic in sort of a Wes-Anderson-like Royal Tenenbaums or Life Aquatic way.” I gave him as an example a scene from Superman Returns and you see the Kent family mailbox and you see the sun glint off it and it has this really still, majestic feeling. Also despite not much happening in the shot, so much is implied. Giving those very loose instructions –and I also said make it iconic and memorable– and giving that example, those were the only things he had to go on. He gave us that and it was the very first thing he submitted and we loved it. After that, we said just to be safe give us some other ideas, even though we love this. Everything he’s given us has been used, from the single covers to the posters or whatever. Everything he gave us was just awesome. There was nothing he gave us that we didn’t use.

That’s great how that could turn out so well. How is this tour going with Hellogoodbye? Do you feel that you two mesh well as artists on tour?

Yeah definitely. They have just a wonderful spirit to them. They’re all funny, interesting, and cool to hang out with. And I think they’re fantastic songwriters. Forrest is a great frontman and singer-songwriter. It’s just a blast. They’re treating us very well and the shows have been good. And I think our fans are mutual fans. I think anyone who will like Hellogoodbye will like fun. and vice versa.

Is it annoying hearing fun. compared to The Format left and right? Do you think it’s accurate to compare the two only because Nate Ruess participated in The Format and now is in fun.?

Yeah. I think it’s inevitable. People will hear a voice and it will remind them of something else. People like to compare things. I mean I like to compare things, it’s an easy way to process the world. But I think we’re not the same band and it’s a little unfair and of course a little annoying to hear my art compared to some other art that I had nothing to do with, even though I respect the Format and you know Nate is obviously really proud with what he did with the Format. It just isn’t that. This is something different and we don’t really want people to talk about the past I guess. That slights what we we’re doing now. Even if it’s a favorable comparison, I still think it isn’t a useful comparison.

How different would you say working in fun. is than Anathallo?

It’s interesting because we didn’t work the same. With Anathallo, there were seven, with very different ideas on how a song should sound, which is a good thing. It creates a great artistic pull on each other. That was awesome and when things were going well with that, it was very, very exciting. I remember every practice I would go home feeling like my mind being blown and feeling like I was helping to revolutionize songwriting or something. With fun., we just want to make good songs. And that’s all I want to listen to, a good song. And so it’s nice just to try write a good song. And it’s also nice because like in Anathallo, there were seven songwriters, I guess eight for a little while, with eight different ideas. And with fun., it really genuinely feels like we’re hearing the same song. So when we sit down and write, it’s not like a battle or test of wits or trying to convince each other to back certain ideas. I think we’re all hearing the same end product and we’re all trying to get there so it’s a much quicker route to the end goal since we all hear the same thing, and have the same vision. It feels that way at least and it feels really comforting to write with these guys because no idea is too outrageous or too cheesy or too sentimental or too goofy or whatever. Everything is okay. It’s a very safe place to write.

It sounds very efficient this way. Is there anything you’d like fans to know about fun., or in general?

Yeah… A big thing about us is that we really enjoy working out. We’re on a work out program right now, and it’s sort of all we can talk about to people. I feel like I’ve brought this up in every interview or even conversation that I’ve had with anybody because it is literally the focus of our days. We wake up and do this work out video for forty minutes and we’re just gushing sweat and it just completely burns us out for the rest of the day, but in a good way. It’s like okay to sit in the van for six hours since we’ve already gone completely nuts. It’s called Insanity. I would like people to know that you can dig deeper and you can get stronger or whatever. And also that we love eating fried foods, and terrible things to contradict, to counteract whatever we’ve done that day… unfortunately.

Is the work out video actually called Insanity?

It is yeah. And in the infomercial for it they say “Don’t buy this’, it’s too hard, you can’t do it, don’t make the call, don’t even do it, you’re going to have to consult a physician because it’s way too hard for you.” So we’re like “Yeah right! What are you talking about? We can totally do this.” And it totally worked and now we’re doing it and it’s like focus of our lives.

Well, thank you for giving us your time.

Yeah no problem it was nice talking with you.

Interview conducted by Jacob Price