Newsletter Interview: FleaBITE

FleaBITE is committed to producing high quality music for children that adults can enjoy.

How would you describe FleaBITE’s music in one sentence:

“The perfect mix of entertainment, originality and intelligence for young kiwis”.
Thanks to Damian Vaughan – CEO of Recorded Music NZ for that quote

What sets you apart from other bands?

Writing music ostensibly for kids allows a lot of freedom when it comes to song topics.

The hit song from our last album Circus of Fleas was called Don’t Sit Under the Poo Tree. It’s good advice, but I don’t think you will find a comparable title from people who wear sunglasses for band photos.

We continue the tradition of focussing a lot on lyrics (and include them in our CD slicks) and try to be musically inventive.

On the first album In Your Ear there’s a song called You’re A Drip for which the backing track is made up of samples of water dripping. It’s a song about where water comes from and where it goes. Most of the other songs pursue ridiculous trains of thoughts.

Another thing that sets us apart is that we don’t perform live (sorry), and concentrate our efforts on producing animated music clips.

This costs more than the usual band videos (and we generally don’t qualify for funding), but it gets us onto the world wide film festival circuit.

We tend to fall between the cracks – we are more edgy than many kids’ outfits and make no effort to be ‘educational’, but neither do we find a place in the world of ‘adult entertainment’. Our style makes us distinctive, and marketing-wise that can be both an advantage (original, cool) or tricky (sidelined to some far off hemisphere).

Where is your favourite place to relax in NZ?

A  bath… …hence the track You’re A Drip.

Upstairs, downstairs or in my lady’s chamber, I don’t mind where as long as it’s clean.

Tell us about FleaBITE’s latest album

The Jungle Is Jumping has some cool guest musicians.

Two members of The Phoenix Foundation play on it… Conrad Wedde does some fine guitar work (I have known him since he was 8), and Chris O’Connor thumps away on the drums. Very enjoyable to feature real drums on this album. The other guest is jazz wild man Jeff Henderson who has been a friend for many years.

He blows his horn with gay abandon, and I also managed to coerce him into doing backing vocals.

The songs are pretty bold and theatrical and fun.

Try it… you like!

What can you never leave home without?

A key to get back in.