The Fat White Family, fatality and chaos as fuel

The English group releases a remarkable fourth album, “Forgiveness Is Yours”. While they have done everything over the last decade to stick to the destructive legend of rock, they are still alive, despite the departure of one of the founders, with a very British biting irony, and a great sense of fatality.

A broken, tortured, literate, melancholic poet… The very essence of The Fat White Family is contained in Lias Saoudi, singer and pack leader, with a delicious accent. If he speaks, on certain pieces, and sings, he also fascinates. With his band, they have conquered Europe in no time over the last decade, an audience fascinated by their rough sound and their numerous escapades involving drugs and alcohol.

Forgiveness Is Yours does not frankly address forgiveness, but this fourth album confirms that the group is worth much more than what is portrayed. Even if, a priori, the recording was complicated, as Lias Saoudi explains: “Honestly, if you ever find out that I decided to make a fifth album with this band – and I tell everyone who listens – I want you to find me and beat me to death in the street, to save me from ‘one more season in hell“.

“There is a supreme dysfunction at the heart of the machine… With each album I told myself that the next one would be much better, and each time it was worse”

Lias Saoudi, from The Fat White Family

at franceinfo

In fact, the other original leader, Saul Adamczewski, slammed the door one too many times early in the process. Chaos became a compass, and gave the album its themes. “There is resentment, fear, anxiety, apprehension, bitterness, jealousy, guilt, paranoia, Saudi lists. And a certain fatalism is inevitable… I miss the pandemic, I really appreciated this fucking silence. I was never high enough to go to rehab, I guess, but the pandemic was like a coming to my senses“.

“I don’t think there are many other things (than touring) that destroy you so quickly”

Lias Saoudi, from The Fat White Family

at franceinfo

As for the concerts and tours, which made the reputation of the Fat White Family, the singer seems tired: “Damn, it’s driving you crazy… Your brain, your body are like dead weights that you drag from gas stations to highways, or into dingy lodges. You feel like you exist at the highest level for an hour every night, and every other hour is just a fucking waste of time“. But nothing happens, there are already many waiting for the return of this dysfunctional family on stage.

The Fat White Family, Forgiveness Is Yours (Domino). Album available. In concert at the Levitation festival in Angers on May 25, in Paris on May 27, in Tourcoing on July 3, Clermont-Ferrand on July 5 or at the Beauregard festival on 6…