Scotland pop-punks The Murderburgers frontman Fraser ready to grill 'em all at Market Bar as he embarks on Serious Musician solo tour
Highland punk enthusiasts will immediately recognise the name Fraser Murderburger – the man at the heart of the country's great pop-punk export The Murderburgers since their inception in 2007. Now, as he hits the road for a solo tour – with a show at the Market Bar lined up – Kyle Walker caught up with him to talk all things music, punk and gigs.
Q Hi Fraser, thanks again for answering these! How has your week been? And where are you reading these from?
A It’s been busy but good! I’m reading these from home in Edinburgh, having coffee and trying to wake up properly.
Q So, 2019’s been a bit (understatement of the year) of a busy one for you so far – you’ve toured the US solo, toured Europe with Joyce Manor, there’s been a solo album and a new Murderburgers one…I’m probably just scratching the surface too. A few solo shows around your home country of Scotland seems positively restful by comparison! How are you looking forward to the upcoming shows (and coming to Inverness in particular)?
A I used to find the solo shows pretty stressful because I’m so used to playing with a full band, but now that I’m more comfortable doing it I find the solo stuff more relaxed in most aspects, so it should be a nice couple of weeks. I’ve played most of the places I’m hitting on this tour before, but I like to try and get to new places on each tour, and Inverness is one I’ve been wanting to tick off the list for a while. I have a few friends that have played The Market Bar before and I’ve heard nothing but good things, so looking forward to playing there myself.
Q It’s been 12 years now since you formed The Murderburgers, but going a bit further back than that what was your introduction to music? What did you first listen to that got you into punk, into writing and playing your own music?
A The first album I ever bought was Smash by The Offspring when I was 12 years old, which is the album that made me want to start playing guitar and want to start a band at some point. Annoyingly though, although it’s mostly just rhythm guitar parts on that album and only a few solos, the rhythm parts weren’t that easy for me to figure out, so it kind of put me off learning how to play for a few months. I ended up hearing one of those ‘Best Punk Album in The World’ compilations that my dad had not long after that, which had a couple of Ramones songs on it. Not only where they great songs that I instantly loved, but I could actually play them on guitar. I taught myself how to play drums and guitar to their first live album. Through The Ramones I got into all the Lookout! Records pop punk stuff like Screeching Weasel, The Queers and Mr T Experience. It was all really simple but really effective. I spent the rest of my teenage years listening to all of that stuff pretty much non-stop, and then spent my early years of writing songs pretty much ripping them off until I figured out how to do my own thing.
Q You’re relentless when it comes to touring – on top of the dates already this year, you’ve got this tour (which includes support slots for Ogikubo Station), then another European tour with Flamingo Nosebleed. So beyond the life of a working musician, what aspects about life on the road that you enjoy the most? And what would you say are your touring essentials – what do you need to survive on the road?
A I like not being sat at a computer most of the time when I’m away. I still have to deal with some of the annoying social media stuff and some booking when I’m on tour, but I like the feeling of being more detached from it and enjoy visiting other places and actually talking to people. I like real life. Touring is as close as you can get to that.
I always make sure I have a sleeping bag with me for obvious reasons, headphones to drown out other people snoring, earplugs to stop my already ruined ears from getting any worse than they already are, and vitamins to stop me from dying. I usually take a book with me as well, but I find it hard to concentrate enough to read in the van around other people, so I’d be lying if I said I’d ever managed to finish more than a couple of books on tour in total. Maybe I can get my numbers up on this acoustic tour since I’m on my own for most of it.
Q With all the touring you’ve done – and all the places you’ve played in that time – you must have had some stories. What’s been the best gig you’ve ever played? And what’s been the weirdest?
A Off the top of my head, the last show of our tour of Japan in 2016 is one of my favourites. We played a small club in Tokyo to a couple hundred people and it was so much fun. We thought it would be funny to shout “TAKE ME HOME, TOKYO!” at the end then crowd surf, so all three of us ended up in the air for around 10 minutes. The guy that let me borrow his guitar for the tour said it would be an honour if I smashed it up at the end of the show but I told him I couldn’t do it, so he made me write loads of stupid stuff on it instead.
I’ve played so many weird gigs. We played an ice cream parlour somewhere in Oregon on a US tour a couple of years ago. When we showed up the place was full of kids with party hats on sitting down holding balloons and all of them looked utterly miserable. Turned out to be a fun show though. On one of our early European tours we played in a town called Fulnek in the Czech Republic. A girl was going round biting people during the show and a guy tried to strangle her for it, a guy cracked his head open and passed out on the stage during our set for a while before getting back up to jump around again, the toilets in the venue were covered in blood, and whatever meat it was the venue attempted to serve us still had hairs attached to it. People kept trying to break into our car the whole night, so instead of sleeping upstairs in the venue we drove as far as we could through the night and slept at the side of the road in Italy. People kept putting money on our set list when we were playing that night too, so we thought they really liked us and played for almost an hour. Turns out that’s what they do in that town when they think you suck and want you to stop. We made so much money as well.
Q So, two albums out this year – solo effort Serious Musician and full band What a Mess. I’ll ask you about Serious Musician, because it’s almost like a bit of an acoustic compilation of your songs from throughout the years (with a few covers). What’s the story behind it? How did Serious Musician come together for you and how did you pick the songs that you ended up recording acoustically for it?
A Before Murderburgers toured the US in March this year, I did a solo acoustic tour from Florida out to California. My original plan was to quickly record an acoustic EP and burn CD-Rs along the way, then the US label Bloated Kat Records offered to release it properly instead. I figured I should probably make it an album instead of an EP then, wrote a couple of new songs, picked a couple of covers and picked a few songs I’ve already put out that would work well acoustic. I recorded the whole thing with Fredd from The Lemonaids in a day and a half, and (thanks to Fredd) it turned out way better than I expected, so it ended up being another proper release at short notice instead of just being a throwaway EP that barely anyone would ever hear. I picked the songs a day or two before recording the thing. I’d done a handful of solo gigs before that tour so knew what songs worked better acoustic, so it was pretty easy to pick them. I’m used to driving myself insane writing all of the songs for an album at the same time so they all tie in with each other, so it was pretty nice and far less stressful just putting a bunch of songs together for this one. I thought calling it ‘SERIOUS MUSICIAN’ would be funny and a good idea. I stand by that.
Q And then we’ve got What a Mess – a pure shredder of an album, especially following on from 2016’s equally shredding 12 Habits of Highly Defective People. How did What a Mess come together – what were you writing about for this album? What informed this album? And how did you feel getting all these thoughts out into this album?
A I wrote that album in February/March last year then we recorded it in Edinburgh in the summer, then it went over to the US for mixing and mastering. I had a pretty terrible year in 2017, so that’s pretty much what the album is about. It always feels good to put out new stuff and be productive. Playing the new songs live has been really fun, despite the bleak content. That’s the point of it all though, really. Turn the bad stuff into good stuff and have fun in the process.
Q With the constant touring, the new music out being well received, and more shows on the horizon across the world, I should ask – what musical ambitions are you hoping to fulfil in the future? Any locations you’re looking to play, any genres you’re looking to play about with (Murderburgers go new wave), anything really?
A I started writing the next Murderburgers album about a month ago. I’m hoping to start demoing it in August when I’m home again for a little while, then plan on recording it properly at the end of the year/start of next. I might do another acoustic release but I’m not really sure yet. I’ve been joking a lot about doing a country album under the name MacDaddy Mudderbang & The Goddamn Sex Cowards for over a year now. Usually when something gets stuck in my head that long I need to act on it to get it out of there, so I guess I’ll probably end up doing that and potentially regretting it not long after.
Fraser Murderburger comes to the Market Bar on Wednesday, July 19. The gig starts at 10.30pm and entry is free. For more info, go to www.themurderburgers.co.uk
