There are too many bands Fred Thomas has touched in his 30 years of touring. Ask him for a count on projects, and he'll tell you he doesn't keep track. The end of 2023 saw Fred's departure from Tyvek, a focus on pop ensemble Idle Ray, reissues from old solo projects, and a foray into drum and bass on his solo release, ECOATM. If this is not ringing a bell, you may know Fred from Saturday Looks Good To Me and as a member of His Name Is Alive. We caught Fred on the phone during a snowy Ypsilanti, Michigan, week of duplicating tapes for friends, organizing archives, and working on art for an upcoming release. A perpetual DIYer, we talked about his small label Life Like, how much gear one really needs, and the occasional emergency tooth extraction at the hands of a Portland drummer.
You quietly released some synth music over the pandemic on a small label called Good Glass. I feel like everyone grows up in bands, then goes solo, and gets a synth in middle-age. Why synths right now?
Yeah, that's a great question. I had a band called Hydropark in 2013. My friend, Chuck Sipperley, and I started getting into the Berlin School/kosmische music. That was when it became a thing, and I was learning the parameters of these cool instruments. They make sounds that seem unattainable. Klaus Schulze has always been somebody I liked. In my late teens, I was getting into Neu!, Tangerine Dream, and Can. I was listening to those records and then going to see Shellac and The Jesus Lizard. I never thought I would be making music with keyboards. I didn't think 15 years later I'd be in a band with two keyboards, a drummer, and a bass player. I had a friend growing up that had a bunch of synths, and it was sort of nerdy. Around 1994, there was a split where people in punk bands in Michigan started going to raves and listening to only drum and bass. These were people I lived with and was friends with, and I watched that transformation. There was always a back of my mind fascination with that. The first time somebody played a note on their synth with a cutoff sweep, I thought that something you could only do if you were in Funkadelic. They unlocked a sound only accessible to aliens and spirit beings, and now it's right here in my basement. It's an endless well of cool sounds, and trying to figure out how to have a voice of your own with those sounds is a huge challenge.
In your work you focus a lot on finances. On ECOATM, there's the track "Stimulus Check." On Changer, you sing about student loan feelings. It seems like finances are often at the front of your mind.
I didn't go to college, so I do not have student loans. I have all the financial stress of being someone who could not afford to go to college and couldn't afford the medical things I needed to get done. For most people, myself included, money is a constant stressor. There's an element of escapism in music where some people are like, "Let's forget about student loan feelings for a minute and talk about how fun it is to party and dance." My songs are more about processing events, even if it is not my lived feelings. I don't need to necessarily have gone through something that someone I care about went through to relate to it or understand. Maybe they're not my student loan feelings, but they might be my unpaid bill feelings. I definitely have them!
I was talking with a friend who would buy synth gear in college and then be out of grocery money for the month. What instruments will you starve for?
[laughter] I'm the opposite of a gear person. I sent you a photo of three synthesizers, amp, and a $100 acoustic with nylon strings. That's all I have. I always borrow people's gear. I love going to studios [with nothing], showing up, using whatever is there, and seeing what can come of it. I do have a [Roland] SH-101. I've had and sold a bunch of synthesizers and guitars. I'll probably hang on to the SH-101 in perpetuity, because it's such an amazing all breads, all butters, all in that one box. I don't know if there's anything I would put a lien on the house for. There's so much gear out there and it's amazing that people own it. It's like it's in mini libraries, because most of the time the gear is not being used. That's a weird part of consumerism; You have this thing, but it's not being utilized to its fullest because you're the only person who has it.
I'm from modular synth culture, and that is not the MO of the world I inhabit. It's like train collecting.
[laughter] I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't have a moralistic judgment on that. Whatever people are into;...
