With a new album released recently entitled The Sun, Fridge are cooling out ready for their first live appearances for a number of years. Sam Jeffers, percussionist and multi-instrumentalist with the band talked with me about what is in his deep freeze;

Sam, how does it feel to be about to pick up the sticks and the reins after a longish hiatus?
It’s been a longish pickup really. It feels good, but it’s been nearly a year since the record was finished. It’s been hard to get us all together given… which brings me to…

What have you all been up to since last playing together as Fridge ?
Kieran has been Fourtet . Adem has been Adem . I have been a student and running Worklesshard . All have had a great time doing it, but we’ve always wanted to make another record.

Who does what in Fridge?
The roles aren’t always as clear as this, but Kieran plays guitar, Adem bass and me drums. Kieran tends to do most of the production work and Adem most of the other weird other instruments. I also go to the shops and buy the chocolate.

And who are your personal musical inspirations?
We all love (in no particular order) – John and Alice Coltrane, the Battles record, Caribou, Ghostface. At least, these inspire me this week. You can probably guess which inspire me every week.

They all shine brightly through, for sure, so what made you decide to record and release a new album?
We’ve actually been recording it for a long while. We’ve been about half done for two years and the last year has been a pause between finishing the recording (last August) and releasing (now). The decision was an easy one – we love to play together, we love the way we make music, we even love some of the music we make and we hope that as many people as possible will get pleasure from it too.

So where did you record the sessions that became The Sun?
Last August in a concentrated two week period at the Exchange Studios in London. We built on a lot of earlier recording we’d done at Adem’s house over the previous couple of years.

You have a warm up gig at Bardens Boudoir in London, and a bigger gig soon afterwards in August, will you be performing anywhere else?
 We’re playing at Field Day on August 11th, then in Dublin, Belgium and at the Green Man a week later. We still hope to book a few more shows, but time is ticking and I have to be back in the US for my studies in early September.

I hope to catch one of these shows, I am looking forward to hearing how you sound live, what is your set up for these gigs ? We’re going to add two extra people to the band to help fill out the sound. This should mean we’re able to better reflect the sound of the records than ever before (previously, we’ve had to lose some of our most-loved songs because we’re unable to play them at all faithfully).

Do you lives overlap beyond your musical connections?
We’ve been friends since we were 11. Our lives are entirely intertwined, we speak several times a week and, provided we’re in the same town, hang out as much as possible. I just got back from a nice BBQ with Kieran. Lamb kebabs – very civilized.

What are your best memories from the life of Fridge ?
We never really played enough shows, so that’s really a regret, but I think we played one at the Scala in London that felt very triumphant and home-comingy. We had a ton of friends and family there, so it was just a really lovely night. The other, which isn’t strictly as Fridge, was when we played Born in the USA with Badly Drawn Boy at a giant French festival. It felt boss.

So Sam, what will your eco shelter contain to get you through ?
Some basics – Marmite (for me and Adem, but not for Kieran), 3100 pieces of long-life, toastable bread, Margarine, 1 x Netflix warehouse, 1 x laptop, 1 x great library, some more conclusive Sopranos episodes.

What has been your key moment when making The Sun  over the past months ?
As always, it’s the moment when the finished thing drops through the letterbox. As with Happiness, I designed the art for the record, so there’s a big will it/won’t it work moment there too. Seems to look good, so now it’s just a case of people being as into it as we are.

Any final thoughts before the gigs ?
Can’t wait.

Will there be another album and more dates ? Yes – there’ll be more of both, but when and where is very, very vague. Life does appear to be remarkably short and there’s plenty to get through.

Mucho gracias Sam Jeffers and Fridge .The Sun is out now on Domino in Europe and Temporary Residence in the USA on the bands own Text Records imprint.

Conducted from the front with a very slacked off bowline by Paul Hawkins. copyWritEon