Fertile The Drip

Fertile The Drip is a band based in Cleveland, Ohio. They make compositionally-provoking songs informed by deconstruction, improvisation, rigorously rehearsed structure and the duality of playing their instruments and playing with their instruments.

All of the members have different musical and artistic backgrounds but share a need to create and experiment. Before knowing each other, Charlie, Mike and Alex have played in different bands since they were in high school. Mike, Alex and Nicolette have always made visual art.

Charlie grew up learning how to play classical violin and played guitar and bass in numerous garage punk/psych/dub bands while living in Cleveland and Athens, Ohio.

Alex has played in a handful of Cleveland bands ranging in style from ska and punk to spazzy and improvisational. He went to school for studio art and design. When he's not playing music, doing freelance design, or working with a film collective he runs the DIY Cleveland music and performance space Castle Greatskull.

Mike played in an experimental grindcore band in CT before moving to Cleveland to go to art school. Since living here he has continued to explore different types of musical playing in different punk, improvisational, grind, and performative groups as well as maintaining a visual art practice.

Nicolette briefly attended art school in Columbus and has since participated in collaborative art and music performances with Mike.

Charlie and Mike met while Mike was playing in the improv. thrash group, Chinese Eye. Charlie occasionally played out with Chinese Eye before moving to Athens for a few years. In that time, Mike moved into Castle Greatskull with Alex where they lived, booked shows and played music together. During this time, Mike and Alex played in the improvisation performance art group, Fish Thighs, among other projects, where they got involved in the experimental music and DIY community in Cleveland. Nicolette and Mike also started collaborating artistically doing duo performance art at the time. In late 2012 Mike moved out of Castle Greatskull into an old church with Nicolette where they have since maintained studio art practices of their own, a band practice space and an in house recording studio run by their roommate, Austin Fedor.

In early 2013 Charlie moved back to Cleveland from Athens, Ohio and started playing music with Mike again. Nicolette joined on vocals. Charlie moved into the church and Fertile The Drip was born. The intial dynamics of the song writing consited of Charlie coming to Mike with catchy garage punk songs and then together deconstructing them and adding various noise and strange compositional elements. After playing their first show as a three piece Alex joined on bass beginning to round out the music sonically and adding another creative dynamic to the band. Fertile continued to evolve with an interest in mixing standard and odd time meters, cross genre arrangements, improvisation and instrumental and vocal experimentation.

Since then they have recorded and self released a 5 song EP, have been a featured band on WRUW 91.1 FM's Live From Cleveland series, played local Cleveland clubs and DIY spaces and have tentative plans to release a split cassette and do a support tour with experimental CT band, Watermelon in early 2014.

The band cites bands like Mr. Bungle, Butthole Surfers, Melt Banana, Arab On Radar, Captain Beefheart, Spacemen Three, and John Zorn as influences. Their music blends genres like punk, rock, noise, jazz, mathcore, metal and surf.