Fierce Mild

As I walked up the stairs I got the first look into the room I’d be willingly spending most of my night in at Rock The Bay. It had just enough space to feel crowded but not packed, with a great view of the setting sun, the flow of the bay and what feels like a first class seat to the infamous drunken fight scene that is – Saint Kilda. A word of wisdom for my dear readers, don’t be “that guy” who starts a fight, try drinking responsibly!

The first band I saw was Fierce Mild, with a sound I’d describe as trip-like sequences; this band surely knows how to get your feet tapping. Influenced by fantasy, the band set together to create music that told a story from start to finish. Their set was described to define the story of life and how it’s all somewhat connected, a very imaginative concept. Fierce Mild is touring the east coast currently. So keep an eye out for them, as they’ll be playing in Brisbane on the 27th of March at The Zoo. (Tickets available HERE) - Amnplify

Touring the East Coast for the launch of their double A-side singles ‘Astro’ and ‘College’, Melbourne based shoegaze quartet Fierce Mild brought their brooding, ethereal sound to Brisbane venue The Zoo.

Supported by local psych artists Soviet X-Ray Record Club, Essick, and Magenta Voyeur, Fierce Mild were the meridian of a night of dark, dreamy performances. The band’s opening track set the scene for the evening, with an instrumental of echoing electric and crunching, distorted bass.

In true shoegaze style, the introduction of vocalist Troy Rainbow’s droning melodies following the instrumental was subtle and almost indistinguishable at first, blending into the intricate lines of the two guitarists and the crashing drums. Fierce Mild continued on to play a repertoire of dark, dreamy tracks to the captivated audience. At times Rainbow’s vocals rose above the tangle of distorted guitars in a grungy scream, eventually levelling out again to blend with the guitars. At other times, fellow vocalist Roly Kershaw alternated vocals with Rainbow, his clear melodies contrasting with Rainbow’s in a style reminiscent of Alt J.

Although the set was filled with intricately crafted tracks, the stand out songs were singles ‘Astro’ and ‘College’. Accented by an echoing electric lead line, ‘Astro’ was a dynamic track, building from a smooth, spaced introduction to a breakdown of crashing cymbals and growling vocals. The second single ‘College’ revealed a lighter side of Fierce Mild, with a steady beat and a clear, catchy lead line which was instantly memorable.

For the majority of the set, the band played in an introspective, almost detached manner, indicative of their strong shoegaze influence. However, this reserve did not alienate its audience, instead giving the performance a quietly personal atmosphere.

Playing to a captivated audience, Melburnian’s Fierce Mild delivered a dark, dreamy, and at times visceral show which indicated the immense promise the quartet has for the future. - Control Zine

Review: 'Test You'
'Listening to this track makes me want to see Fierce Mild live. I used headphones in an attempt to recreate the immersive experience of a live show. Waves of sound washed over me, swirling through the space between my ears, giving me goose-bumps. There was the sense of an ever-increasing build, which filled me with the desire for more. I would love to hear this song woven into an hour or two of music to see where that build might lead.' - Krystle Richardson - Scenestr

Melbourne four-piece Fierce Mild recently hit Brisbane on their ‘In Search of Lost Time’ tour to celebrate the release of their most recent single Test You. Bringing together elements of post-rock, shoe gaze, and psychedelia, the group brought their atmospheric visual show to The Bearded Lady and our reviewer Savannah van der Niet was there in the midst of it all:

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The lights turn off when Fierce Mild enter the stage. The room is instead flooded with projected visuals. The visuals are works by Stephanie Peters that combine with, and compliment, the thoughtful composition of their music. Unfortunately, technical difficulties mean the projections are hard to distinguish, though still adding an extra element to the set. Their music is ominous, filled with stabs and embellishments. There is no direct interaction with the audience, though not a bad thing – the space between differentiates them as performers as opposed to just another live band. The audience dances energetically.

Front man Troy Rainbow delivers clean, steady vocals, and when he screams it’s the unobtrusive, powerful kind. The band isn’t afraid of space – filling it with dark layers of guitar, notes that screech and blend from one to another, and drums that fill in the rest. In the last track, Rainbow falls to the floor and meshes the reverb into different sounds, before concluding the set by stepping forward to the mic, and quietly, ‘thank you.' - AAA Backstage

Fierce Mild form compelling songs speaking of all things from the sinister to the absurd. Next month the Melbourne outfit will embark on their ‘In Search of Lost Time’ tour, launching their full visual live show and supporting ttheir single ‘Test You’. Tomatrax caught up with Troy from the band to ask a few questions.

Where did the name Fierce Mild come from?
Not totally sure. It’s a common description of the weather in Ireland, though Dylan Moran popularised it somewhat. Being from Melbourne, it sort of fits our weather too.

Over time we’ve grown into the name. The music is very much about dynamics – intense aggression contrasted with melody and serene ambience…

Your shows add a lot of cinematic visual effects, is it hard to match the visuals to the music?

We’re lucky enough to have a stellar VJ on tour with us. Her name’s Stephanie Peters and she knows our material very intimately. We practice a bit to it and discuss the content which she’s chosen to fit. She does all the matching live as well.


Do you ever have an idea for a visual show before you’ve written the music for it?

Quite often we use visual descriptors to inspire the writing process. We improvise and respond to visuals or even still images that we’ve found. The general consensus in our writing is that we’re developing a psychological narrative. Often that means the words or the imagery precedes the existence of a musical motif.

You’ve said that your music covers all things from the sinister to the absurd, where do you get the inspiration for your music’s themes?
I’ve experienced a lot of dissociative thoughts; things that border on what people may look at as schizophrenic. I believe that’s in everyone. I try to tie in the lyrical theme with an area of I’m fascinated with at the time – embodied cognition, duality, quantum physics. The more you stretch your mind with that sort of thing, the more you can accept insanity.

You’ve just put out your latest single, are there any plans to put out an LP?

Dear lord yes. That is what 2016 is about for us. We’re part way through the process of recording an album at the moment. We want it to be a full listening piece though, not just an LP. That fits more what we do. We’re currently working on our concepts and how we’re going to tie the whole thing together and release it.

What was the inspiration behind the front cover of your latest single?
We wanted it to be something surreal and have a sense of pulling you inwards, similar to the sense you feel listening to our music. We have also been using the image of a swan which can be seen on the cover of our current single ‘Test you’. The concept of a swan itself is an oxymoron much like our bands name, in that it represents the idea of beauty contradicted with the aggressiveness in it’s behaviour. The current image is also tied in to reflect the concept and aesthetic of our new music video which will be out later in the year, and will deal with themes of birth and the cycle of life, evolution and philosophy of death.


You’re about to go on your In Search of Lost Time Tour, what an fans expect from your show?

This tour is about launching our visual live show on more of a national level. We have put together our cinematic backdrop. We hope it gives you nightmares – in the best way possible.


You recently headlined the psych and video art festival Stargazed, how did that go?

Definitely one of the highlights of our career. 4 Projectors and 10 TVs flooding the stage with different video art pieces from Melbourne artists and a packed house which always adds some venom to how you perform live.

Do you ever listen to your own music?
There’s a lot of critical listening that goes on in the creation process. Then we often listen back to reimagine something in a live context. It’s really hard to separate yourself from a mix. Often though, we’ll go back and put on a release we haven’t listened to in a long time and be like “Yeah, that’s actually cool to listen to.”
Giving yourself time away from your own material allows you to appreciate it from a punters perspective.


What other music do you listen to?

It’s a hard question to answer as musicians. There’s often the expectation that it’s something static, but it’s forever changing. We share a lot of music between us. Jake has a strong hip-hop background but shares the classical background of Roland and myself. Daniel loves a lot of post punk and Math Rock (Fugazi, Red Neck Manifesto), Roland’s on Uknown Mortal Orchestra and Beach House. Lately, I’ve been listening to Prefuse 73, Jon Hopkins, Celeste Boursier-Mougenot (a sound artist) and HC-B, who I found on Tomatrax! - Tomatrax

When headliners Fierce Mild take the stage, it becomes clear that even if Australia’s psych scene isn’t yet a global force, the appreciation of the genre and its new interpretations have provided a fertile breeding ground for alternative voices. - The Music

In new single “Song He Never Wrote”, Fierce Mild have shown yet another facet to their musicianship and talent as writers, one we’ve been consistently impressed with over the last year especially. The guitars, the vocals, the ticking nature of the song fills their musical space so well, typifying the approach of a band who are unafraid of both looking to their influences for guidance, but not being dominated by them.

Fierce Mild are a band I find myself continuously coming back to as there is always something new I’m finding I’m appreciating about their aesthetic, their appreciation for the alternative psych genre and new ways of exploring it myself as a result. Killer tune, “Song He Never Wrote” and one definitely worthy of your time. - AU Review

Melbourne dark-rock outfit Fierce Mild have released their new single Song He Never Wrote, the first track from their forthcoming album.

The brooding track takes you on a journey and will have you captivated with every note hit. Its ambient post rock sounds, and heavy guitar riffs, build the song up until the very end, leaving you wanting more. - AAA Backstage

Cinematic soundscapers Fierce Mild are back with a fresh new single “Song He Never Wrote” and are throwing their own mini-festival in celebration. Straight off the back of their ‘In Search of Lost Time’ national tour, the quartet are releasing what is the first track off of their long overdue LP.

“Song He Never Wrote” is the first release that presents the band’s visceral and dark edge that typifies their distinct sound and captivates audiences at their live shows. It also demonstrates Fierce Mild’s lyrical and conceptual depth. A ticking typewriter echoes at the back of the mind as inhibition slowly writes a character out of existence entirely. - Spill Magazine

Troy Rainbow from Fierce Mild participated in Whispers to Oblivion’s Song Spotlight Interview to discuss “Song He Never Wrote” and the visual element to the band’s sound.


What was the writing process for “Song He Never Wrote”?
Lyrically, it was a skeleton of the past. I’d been reading a lot of existential writers, like Camus and Sartre and developed an affinity with the philosophy; that we’re essentially not predetermined beings, that there isn’t any definitive meaning or explanation to it all and that it’s really just up to us. There’s a lot of over complication about this system of thought but it’s so simple!

Musically, it’s a funny one. It very nearly lived up to its name. We’d become so frustrated by it. The ticking typewriter drumming was there but the rest was too conceptually frayed. It had these funk and reggae elements that were seriously clashing and we just cracked it.

The day we decided to shelve it was the day it finally started working. I think it was sitting on that brooding frustration that culminated in the guitar line that you hear now as the main theme. Everything just began to follow from there.


2. How was the song recorded?

Part of the song was recorded in a mud brick studio that’s completely off the grid. That’s the serenity and the stillness. There’s some old analog delay machines that have been used, but I think the analog feel might actually be from the use of naturally occurring reverbs. Our studio is in a massive old cotton mill so we ran a huge multicore down our stairs and tracked a lot of parts in the different cavernous spaces throughout the building. Our producer Nikita Miltiadou is a big fan of utilizing the environments you exist in and so are we. This marriage works.


3. You guys are hosting your second video art and music festival entitled Stargazed. How do you get the concepts for your visuals?

We talk a lot with our visual artist Stephanie Peters (who has done nearly all of our live sets) about the concepts of the songs and what we see visually about them or talk about the approach of how we make the visuals and the music interact.

We try to give Stephanie as much creative freedom as possible. She’s usually got a very clear vision of what she sees, synesthetically, and it’s really important to encourage that. Once she’s sketched her idea we’ll workshop it together and talk through moments, altering the music and the visuals to fit the concept.

In general, the visuals are a response to the music; an intertwining narrative. The point of our live show is to engage the audience in a somewhat similar manner to that of a psychological thriller. Each audience member can be having a completely separate experience to the next and that’s okay, but the dots do connect at many points. It’s just up to you to decide when and how that happened. - Whispers 2 Oblivion

An oxymoron is a figure of speech that juxtaposes elements that appear to be contradictory, in a literary sense they are crafted to reveal a paradox and musically it plays in a similar field. For instance how many times have you listened to a dark, sinister track only to have fond memories or emotions evoked through listening?
Whether knowingly or not Melbourne four-piece Fierce Mild have created a sinister oxymoron in the literal and musical sense. After listening to Song He Never Wrote the bands name becomes all the more powerful, as statement of the baleful, absurd yet ever more attractive world they choose to revel in.

Song He Never Wrote: A sinister tempest to test your mind, Fierce Mild’s new single Song He Never Wrote is the perfect storm of weird sounds and on point guitar hooks.

Song He Never Wrote wastes no time in transporting you in to an unsettling dream world, hitting you with a reverb drenched guitar hook that does literally that, hooks you in to then sideswipe you with a sparse, rolling and heavy drumbeat accompanied by a pushing bass and a darkly distorted guitar. To say that’s where they choose to rest for the song is a gross understatement, listening to this track will allow for several detours and cranial transgressions weaving from spacey beginnings to compact riffing in between verses.

Lyrically speaking it matches the mood of the track, dark and brooding, with lines like “He said it didn’t matter, so he wouldn’t show his face, said it didn’t matter but he looked like a fucking disgrace.” The delivery effortlessly moves between a rambling and melodic delivery making you feel like a fly on the wall in the middle of a meltdown, and we couldn’t be happier.

The layering of the track means every member can be heard clearly, which pays of well as they lead in to the swelling climax that really brings home that visceral atmosphere. On first listen we don’t doubt some will feel uneasy, on second listen you’ll realize that was the point and on third listen you’ll be fully encompassed in their sinister world.

Fierce Mild have delivered a track that plays with the murkier parts of your psyche without detracting from their cohesive skill as a band and their accomplishment as individual musicians. If you’re going to get strange, do it with a Fierce Mild. - Happy Magazine

Melbourne cinematic soundscapers Fierce Mild are back with a new single Song He Never Wrote, a masterclass in mixing ambient and rocking guitars to create a spellbinding sonic adventure. We’re so impressed by the new track we threw the mysterious 4-piece’s frontman Troy Rainbow some questions about their origins and recent happenings to get to know them just that little bit better.

How was Fierce Mild formed?

Jake and I met through a mutual friend. We bonded over cigarettes, coffee, and cheese pies…and we played in a funk band together for a while. I quit cigarettes and we started tending towards the darker and experimental side of things. We demoed up some ideas and worked with a producer for some guidance and used session musicians for the instruments we weren’t so good at.

We put an add out on Melband describing what we were doing and Butch answered the call. Butch is a name he gave himself when he was two-years-old. He’s someone who believes in true callings. I’d met Roly when we were both studying jazz and we’d collaborated on some film scoring previously. I showed him the demos after a King Krule concert one night and he jumped on board.

How would you explain your style of music to someone who has never heard your music before?

There’s a strong cinematic narrative to what you experience. It’s a journey akin to that of a psychological thriller… We’re trying to lull people in and then completely unsettle them. We try to view our music as one connected piece with many movements and tangents. Each audience member can be having a completely separate experience to the next and that’s ok, but the dots do connect at many points. It’s just up to you to decide when and how that happened.

What was the best and worst part of your ‘In search of lost Time’ national tour?

Worst part: We were stupid enough to book no accommodation.
Best part: Random people who saw us play were stupid enough to house us for the night!

What is your song writing process?

There’s a big part to playing live that’s very machinated. We want to deconstruct & break that down as much as possible and avoid falling into cliché holes, trying not to think in cycles or basic form (verse/chorus) and instead create pieces with a delineated structure.

We try to throw a spanner in the works through process and let the concept of the song guide us. We often write to visual images or existing phrases. One of the tracks we’re currently recording for our debut LP was written start to finish from responding to a dream journal, phrase by phrase. There’s no uniformity to how we make a song. We want it to be only one piece of the puzzle and make it connected strongly to a body of work. The pieces are malleable and can be adjusted to how the whole puzzle is supposed to fit together at that given point in time.

How did ‘In search of lost time’ come to fruition and what is it about?

The title for our January national tour was based on the work of the writer Marcel Proust and more loosely the transience of memory – when cues encountered in everyday life evoke recollections of the past without conscious effort. It’s a lot of what our music is about; the way we litter the themes and allude to them in a recurring, yet different way.

How did the event Stargazed come about and why did you guys decide to do it?

We had intended to do it as a pre-tour fundraiser in a warehouse of some friends of ours. We had had live visuals at previous shows that had been received well and we had decided to work on a permanent basis with Stephanie Peters who is a fantastic artist based in Melbourne. She curated the visual element. People started getting wind of Stargazed and we actually had to upgrade the venue because it was looking way too big. The fundraiser part fell away and we were left with a proper mini-festival!

Why did you guys decide to have other acts at your music festival?

Why should it just be about us? There’s a lot of self-interest that can kick around, but we’ve found a heap of bands and visual artists that we really love and that have their hearts on their sleeves and heads firmly rested low to the ground. We thought it’d be good to promote that!

How did you decide who was going to play at Stargazed?

A lot of listening. We didn’t really want to do a call out or application process. We’ve played shows before with pretty much everyone on the bill at some point. We just made a mental note at the time and reached out later.

What artists are you guys digging at the moment?

Butch – The Roots, Dirty Three
Roly – Thundercat, Dosh
Jake – Glass Animals, Foals, Warpaint, Trombone Shorty
Troy – Hector Zazou, David Shea, Mothers, and I caught Goat at Meredith last year and that was pretty incredible.

Finally, did you guys ever expect the amount of support you’ve received from fans?
Not at all. We find writing and producing music…there’s such a vortex effect about it. You lose touch with reality. Each time we get to the other side of that and are ready to actually show the world what we have, we basically have lost all perception about whether it’s good or shit. The way people have reacted, particularly with Song He Never Wrote has been humbling, to say the least! - AAA Backstage

“Song He Never Wrote” perfectly balances a mix of urgency and melancholy yet the same time, importance and heartbreak and on top of it, the track sports an overall compelling melody, with cool metal-vibe vocals. Our Song Pick of Tuesday by Melbourne’s Fierce Mild, reminds me of many favorite tracks I listened throughout the years but of course, none in particular. It’s a song that holds you instantly and doesn’t let go. So much though, that you want more. And then some. - Glamglare

Fresh from the launch of their double A-side singles ‘Astro’ and ‘College’, Melbourne shoegazers Fierce Mild took some time out with Desert Highways to reflect on their story so far. Just a year old, the band independently organized a launch event at Yah Yah’s in January, and even they weren’t confident they’d fill the space. But thanks to some RRR coverage and their own publicity, the event was packed out, as guitarist/vocalist Troy Rainbow described: “The launch was amazing. It was pretty daunting but to look up and see that people weren’t able to get to the bar because there was no room to move was pretty damn special!”


Hailing from all over Victoria, Fierce Mild comprises Troy, who studied at NMIT with Roly Kershaw (Guitar/Vocals), and Jake Ramnac (Bass/Synth) with whom Rainbow had been working with a producer. Drummer Daniel Negro then joined through the Melband forum. The band’s name is an Irish term that describes bleak weather patterns, which is quite fitting for a Melbourne band, as any umbrella-carrying Melbournian will agree. The term was made popular by comedian Dylan Moran, of whom bassist Ramnac is a big fan, but it has more meaning to the band now, as he describes: “At first I just thought it sounded quirky but over time it’s become a lot more significant to us. We didn’t really sound ‘fierce mild’ when we started, but the dynamics of our sound have evolved a lot and we are now getting to a point where we’re really channeling the name as a sort of guiding description of what we do. It gives us a lot of purpose. It was unintentional, but we feel like we’ve given ourselves a description that’s far better than any sort of neutralising genre classification.”

The musicians see their love of film as influential to their music. “Our sets have arcs similar to that of a movie and each song is very movement-based. You can look at our music as separate stories or one intertwined narrative – it’s up to you. We’re very much about creating an ethereal moment, and we want the crowd to be with us on a journey.” Describing their sound as “psychedelic and post rock tone colour”, they add that “there’s often a subtle hip hop and drum and bass influence underneath which is very reflective of our backgrounds.”

Fierce MildWriting is collaborative for the band. They describe the process: “Troy often brings a skeleton of something that he has demoed in Ableton and we work from there. Often the lyrics have been carved out from a pre-written poem and the song lyrics become a more abstracted form of the poem. We use the themes of the lyrics a lot to dictate the movement of the music. Our lyrics are very much part of the journey that we want people to enjoy. This means you’re not always going to be comfortable listening to the content, but we want to stir people in the right way to make them think and reflect. Our song ‘Memory’ is a story of domestic violence told as a monologue from the perpetrator where you don’t know if he’s reformed or not. ‘Acid’ is sort of a schizophrenic dream sequence where conscious and unconscious are indecipherable. ‘Astro’, which is on the release, explores time and space, and the absurdity of human language and its inability to describe them.”

The guys are gearing up for a tour across three states, and while they have played recently in Brisbane, this is their biggest list of dates so far. “We’ll be playing alongside some awesome local acts everywhere we go so we’re pretty confident. Magenta Voyeur and Soviet X-Ray Record Club are doing some really cool stuff and have a lot of support in Brisbane.” The tour includes two music festivals, which the band is excited about: “Rock the Bay is always rad. There’s something like 40 bands jammed into the Espy and tickets are really cheap. Brunswick is the area with the most songwriters in all of Australia, so it’s awesome to have a two-week festival that celebrates this, as well bringing acts from all over. We’re really excited to be playing both. The Howler show is being put on by a grassroots Brunswick collective called ‘House Party on Wheels’ and everyone always goes off at their events and they reckon this will be their biggest yet.”

We asked Fierce Mild to recommend another local band for us to check out. “We’ve done some stuff with Romeo Moon who have some really awesome, almost Radiohead vibes going on. Really nice guys too. We also did our launch with Luna Ghost and The Dead Heir.” - Desert Highways