5 Questions With: Burning Ferns
The Power Pop band stop by to talk about their new record, the bands that influenced their sound, and a little soccer.
Good morning!
Today we’re talking with Burning Ferns frontman Tony Gray
Hailing from Newport, Wales, Burning Ferns delivers a brand of pop overflowing with catchy hooks and snappy melodies. Their power pop sound draws on bands from the 60s while having a foot solidly in 2023. If you’re a fan of Big Star or Teenage Fanclub, this will check a lot of boxes for you.
Their latest record, World of the Worlds, is a fantastic follow-up to 2018’s Public Mono. I recently caught up with frontman Tony Gray, where we discussed where the band’s been, where it’s going, and Welsh soccer (football).
Our chat has been lightly edited for clarity/flow.
Please fill in a little bit of your backstory. Walk us through what made you guys start playing. Are there other bands that you are/were involved in?
We started ‘doing our own thing’ in 2010. We just liked playing together. “We” at the time was Nathan Abraham (Abo) and Anthony Gray (Tone). The catalyst was the decision that we’d be more fulfilled creating our own stuff after a stint recording with Carl Bevan. Carl was trying his hand at solo writing and recording after the break up of very successful local heroes 60ft Dolls. He was their drummer. Carl and I had taken over renting Le Mons studio in Newport a couple of years previously, so the opportunity and space to create were already there. Abo had been the guitarist for other local heroes Rollerco. Both 60ft Dolls and Rollerco (among others) had been recognised in The Houses of Parliament as significant musical contributors to a growing scene.
The press had dubbed Newport the ‘The New Seattle’ for the bands it had attracted and created. Central to this was TJ’s Disco - a Newport dive bar venue where many international bands played and was most famously where Kurt Cobain proposed to Courtney Love. Abo and I started as a pair then it logically followed to grow the thing into a full-fledged band. We felt like we had something. We called ourselves “The Good Time Milk” at first. We didn’t play live; we just recorded stuff I’d written. This went on for about a year. We got about five or six songs demo’d. Neither of us could really play drums, so our solution was us both playing drums at the same time - that was fun!
After about a year, we found out that an old friend of ours, Brychan Todd (Brych), was back from his London adventures and living locally. Brych was the guitarist for NME favorites Astronaut. He’d done a Peel session and worked for Alan McGee for a bit, so he was an obvious choice. We persuaded him to play bass because we were already two guitarists and weren’t planning on starting a triple guitar mariachi-style outfit. Luckily he agreed!
Then we needed a drummer. We went to the greatest jobbing drummer in town - Simon ‘Slim’ Short. He was in a thousand local bands. He was up for it. “The Reeds” were born.
We played our first gig in 2012 in Le Pub, Newport, as The Reeds, but we didn’t like the name. Brych’s mother-in-law suggested we change our name to ‘Burning Ferns’ after looking out of her kitchen window and seeing a mountainside on fire. This is a common sight in South Wales. Bored teenagers set fire to things, then suddenly, a whole mountainside of dried ferns is on fire. We’re a Welsh band, and this made sense given where my writing was going, which I’d describe as a mixture of topical and abstract.
As Burning Ferns we recorded our first demo. It was called “Crunch Time at Shangri-La with the Sand Demons.” It featured four songs - Crunch Time, Shangri-La, Sand, and Demons. See what we did there? We sent this to ‘Lovely’ Ray Collins at Country Mile Records. He loved it! We met with him about the possibility of putting an album out. He agreed, and we were on our way to making ‘See Saw Seen’ - album number one. This was released in 2014.
We played a couple of live BBC sessions, and Crunch Time got single of the week on national radio. The planets had aligned, and we’d come a long way from just the two of us mucking about in the studio. Then Brych was due his second child, and we needed someone to step in to play bass while he took on extra parenting duties. Abo and I played a live radio session for Eleri Sion as a guitar/ vocals acoustic duo, and it became apparent that there was a local sleeper fan of note named Dave Corten.
Dave was the guitarist in local band Flyscreen and other notable outfits, including excellent Beatles impersonators The Cherry Beats. Flyscreen were also on the list of bands who’d been mentioned in Parliament. He was a natural choice, so as soon as we twigged he was into us, we were all over him like a bad rash. We asked him to stand in for Brych. He learned the bass parts and stood in for a number of gigs and, thankfully, never left. He became arguably the best Fern. He drove us everywhere and also added triple harmonies to our sound when Brych returned to the bass.
We were now five and went on to make Public Mono which, thanks again to “Lovely” Ray Collins at Country Mile, was released in 2018. Many gigs followed where we played with legends like Martin Carr of the Boo Radleys and Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals.
Eventually, we had to part ways with Slim and were on the hunt for a new drummer. We had close ties with other local legends, The Darling Buds, and their drummer Erik Stams liked what we were about. Erik’s from Bronx, New York, went to the NY School for Performing Arts, and is a pro drum teacher. He teaches at BIMM, London. We felt very lucky. We still do feel very lucky. Erik once taught, with the help of Stuart Copeland, Welsh TV head Aled Jones, how to play drums on a BBC reality TV series.
With Erik now at the helm, we decided we’d try and get another album together. I’d been writing continuously, so I had some more tunes. It was 2019. Covid hit. We ended up making World of the Wars during lockdown. We’d share audio files and then come together to test stuff out in a live setting when lockdown lifted. We imposed a rule that we would record everything with performance in mind and as few edits as possible for it to sound as natural as possible. We tried to drag as much natural out of an unnatural situation as possible.
World of the Wars has been out for about a month, and the reaction so far has been great!
I can hear quite a few influences on World of the Wars. Who would you include here?
Elliot Smith, Todd Rundgren, The Kinks, The Beatles, Badfinger, XTC, Elvis Costello, Big Star, Teenage Fanclub, Buffalo Springfield
For anyone listening to the band for the first time, what do you want them to hear?
“Tell Me Something I Don’t Know,” “Frustration,” “Roadmen,” and “The Town Crier.”
How would you describe the music scene in Newport/Cardiff?
It’s really healthy and pretty amazing, really! Even though TJ’s closed a while back, Le Pub has taken its place as a great independent live venue, their bookings are incredible. It’s a great town to be a music fan.
There are local up-and-coming bands like Parcs and Murder Club who are already doing great things, playing festivals and touring with established UK indie bands like The Wedding Present. There’s other more established bands like Skindred, GLC, The Darling Buds, and Jon Langford’s Men of Gwent. Jon Langford is founder of punk legends The Mekons and is based out of Chicago now but frequently returns to his hometown of Newport to knock out fantastic tunes with The Men of Gwent.
It also helps that my brother Matt Gray is a part of that band and a long-time member of Darling Buds. In fact, two of the five Ferns - Erik and Dave - are also Darling Buds members. Cardiff is great, too, with the likes of Boy Azooga. The surrounding and further valleys also produce great stuff like Dactyl Terra and El Goodo.
There were five years between Public Mono and this release. Obviously, the pandemic disrupted everything. That aside, is there a reason for such a long gap? Solo projects? “Real life” getting in the way, etc.?
I think I might have answered much of this in question 1, but it was the pandemic restricting our ability to do things at a normal pace. I write stuff, but it has to go ‘through the band’ for it to be Burning Ferns. Everyone gets to put their own character into their parts; that is essential and what makes us sound like how we sound. The pandemic really put the kybosh on convening to do that at a decent pace.
What’s next? More recording? Out on the road? What’s the rest of 2023 look like for you?
Gigs, gigs, gigs to promote WotW. Most immediately, we have an album launch on June 3rd in Le Pub, where we will attempt to play the whole album. We’re playing Newport Pride in August. We have the possibility of some festivals TBC.
It’s off-topic, but for football: Cardiff, Swansea, or another club?
Eh? Newport County first, obviously! We’ve been to a few County matches together. Cardiff City are supported at a distance for historical reasons. Wrexham supported now for obvious reasons - it’s such a great story. Premiership-wise, everyone in the band (apart from Erik) support Liverpool.
Burning Ferns- World of the Wars, 2023
Click on the record to listen on your platform of choice.
You can connect with Burning Ferns and check out their music in the following places:
Bandcamp | Spotify | Twitter | Country Mile Records |
5 Questions:
1. Describe your musical taste in one sentence.
It’s melodic indie guitar pop with tinges of psych rock, alt-country, soul, and even some prog.
2. What music was playing in your house(s) growing up?
The Beatles, David Bowie, ELO, The Damned, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Stiff Little Fingers, The Ramones, Ian Dury, The Specials, Madness, The Beat, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Cure, Gary Numan, Adam and the Ants, The Buggles, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash, Gilbert O’Sullivan, Gilbert & Sullivan, Edith Piaf, ABBA.
3. What are you listening to these days?
Weyes Blood, The Roves, The Beths, Drug Dealer, King Gizzard, Nude Party, Holiday Ghosts
4. What are your 5 Desert Island Discs?
Weyes Blood- A Lot’s Gonna Change
Teenage Fanclub- Start Again
The Pogues- Rainy Night In Soho
Madness- Bed And Breakfast Man
The Beatles- Strawberry Fields
5. If you could collaborate with any artist/band, who would it be?
Weyes Blood with Trevor Horn producing.
Thanks to Tony for stopping by, and thank you for being here,
Kevin—
I really like the name Burning Ferns 🔥🌿
Might be my favorite interview featured here yet! Between the band name origin and "neither of us could really play drums, so our solution was us both playing drums at the same time - that was fun!" I had some good chuckles. New one to me and I'm enjoying what I'm hearing on the new album so far!