Friendless unleashes a free Stormzy remix! - Q&A!
Friendless has been keeping himself very busy over the last few weeks! We managed to squeeze in a little Q&A with Chris and chat about his future projects and what he has been working on.
Friendless - Facebook / Instagram / Soundcloud
You've been dropping a few free downloads of late with the new remix of Stormzy's "POP BOY" ft. Aitch and a sneaky collab with Go Freek. Anything else is in the pipeline?
F - “I've got a new single called Lemonade scheduled for May, another collab with Go Freek, a tune with Vanilla Ace, a collab with an exciting new artist called Pink Milk & a couple more free Bootlegs to give away as well as few Death Ray Shake Records on their way too. Keeping busy!”
You teamed up with Stereo Jones on your latest track BOMP which climbed to #6 on the Aria Club Charts, tell us a bit about making that record and how the fans have reacted so far?
F - “That was such a fun record, I was looking to shift my sound and happened to be hanging out having a drink with Stereo so we jumped in my studio with a pretty clear idea of what we wanted to achieve and off we went. About 4 -5 bottles of red wine later we had a record! It's actually Stereo Jones on the vocal of that record too so it was a really fun session.
It’s been so well received by the fans and has really put me in front of a lot more people internationally too. To have Claude Von Stroke put it in his BBC1 essential mix was such a huge honor. Super excited to just keep this momentum rolling on!”
With shows put on hold for the foreseeable future could we be seeing a Friendless / Sister Peach cross over? For those who don't know about Sister Peach, how would you best describe it to your Friendless fans?
F - “haha Sister Peach is my Indie Dance duo with Joey London and its just light feel-good synth-pop really. Great way to tickle my guilty pleasure for sing-along music. Its all pretty incestuous really the way we work anyway, all the projects are quite fluid. Joey and I just released a DRS & JL collab so one could argue that IS Sister Peach ha”
Have you picked up any hobbies or interests you've started since social distancing began? and is there something random you miss?
F - “I bought the Rosetta stone software and have been trying to get into Spanish and Japanese. It’s so much harder than I remember to learn another language especially when I really love spending every waking hour in the studio too. I miss performing of course but tbh honest my life is quite solitary by nature between my hours in the studio and gigging so its pretty much business as usual but with a lot more movies and TV shows.”
Who are your biggest musical influences?
F - “This could go on forever. Basically my parents record collection. Hendrix, Marley, Pink Floyd, the Beatles and Steely Dan to name a few and then from my end a HUGE amount of 90s Hip Hop and Grunge Music. I also grew up playing Jazz so I'm heavily influenced by a lot of the classics like Miles and Coltrane as well as more trad stuff like Ellington and the Count.”
What inspires you outside of music when the creative well runs low?
F - “Food, Wine & The Ocean.”
Moment in Time: We do a little dig through your socials in the hunt for a photograph that deserves more context. (Left)
F - “hahahahaha What a shot. I was playing Bass for an artist on a national tour and he gave us a few days off in Cairns so I went full tourist and got myself into a chopper stat. I ended up doing like three helicopter charters coz I just think they are so cool.”
Quick 5!
Last album you listened to - Late Registration
Guilty Pleasure - Pop Music
Netflix Recommendation - Ozark
Midnight Snack - Vegemite Toast
Dream Gig - Glastonbury
Thanks man, the floor is yours! Tell us what you've got going on, coming up or anything else you'd like to plug.
F - “Just my Stormzy Bootleg, Cabin Fever w/ Go Freek and a new record from my other alias Death Ray Shake called Free Your Mind that gets released on Monday!”