Jul 13, 2007

Fair to Midland going somewhere

By Paul Freeman / Entertainment Writer

Fair to Midland is far from fair to middlin'. This Texas band generates progressive rock that's distinctively topnotch.

Their June release "Fables From a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True," on System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike/Universal Republic label, debuted at No. 2 on the new artist album chart. The first single, "Dance of the Manatee," is rapidly climbing the Active Rock chart.

The candid Darroh Sudderth speaks with humility uncharacteristic of dynamic lead singers. And he's certainly a dynamo on stage.

Of their recent gig at Slim's, Sudderth says, "It went OK. We're kind of the bastard children of this tour we're on; kind of tough crowds for us. But it went well. Could have been much worse."

They're playing in the midst of Goth and glam-oriented
bands. The headliners are Finland's 69 Eyes. "When people are open enough to what we're doing, it works out. But it can be a tough crowd to win over."

The experience toughens up the band. "It's something we need to get used to. Everybody's a critic."

Fair to Midland's music draws from hard rock and art rock, but is difficult to categorize. "That's the best compliment we can get," Sudderth says, about peoples' inability to classify their music. "That's really all we have going for us right now."

At the high-profile Coachella Festival, critics might not have been able to define the band, but they did rave about them. And the crowd went wild.

"That was a lot of pressure. I was really scared going into that show," he said. "I didn't know how we were going to be received, being one of the harder acts, if not heaviest act there. It's a lot harder for the heavier acts to get credibility, to get welcomed into that whole indie scene.

"Obviously, it was a huge deal for us to be able to play it. And then to have gotten positive feedback was just great. Couldn't ask for anything more."

They open for Smashing Pumpkins on July 15 and 16. "It's pretty scary. But we're looking forward to it."

Sudderth suffers from stage fright, but tries to feed that into his onstage energy as much as he can. "It's a tough thing to control. But for the most part, it works to my advantage," he said. "Usually, given there's no technical difficulties, no problems, everything's going smooth, somewhere into the middle or end of the first song, I'm okay.

"I'm still working on it. ... I still get really nervous, but it's nothing compared to what it's going to be like playing with Smashing Pumpkins. It gets so bad, patches of my hair fall out sometimes. Really weird."

His intense showmanship comes from instinct. "Onstage, I really daze out, kind of black out. Strange. I just space out."

Sudderth's strong singing style also comes instinctively, ranging from sensitively melodic to primal growls. "I never did take any singing lessons. I just taught myself. It took me a long time to learn how to sing just decent. I'm not a singer. I don't think I'm really talented. I'm just really resourceful with how I use what I have."

Not being bound by predefined parameters works to his advantage, as it does to the band as a whole.

Sudderth and guitarist Cliff Campbell hail from Sulphur Springs, as does bassist Jon Dicken. The rural town is an hour-and-a-half northeast of Dallas. "It's nice living in the country, not waking up to the sounds of the interstate," Sudderth said.

There wasn't much of a music scene in the small town. So they developed their own sensibilities, and later took on drummer Brett Stowers and keyboardist Matt Langley to form Fair to Midland.

After five years of toiling in relative obscurity, the band made a commitment to tour, hitting California extensively.

"We were working towards national recognition," he said. "It didn't seem attainable. But the couple of years before we got signed, we put everything we had into it, pretty much made it to where we'd succeed at it or go bankrupt trying. I knew I'd regret it if I didn't give it all I had."

He left Texas A&M University and made music his sole focus. For Sudderth, touring isn't party time - he takes performing seriously.

"I have really bad self-control problems, so if I do anything, it's excessively. I have to watch what I do. The first time I drank, I got alcohol poisoning."

He loves touring. "I don't come from very much money at all, so everywhere we go, it's usually somewhere I'm seeing for the first time, even if it is from a bus window. It's stuff I wouldn't have gotten to see otherwise."

System of a Down's Tankian attended two Los Angeles dates, which were another scary couple of shows for Sudderth. Impressed, Tankian signed the band and was executive producer of their album. "He made suggestions, but mainly just let us know he had faith in what we were doing."

Sudderth felt a lot of pressure in the studio. "The industry right now isn't prone to giving second chances. It's a real fickle industry. I wanted us to make the very best album we could, so we'd get a shot at a second album."

Initial response to the album is enthusiastic, and the band continues expanding the fan base by playing to diverse crowds.

"We plan to tour nonstop. We'll play with anybody that'll take us," Sudderth chuckled. "I think the smartest bands are the ones that try to cross over into the sub-genres of rock. We want to have a wide, peppered audience, not just the hard rock kids or the indie kids."

As their audience grows, Fair to Midland continues to bloom creatively. "We still haven't found out what kind of band we want to be yet. The best albums ever made were by bands still trying to find their sound."