March 25, 2003 Los Angeles, CA
By Sandra Barrera
Staff Writer
U-Daily News
London Calling
It's not an invasion yet. But yet another wave of limeys have secured a beachhead on American shores.
With the accelerating revival of garage rock, the doors could now be opening for bands like the Music and their countrymen such as Fiction Plane, the London-based band that draws from '80s rock and plays the Viper Room on Wednesday. But more on this band later.
Fiction Plane vocalist Joe Sumner is looking for a more conscious, political audience. He's a young English version of Bono for public radio -- at least for now, anyway.
The 24-year-old vocalist has relocated from London to New York for the next year in order to push "Everything Will Never Be OK,' his band's MCA Records debut, which has Billboard hailing "great songs, insistent melodies, ace playing.'
But Sumner knows it's the audience that ultimately determines whether a young band such as Fiction Plane even has a future. "I'm definitely fearful that either nothing will happen, or terrible things will happen,' he says with a chuckle. "Right now, we're pretty much living in a car.'
It's unlikely that Sumner has to worry about finding a place to crash, since his dad is Gordon Sumner, better-known as Sting. But never mind about that. Fiction Plane already gets some airplay on "Morning Becomes Eclectic' despite the DNA.
"That's a black mark against him for me. I'm not a big Sting fan,' Harcourt says, adding that "he's a step away from Vegas, you know. He has not done anything that's touched me for a long, long time. So when I was told that this was his kid's band, I was really kind of surprised by how much I liked it.'
As a singer, Sumner has been described as a chip off the old block except with a stronger voice. But singing ability isn't all he's inherited. Sumner is also an articulate songwriter who's conscious of his world, as if Julian Lennon had inherited his father's poetic gift and his political courage. He's also got a slightly disturbing obsession with morbid subjects.
"Death is such a strong thing to bounce ideas off of. It's just a very extreme starting point. I'd like to get into more subtle ones, like maybe deal with life,' he chuckles. "Maybe next time that will be my starting point.'
"You add that dimension to the band and the fact that they're all such great players, all of a sudden you've got this kind of dynamic that is reminiscent of early U2 records,' says Jock Elliott, marketing director for MCA Records.
"People are definitely taking to the stuff we've been playing,' Sumner says of the music off the album, which was produced by David Kahne, who has also worked with Paul McCartney. "The song that really works without fail is 'Wise,' the last song off the album.
"We always play it last and just completely spaz out because it's not such a song-song, it's more like a big ominous marching orchestra thing,' adds Sumner. "We really rock it out. It doesn't matter if we break all our strings.'
As with any new generation, this new branch in the growing tree of British rock music is part of an evolution, not a revolution. Like its forebears, it's sort of the same but a little bit different -- and a better fit for its time.
http://u.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,211~23540~1266179,00.html
