Get to know: Fidel Castrated

By: Abena Oppon

On behalf of Music Fund, Abena Oppon interviews Fidel Castrated as part of a five-part series leading up to the Battle of the Bands on Saturday in the Union’s Main Bar.

This Saturday, St Andrews will see its biggest inter-band competition yet. Organised by the Union’s Music Fund subcommittee, nine bands will battle it out to be crowned the best student band in town. As the event draws near, Hearing Aid has collaborated with Music Fund to introduce you to some of them. Some parts of these interviews have been edited for clarity. 

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

When asked, Fidel Castrated (F. Castrated) self-describes as: a gram-negative, non-mobile, castrobacillus without spores that is related to M. Pseudoanthropoculosis that causes the disease plague. 

We spoke with Oliver, (lead singer?) guitarist and occasional synth player, and Eli, the band’s other guitarist. 

How did you all meet, and how did you decide to start playing together?

Oliver: I found Eli at a party. Someone said he was a pretty good guitarist so I tried to lock him down before anyone else did. For Tess, (bassist) I looked everywhere to track down someone who played bass. Our original drummer, who isn’t our drummer now, we found on Facebook — Max, our current drummer, we found this way, too. 

What is everyone’s most memorable performance so far?

Eli: Probably the flat party one last semester, probably because it was so sweaty. Somehow, despite being the most physically uncomfortable ones, it was one of our tightest sets. 

Oliver: We played a gig last semester, it was a house party. It got so humid and disgusting in there. It was still sort of warm weather, and a lot of people were packed in like sardines — that was not conducive to it being cool. It was a fun time. If you wiped your hands on the walls it’d be wet.

What are your thoughts on the music scene here in St Andrews overall?

Eli: There’s definitely something that happened since last year, since Covid sort of… it didn’t go away, but we stopped talking about it so much. Things have definitely exploded. There’s a lot more bands compared to our first year. There was us doing our occasional thing, and most bands who came in weren’t actually from here. 

Oliver: I think things are doing good now. Now we’re fourth years, we don’t have a lot of time to participate in this kind of thing. First year was kind of strange, but I will say that bands did come from out of town to play in Sandy’s and stuff. There would be a lot of people there every Saturday, and that’s sort of coming back. 

Eli: There’s definitely more of an emphasis on bands now: ball sets, playing for events, things like that. And so they’re kind of catering their sound towards that type of thing, which again, I didn’t see much of in our first year.  It’s a double-edged sword, I think. Because (I’ve experienced this myself somewhat) you get this group of talented people who then feel like they need to water down their sound to get a gig. However, it does provide a greater incentive to form a band and devote your time to it, which is cool. It’s encouraged a lot of more of that to develop. 

Do you have any pre-performance rituals and if so, can you tell us more about them?

Eli: That’s when we frantically set up the stage, and come up with things to do so we don’t have to practise our songs. We try to come up with different outfits every time. Like Oliver had an inmate suit, once. 

Oliver: That’s when we practise, like, the hour before. Then, calling all my friends who have cars, or calling a cab company who charge way too much. I had linen pyjamas I wore for a performance once. They didn’t really fit that well, I think it added to it.

What are your hopes and plans for the future for Fidel Castrated?

Oliver: I’m sitting on a 90-95% done record, which I haven’t finished because … psychic block? There’s some engineering to be done on that. We’re all going to different physical places next year, which will make it a little difficult to stick together as a band.

Eli: I’d say, some wedding reunion shows in 30 years. 

Finally, what part of Battle of The Bands are you most looking forward to?

Oliver: I haven’t heard of most of these bands, so I’m looking forward to seeing them. That’s not a dig, I just haven’t been out of my house much this year! Playing music will be fun, because we haven’t done anything this semester at all.

Eli: It’s fun to play gigs, and the structure of this means hopefully there will be lots of people there to play to. Since we’re fourth years, we’ve been busy and it’s been hard to find time to play lots of gigs. It’s got the point where us playing the same five songs every time is not getting old, so it should be fun.