4 Real! The Blood Arm

Formed in Los Angeles three years ago, it’s taken quite a while for The Blood Arm to get the recognition they so richly deserve. In a bid to get their irresistible, exciting sound heard, last year the band were forced to self-release a thousand copies of their debut album ‘Bomb Romantics’ stateside only. Fortunately for them, many were won over by the angular, guitar-driven tunes with irresistible melodies. Franz Ferdinand, for one, upon hearing the album quickly became keen fans inviting the band to open three of their shows in the US. Prestigious support slots with The Killers, The Bravery and, ahem, Electric Six soon ensued and naturally hype has surrounded the band ever since. Really, The Blood Arm are the best thing that should have come out of New York since The Strokes.

Just as the band were heading out on tour with the mighty Maximo Park, Gigwise caught up with their thoughtful frontman Nathaniel Fregoso...   

Straight away it’s obvious that Fregoso is almost grateful it’s taken so long to get noticed. In fact, he’s pretty damn confident The Blood Arm won’t be one of those instantly-hyped bands that make one album and inevitably disappear into bargain bin oblivion. He proudly proclaims: “It’s been good that we’ve been together for so long. In that time we’ve learnt how to perform live and we’ve worked on a common ground with a longing to write songs. I definitely think that we’re a lot stronger band for it, it’s given us time to sculpt our sound.”

Inevitably, because of their jangliness and Nathaniel’s own blasé vocal style, eager journalists have compared The Blood Arm to Julian Casablancas and co. But hey it’s hardly a bad comparison! While Fregoso does not completely deny such parallels, he sees The Blood Arm’s music as drawing upon an amalgam of influences. “I can see why people compare us to The Strokes but I wouldn’t say it’s completely true. There are other influences that are more where we’re coming from. A lot of sixties and seventies music has shaped our sound – bands like the Doors, a lot of singer-songwriters like Leonard Cohen and David Bowie. Also The Fall are one of our favourite bands.”

In fact, Fregoso sees The Blood Arms music as part of a much wider sphere of existence; “There are a lot of rock influences there but I’d say our sound isn’t just restricted to that. We’ve been influenced by film, LA and our surroundings, not just the music.” Right, how would Nathaniel describe their consequential music? Well, it’s “music for falling down staircases to.” We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.

Slightly fascinated by the apparent theme of violence in the band’s name and album title, Gigwise duly asks where the names come from. Fregoso explains they have much more innocent origins than we’d hoped; “The Blood Arm is a biblical reference, it sort of comes from the hand of God. It was my idea, I was walking around with the name long before the band came along, so when the band formed we used it.” And the album title is equally innocuous; “It comes from the name of a song, we just thought it would be quite a good one. It just works as a command and a description.” So, it seems The Blood Arm aren’t violence obsessed fiends. Shame.

Fortunately, what The Blood Arm lack in vehemence, they make up by the bucket load in unadulterated great songs. Yet despite their song’s radiance, Fregoso seems slightly perturbed that the band are mainly restricted material from ‘Bomb Romantics’ right now. Rather intriguingly it seems there’s even more exciting music just around the corner. Fregoso explains:  “One of the most frustrating things about being in a band is that we’ve got loads of new material and it takes some time before it gets exposure. One of the best things about touring is we can play a mixture of old and new songs. We can see how the new songs work, how responsive the audience are. There’s a new song called ‘Suspicious Character’ and audiences have loved it. It’s definitely one to watch.”

He continues; “Our sound is evolving. It’s taking different directions. I’m not saying that we’re experimenting with insane instrumentation, it’s just different. We’re looking at different genres – there’s going to be dance music, funk and soul all in there. We don’t want to be a band that just does the same album twice.” 

Throughout the interview, together with their native bands, it’s obvious The Blood Arm are equally won over by the waves of British bands currently making an impact Stateside. He lists Babyshambles, Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party, Maximo Park and, of course, the now obligatory Franz Ferdinand as some of the British artists shaping The Blood Arm. In fact he’s pretty positive about the reverberations such bands are having in the US; “There’s loads of (British) bands getting air play over here now. We’re always looking for new bands from the UK.”

As for the American guitar scene, well Fregoso claims it’s very “healthy” especially in his indigenous Los Angeles; “There’s now a thriving scene in LA that we want to tell people about. Bands like The Adored who are kind of discoey punk… then there’s a three piece called Midnight Movies, they’ve got a female drummer who also sings and they make quite psychedelic music.” Remember where you read about them first.

As for the band’s aspirations and Fregoso says The Blood Arm are in it for the long haul; “Longevity is one of our top priorities. We don’t want to be a band that releases a couple of singles and then disappears… We don’t want to take a long time to record an album and by the time it’s released not be relevant any more. So yes, we want to make really good albums and have a long-term career.” So, with luck on their side, The Blood Arm should be here to stay, and it seems they’re 4 real.