THE PICNIC: Fan Club Music Review
Rat World is excited to be collaborating with Marmalade to put on The Picnic - a mini music festival on November 16th that aims to showcase upcoming bands, platform music journalism, and put on a fun night to celebrate our local music landscape and arts scene!
Five music journalists are paired up with one of the five bands performing at The Picnic. These Rat Journalists will introduce the bands via a music review and then will conduct a KEXP-style live interview on the night of the festival!
There’s something invigoratingly intriguing about Fan Club — perhaps it’s their youthful energy, or perhaps it’s their track record of big swings and big wins. Whatever it is, there’s a certain buzz about them that you simply can’t deny. Composed of Emma Wagner, Caleb Young and Tilly Wells, Fan Club are onto a winner with their indie-pop aesthetic, and their unwavering willingness to look towards the sun.
For a band who came of age during the Covid years, it’s perhaps admirable that they have taken a more positive spin on life given that so much in the world is a mess right now. Having won the Smokefree Rockquest in 2023, and having opened for a range of big acts, including Park Road, Ekko Park, Coast Arcade and Borderline, they are already so accomplished, and perhaps that’s why they are able to be optimistic in the face of it all. And yet their new EP, Towards the Sun, does not shy away from the messiness of life — rather it captures a different perspective of youthful angst against the backdrop of uncertainty, a coming of age story that pulsates with the same beats as Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, while remaining hyper local, and being all the better for it.
The EP opens with Beach Weather, introduced by an energetic subby bass. Then comes the line “You’re like sand stuck in my hair” and we’re suddenly wrapped up in the imagery of summer, which continues throughout the rest of the record. In a certain way, Beach Weather takes one of the things New Zealanders are most proud of, namely our relationship to summer and the ocean, and turns it into a complicated song about teenage love. Emma’s voice in this song is particularly strong and precise, hitting every note with confidence. The charm of Fan Club’s sound is that it echoes the indie rock darlings we’ve grown up with, like The Beths, and broadcasts it to an audience primed and ready for a sonic profile that contains a fat rhythmic guitar, a steady beat and hyper local lyrics. While we wait for a moment of rage to filter in, the song instead shows a remarkable amount of restraint.
The summery imagery continues as we head Westbound. Here, reverb adds a dreamlike, airy quality to the vocal, which finally meets the ground once the guitars become heavier. The militaristic roll of the drums keep the song marching along, even when the other instruments pare back. I’m a real sucker for a good sample, and the clip from a westbound train at the end of this track returns us to a sense of place — it’s undeniable what Fan Club represents, even though their name leaves it ambiguous. They love a grungy guitar, a clean vocal and a lyrical homage to home.
We then get perhaps the most youthful of the songs on this record. Sedate contemplates how suffocating it can feel trying to live up to the expectations of others. For a group of teens, this is perhaps a battle they are currently fighting. I went through it too when I was their age, being caught in the tension of your parents’ wishes in conflict with the vision you have for your own life. The cry for numbness, for sedation, so as not to have to bear this pressure any longer, becomes a desperate plea for freedom which just falls short of becoming an act of rebellion. The repetition of “I can’t breathe” in such a punchy and shouty manner is a cathartic release, reminiscent of the emo music of my younger years, which saw me slamming doors and screaming into the void. Sedate however holds back from becoming an anthem for smashing vases and punching holes in walls, which is perhaps a healthier outcome for everyone involved.
Rough is a change of pace and deals with more mature themes than Fan Club have dealt with before. Emma lays down her strongest vocal delivery on this track, as she laments being a placeholder in someone else’s life. While some of the yearning feels childlike, the recognition of self-worth is admirable, and pushes the record in a thematically different direction, showing that these youngsters have more complexity than they let on.
Fan Club prove, on their track No Caller ID, that they are the masters of a punchy hook, and, even more so, masters of singability. I have had the pleasure of seeing them perform this song live, with the crowd immediately devolving into a riotous, head-banging mob, and screaming out every “No Caller ID”. The breakdown in this song is a callback to the early 2000s pop rock girlies — it’s Ashlee Simpson-esque with its vocal delivery, accusatory lyricism and grungy guitars. We even get a drum solo interlude, and a final chorus where the backing vocals pop, adding to the singability (or shoutability) of this very successful track.
Finally, DYK closes out the record, and while the lyrics seem a little bit too on the nose, the melody is perhaps the most interesting musically, and the strength of this track rests in the synergy between the guitars and the drums, which is tightly controlled in a near perfect symbiosis.
Fan Club are most definitely stars in the making. Emma, for example, is already making waves through her solo project, Emerson. If they continue to echo the indie darlings that personify the New Zealand sound of late, I have no doubt they will be playing even bigger venues and becoming household names in the not too distant future. They’ve proven not only that they can craft catchy songs, but also that they have the stamina to translate their energy and youthfulness into captivating live performances alongside some of the biggest names on the local indie scene. For a group so young, it shows remarkable confidence, and it’s precisely that confidence that will usher them through to bigger and better things with each subsequent performance and record release.
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Catch Fan Club live at The Tuning Fork, 16th November Saturday for The Picnic Mini Music Festival! And don’t forget to use the code "fanclub" to reveal a secret $10 ticket…