Fredo are a 3-piece rock band that have expertly applied their scholarly musical abilities, light-hearted personalities, and all-around love for music into some truly epic jams. These dudes are taking the Jersey City scene by storm by taking their unique style and positive vibes to The Citizen, one of my favorite venues, as well as all over NYC. I got to sit down and pick their brains a bit about what they’re about, who Fredo is, and what drives them to work as hard as they do.

 What are your names and what do you guys do in the band?

Ray: I’m Ray, nd I’m the drummer.

Brenden: I’m Brenden and I play bass and sing.

Justin: I’m Justin, I play guitar and make noises.

How’d you guys come up with the name?

J: It just sort of dawned on us, it was kind of spontaneous. Fredo became this disembodied idea of the character and personality of the band.

B: It’s sort of a really vague, loose concept of the spirit of whatever kind of emotional state the band is in.
R: He can be angry, he can be mean, and he can be sly.

B: It’s a vehicle for catharsis, which is the main part of our band. I mean, a lot of what we do is spontaneous. We obviously do put things together and everything but the main idea is the energy of the spontaneity, that’s the main portion of our soul.

Photo Credit: Tomas Miranda

How did you guys get together?

R: We got together way back in high school and, at that time, a lot of people that we knew were in bands and we all kind of interchanged members. I was in one band with a few people and then some people from that band played with me. Brenden and Justin were in another band, and a lot of it worked out like that. A bunch of years went by and we all went to college, and Brenden’s older brother sent me a text and said, “You should jam with my brother.” I thought, “You know what? I should.” I moved back to Old Bridge (New Jersey), we started jamming, and a few months later we hooked up with Justin.

B: Actually, I don’t know if you (Ray) remember this – it was actually kind of serendipitous, but we had gotten together and played and all we needed was a guitar player. Justin texted me around the same time and wanted to jam, and I was like, “That’s actually really weird that you say that, being that we were looking for a guitar player.” It sounds like a made up story, but it was actually completely true.

J: We had a real kinetic thing since we were young and we were really lucky we grew up in a scene. I think our generation experienced a short lived time in where we were 15 and playing clubs.

R: The Stone Pony, The Saint, and all that stuff. Even (Club) Krome and Birch Hill.

Can you guys give me some insight on some of your influences?

R: I started playing drums because my older brother played drums and I was like, “Hey, that’s cool I want to do that,” so my early influences are through education and playing in the school band and stuff like that. Personally, my influences as a kid were nu metal bands like System of a Down, Korn, and Incubus. When I started playing with these guys, they opened me up to bands like Phish and King Crimson, and the list goes on. After that, I studied percussion in college so I have a lot of background in other percussion instruments like classical instruments and Latin instruments. I try and bring all of that to the table.

B: Variety is very important to every single one of us. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we grew up listening to everything. There’s always been that kind of spirit with us. We don’t ever want it to get too precious or serious, but we like to take as much as we can from what we expose ourselves to. All sorts of jazz, all sorts of modern classical music, but also all sorts of modern indie rock bands, experimental, avant-garde, electronic music, and the list goes on.

J: To echo that, the first band I took seriously was Nirvana and that was a big part of my life as a kid. I remember one Christmas my uncle got me George Benson, Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsies on CD, and those are probably the trifecta of my influence. I feel like, as musicians, you always go home and home for me was Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins. I think a big part of this band is interpreting music through what we grew up with but also combining it with a lot of the stuff we listen to now, like King Crimson. What we do with (our cover of Smashing Pumpkins’) Bullet With Butterfly Wings is more of an impression of how that song impressed upon us, and we sort of filter that through our musical experiences now.Photo Credit: Tomas Miranda

Are all of you guys classically trained?

B: I did a lot of choir work in high school and then I took private lessons for a few years, but beyond that, I am just self-taught. My whole family plays guitar, and I initially tried playing guitar and wasn’t interested. The bass just seemed so much cooler, so I got into that. I just spent countless hours playing.

As long as you have the motivation to do it and you love what you’re doing, you don’t need to be trained by anybody.

B: Yeah, exactly! And again, back to what we were talking about, when we were kids that was our social life. It was us just playing with other musicians, that was cool to us.

J: I didn’t go to school for it. I actually went to school for philosophy of education. I started playing when I was twelve. We all started at an early age, but I didn’t play sports so that’s what I did. I’d go home after school put on (Red Hot Chili Peppers’) Californication, play through my shitty Crate amp, just learn it.

What are some places you enjoy playing?

R: We played (NYC clubs) The Bitter End, which was awesome. The Rockwood was really cool, as well. We’re lucky enough to back up some other artists and play some other cool spots in the city, like this place 54 Below, but we also really like The Citizen. We like the bars that let us go up there and do our thing.

J: I live in downtown (JC) and a few years ago, I met Will from Tea NJ and he was kind of our introduction to the Jersey City scene. He connected us with the people at The Citizen. We’ve played block parties in Jersey City. He put us in contact with the people from Groove on Grove, which we hope to play soon, and Monty Hall is also something we definitely want to play at. The Citizen is cool because they don’t pressure musicians to have to bring in a yield. They let us play and let us do our thing. It’s a great place to work out original material. I think that’s what’s cool about JC – it’s cultivating a scene where musicians and artists feel supported. A lot of other venues, you have to sell 30 tickets or something like that.

Bullshit pay-to-play nonsense.

B: Playing shows as a teenager, that’s what we dealt with. Growing up, we’ve encountered shows where it would be like, “You sold 18 tickets? Well, you were told you needed to sell 20 and you can’t play now.”

What do you think Jersey City can do to keep building the scene and keep having bands come to the area?

J: The Citizen took a really smart first step by providing a backline and a proper stage. That’s a big thing and a good incentive for bands to travel out, and other places are following suit. Porta has live acts now, and there’s other great spots like Lucky 7’s doing their thing. It’s good to mimic New York. I think a lot of it is the atmosphere of having these outlets and having these places host these types of situations.

R: It’s nice to be able to go on stage and not have to set up in 5 minutes. It gives you a little time to breathe. We can get up there, play an hour, and it’s fine. We won’t have to manage every minute and get rushed off the stage.

You guys seem very loose when you’re playing. Wherever the song takes you, you just go with it and when it feels right so I see how that can be super important. But it’s cool there is a place in Jersey City that makes you feel comfortable like that. Hopefully, more open up so we can really cultivate a scene around us.

J: I think it will, I think the vibe and the personality is there. I feel like downtown and JC in general is really unique. Not comparing it to Brooklyn, but you get the same feeling that there’s this hotbed of artistic ideas and people really support each other that really want to see each other do what they’re doing. You feel comfortable doing your thing and doing your own art, it’s not fake.

B: I think any place where the foundation is embracing diversity is just going to exponentially grow.

What are your plans for the future?

R: We have a show at The Citizen on July 29^th. After that, we’re going to try and record some new material. We blocked out some time in August and in the fall, so hopefully we can get something out by the end of the year.

J: Yup, we’re going to debut new material at that show and after, we’ll be working on our new record titled Create Imagination. Also, every week, we live stream our practice on Facebook Live.

Oh wow, that’s cool.

B: Yeah it’s a new thing we’ve been doing. We pick an idea, be it a 5 minute jam or anything from our repertoire, and we just put it up.

Have you been seeing a lot of people commenting and watching it?

B: We’ve actually had a huge response from our last video.

That’s awesome. I’ve kind of dabbled with that with a new band I’m in, but we were just way too loud and the sound was completely washed out by the drums.

B: We kind of workshopped it at first.

R: Yeah, we did a few and were like, “Uhhhh we should probably delete those.”

B: Our last video got a tremendous response. We just did a 6 minute groove and I don’t know if it struck a chord or something, but it’s caught on quite a bit.

J: Yeah, we’re super stoked about that. Fredo Jams is kind of our tag so @fredojams on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Photo Credit: Nicole Mago

It’s great that you guys are embracing the social media angle because you have to stay up with that stuff if you want to stay relevant. Playing shows isn’t enough anymore. Livestreaming and getting people involved in the writing process and whatnot, people want that. They can always go see someone play, but involving them, letting them see you hang out, see how you are as people, that stuff matters more than it did these days.

B: I think that’s a really good point. I’ve never actually thought about it like that in the sense of getting an insight on our personalities rather than just how we play. We like to feel as interactive as possible because that’s what makes it organic and unique. I certainly don’t prefer a sterile environment and we want to hear what people think.

J: Hopefully, if the livestream keeps growing, we want to start doing themed jams. Maybe take recommendations from people. We do a lot of free improvisation.

B: A large part of our band is a really abstract sense of humor or it’s just a really stupid sense of humor.

B: It’s fun, a lot of it is fun. We do take this seriously, but having fun is such a huge component and just having that vibe at all times, if possible.

Thank for your time guys.

Twitter/Instagram: @Fredojams

Facebook: www.facebook.com/fredojams