Fake Problems’ Chris Farren Talks Being Handsome and Making Money Appear From Thin Air

No seriously, Chris Farren is awesome (and will hopefully appreciate the attention grabbing title I took liberty with). Part of the reason that I enjoy Fake Problems so much is reading blog posts and twitter updates from the band. So, I was extremely excited to sit down with Chris before the Fake Problems gig at Summit Music Hall in Denver. Keep reading for more on superpowers, songwriting, and self-portraits.

How did you get started as a musician?


I was fourteen and I wanted to learn how to play guitar, so I started playing guitar. My mom got me a guitar for Christmas or something like that and I started playing and trying to write songs. It wasn’t until many years later I started really getting into it and decided it was something I really wanted to do.

You’re from Naples [Florida]? Tell me about the city.


It’s basically a retirement community. It’s a lot of really old people. That’s in fact how I got down there—my grandparents retired and my mother and I moved down with them to Naples. So yeah, it’s a pretty nice area. It’s a lot of rich people and the people who are waiters and in the service industry. There’s not that great of a music scene going on right now, I mean, we’re hoping to change that but we’re on tour so much that we don’t have that many chances to play in town. But yeah, we’re hoping to.

What have you been listening to lately?


We love the new Bright Eyes record. Destroyer- that record’s really good, that’s the guy from the New Pornographers who did a solo record. That’s really great. We were just at the Now Now show and we’ve been really into them lately. They’re going on tour with us soon.

Who are some contemporary artists that you admire?


We’re friends with a lot of our “contemporaries” like Gaslight Anthem, we love them. Lucero – we just played a show with them a couple days ago. Murder By Death – we’re about to go on tour with them. Against Me! – we just played a show with them last month as well. We’re a pretty tight-knit community. It’s cool.

How do you keep yourself busy on tour?


Touring itself is busy enough. It’s just the four of us right now on this tour- we don’t have a tour manager or merch person or anything, so we’re all pretty busy most of the time. It’s a lot of driving and if you’re not driving, you’re just kind of sitting there listening to your iPod or something like that. Trying to write music, too. I bought this little mini-keyboard that I’ve been playing in GarageBand and just trying to come up with song ideas.

Do you have time to see anything in the cities you visit?


Not really, no. But we’ve been touring so long that we’ve seen everything that we really want to see. There’s only a few things that I can think of that we haven’t seen yet that I know we want to see, like Mt. Rushmore. We’ll get to it.

Who would play you in a movie?


Somebody super handsome and great, I would hope! I don’t know; I can’t think of anyone. Some people say I look like Elijah Wood. Or that Elijah Wood looks like me, but I don’t know. We’ll say Elijah Wood for now. It’s up for grabs. We’ll hold auditions for sure.

What are some of your favorite television shows?


I love The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, Community’s been awesome… The League, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Curb Your Enthusiasm. Anything like that.

If you could have one super power for a day what would you have?


I wish I could make money appear.

That’s a really good one.


And it doesn’t disappear.

Good call.


What is your favorite song on Real Ghosts Caught On Tape and what does it mean to you?


It changes, but I think right now my favorite is “The Magazines”. It was one of the earlier songs that we wrote for the record and it just has such a good vibe to it. It was just like right when things really started to come together for the record and we started really shaping it how we wanted it to sound and started moving in that direction. But yeah, definitely that song. Lyrically, to me, it’s just kind of a way to keep myself in check from not becoming either jaded or egotistical or soured.

Fake Problems – The Magazines

What’s next for Fake Problems, musically?


It’s hard to say, I have just begun to start to think about writing songs for our next record. I have no idea. We never make the same record twice, so it will be a little bit different from our last record. I think it will be—we learned a lot when we were making our last record and I think you’ll see that in our next record. I think musically, it will still be really catchy and upbeat, but it might be a little darker.

Some of my fellow writers do this and I thought I would give it a try tonight. Would you like to draw a self portrait for us?


Yes!

[Make sure to read our review and look at a lot of pictures from the Denver show here.]

[I love Fake Problems. Go see them live. Also, they're releasing a 7" of "Songs For Teenagers" very soon. Pre-order it here. You will not regret taking either action.]