Midlands-based genre-defying 4-piece Passive Fix recently released ''I'll Take It All' which features on the Soundtrack to their short film 'A Divine Descent'
We recently caught up with Alex from the band for a chat.
Hi Alex, nice to meet you, Introduce yourself and tell us what you do in the band.
Hey, I’m Alex and I’m the lead vocalist and one of the saxophonists in 'Passive Fix'.
Tell us a little about your band, how you got together and the story behind the name if there is one
Passive Fix started as my solo project - I kept writing songs and wanted to release them under an alternate name to previous projects. In March of 2022, I was offered a headline show which I was planning to play on my own with tracks, but I decided I wanted to spice it up a bit, so I asked ACS (current saxophonist & guitarist) if he’d be up for playing with me on some songs. He had a listen to the tracks and suggested we ask David (Drums) and Sam (Bass) if they wanted to play the show and they were down.
We then played a couple of shows together before we realised we really had something, and by October of 2022 Sam and David left their previous band and we started taking ‘passive fix' seriously.
The name ‘Passive Fix’ came from my obsession with music - I realised a lot of people don’t share that obsession, and to some people, music just exists, but doesn’t interest them. I thought that if music no longer existed, those people would notice and start to miss it. So ‘passive fix’ was just a summary of that and a comment on people’s connection with music.
Tell us a bit about your latest single, what’s the story behind the song?
‘I’ll take it all” is part of our upcoming short film ‘A Divine Descent’ - available on 23rd June.
The track is a pretty emotional journey following part of the narrative of ‘A Divine Descent’. Its shifts in genre and mood reflect the protagonist’s emotional state throughout the narrative of the film, which will all become clear with the film's release.
It’s a great track to play live even if it does take it out of me!
What is your writing process like? Do you start with lyrics and then come up with a melody or is it the other way round?
With the latest track, I demoed it out and showed it to the band, who added their respective tweaks and spiced it up which brought it to a whole new level.
On the whole, we’re getting quite proficient at writing in our practice room together, and seem to write pretty quickly - we’ve got a five-day writing retreat planned so we hope to get a lot from that.
What bands were you listening to when you were writing this release? Do you think it had an effect on the end sound?
We listen to such a wide range of music as a band - the heavy side of our music used to come from me, but we’re all into bands such as Sleep Token now, and are enjoying experimenting with different genres and inspirations.
I’ve listened to rock and metal for years, so I probably tapped into my love of bands like Sleep Token, Loathe, Bad Omens and Deftones.
You have a music video to go along with this single, what is the story behind that, was it fun to make?
The music video for “I’ll take it all’ is out now, and is part of a short film we’ve created as a band, called ‘A Divine Descent’ (out 23/06). It follows a man as he deals with the worsening health, and eventual death, of a loved one. He spirals into his own cycle of grief and in doing so pushes everyone away, as he tried to attach blame for his loss. He journeys to the Scottish highlands in an attempt to find solace in his memories and to escape reality but is met with violent weather, treacherous conditions and painful realities.
We’re lucky enough that our guitarist/saxophonist ACS is a massively talented videographer, so he directs, films and edits our music videos. Travelling to Scotland for the music video and short film was great fun (even if it was the most tiring experience of our lives), we feel like we’ve really hit our stride and all have our own areas were comfortable with on filming days - we're a well-oiled machine now.
What can you tell us about the release that the song has come from?
‘I’ll take it all’ released with another track from the short film, ’ Stargazing’. It’s a hauntingly beautiful ambient track that fits with the narrative of the short film. The soundtrack for the short film in its entirety will soon be available on streaming services.
What would people be surprised to know about you?
This is a hard one. I guess the fact that we all met at a conservatoire is cool because I never expected there to be any rock or metal fans in what is basically a classical music college! I feel really lucky to have met the band there because they’re such incredible musicians, I’m glad they connected with the music I'd made and I’m so excited for the music we’re continuing to make together.
Do you have any shows coming up that we should get ourselves along to?
We’ve got a few shows coming up in between writing and recording for our upcoming releases. Here’s a list of what we’ve got coming up:
24th June - here & Now Festival - Tamworth
23rd July - Tramlines Fringe Festival - Sheffield @ Network
2nd September - Hungry Hill Festival - Kidderminster
15th September - with Superstore - Sheffield @ Sidney & Matilda
16th September - with Superstore - Manchester @ Peer Hat
Thanks for chatting to us Alex!
Find Passive Fix online:
Watch 'A Divine Descent' Below
Comments