fun. Primer (image heavy)
So let's talk about fun. :D
Andrew, Jack and Nate from fun. You know, that band that's opening for Panic! at the Disco on their US tour this summer, and have absolutely fantastic music besides.
NOTE: For the sake of my own sanity, whenever I end a sentence with the name of the band, I will use only one period. Because oh my god. THESE BANDS AND THEIR PUNCTUATION COMPLEXES.
NOTE 2: I've only been a fan of this band for about, like, a month, and I only did the research in the interest of making a primer, so I'm not claiming to be an expert by any means. Any corrections/new info would be appreciated :D
So, fun.:
The band is made up of three band members:
Nate Ruess - 28, vocals, lead lyricist, from Arizona. Formerly of the band The Format, which broke up in 2008.
Andrew Dost - 27, vocals, piano, keyboard, trumpet, flugelhorn, glockenspiel, from Michigan, formerly of the band Anathallo which he left in 2006.
Jack Antonoff - 26, guitar, from New Jersey, also currently in the band Steel Train where he's the vocalist/songwriter. Being in both bands means that Jack doesn't always tour with fun.
From left to right: Andrew, Nate and Jack.
They also have a bunch of touring musicians - Nate Harold on bass, Will Noon on drums, and Emily Moore on guitar and keyboard.
fun. was formed by Nate in 2008. You can read his version of the story at the blog post he wrote here, but to sum up: a day or two after his previous band, The Format, broke up, he picked up some songs he'd written but needed help with and made calls to two musicians he knew and loved: Andrew Dost and Jack Antonoff.
Nate knew Andrew from back when Andrew's former band had toured with The Format. Andrew had also played keyboard for The Format for a while. Nate thought Andrew was extremely awesome: "I remember being on tour with him and just being blown away at his ability to play almost every instrument with ease, sometimes switching from singing and playing the glockenspiel to playing the piano and flugelhorn (all mid-song!!!) (oh and I just read that last sentence back to myself and it reads like something out of the renaissance fair pamphlet). On that tour we spent many nights bonding over our love for Weezer b-sides, among many other things."
They spent the nights bonding over Wheezer b-sides! SO THAT'S WHAT THE KIDS ARE CALLING IT THESE DAYS.
The other call he made was to Jack Antonoff, whose band Steel Train had toured with The Format a while back. The first time Nate had ever met Jack at a concert in New Jersey, they each thought the other was an arrogant asshole. Jack used to be all "Grrr, this guy" over Nate, for reals: “Me and Nate used to hate each other. But some of the people I end up liking the most in life I start out hating. We kind of had a weird vibe on each other.We toured together in 2004 and the first couple of days it was like, ‘Grrrr. This guy.’ But after like three days we became best friends and we’ve been incredibly close ever since."
So Jack and Andrew said yes, and a band was born :D Nate is the main lyricist of most of their songs and composes without actually playing any instruments, and Jack and Andrew - with the help of like, an orchestra, idk, their songs are all bursting with instruments - bring the music to life.
They released their album Aim and Ignite which you can listen to for free here, or download from iTunes here, or download less legally from mediafire here, but if you do, please be nice and find some way to support the band.
They went on a couple of US tours and a UK tour and in 2009 they collaborated on two songs with Panic! at the Disco, one of which - C'mon - was released earlier this year (Free stream, buy from iTunes, download from mediafire).
In the summer of 2010 fun. signed with Fueled By Ramen (Nate's announcement). fun. are currently on tour opening for Panic and I believe we are happy about that :D
OKAY SO THAT WAS THE INTRO. Let's look at the boys. I have a disproportionately large amount of information about Jack, so sorry for that, even though he's awesome so I'm not really sorry at all.
Nate Ruess:
Nate is from Pheonix, Arizona. His name rhymes with moose. He used to be in The Format, an indie band from, well, Arizona, with his best friend Sam Means, who remained a close friend even after the band broke up. He sings and composes and writes songs without playing any instruments. He used to write emotional posts with a million ellipses but has since learned how to both capitalize and punctuate! Because clearly he is now in a good place in his life. He's the band's frontman, he loves the band and the fans, if he were a Crayola crayon he would be dolphin green and he would love to collaborate with Mozart.
He also loves showing his ankles a lot.
He used to have long hair!
He does not anymore.
He like bopping around onstage barefoot
and has kind of knobbly knees
and is really mostly knobbly all over
well, not always.
ANYWAY I cannot keep up this pretense of wit, here are more photos of Nate being cute:
(that's Andrew in the background with the flugelhorn. We'll get to that.)
Next up -- Andrew Dost:
Andrew is from Michigan. I know nothing about his family, but on his winter trip home he blogged about hanging out with his dad in the snow and his brother playing pond-hockey and turning bushels of apples into applesauce and turning a 20-pound yam into fries, and it all sounds very wholesome.
He used to be in the band Anathallo, whose music I listened to today and it's pretty unique and heavily instrumental and captivating, and apparently they were a very cuddly bunch:
(top row, second from the right)
(top right)
He plays a ton of instruments, including the aforementioned flugelhorn and glockenspiel.
This is a flugelhorn. Okay, yes, I just enjoy saying that word. I bet that's the only reason he picked it up in the first place.
A few years ago he wrote a musical called Columbus which is pretty bad (unless it was supposed to be deeply ironic), though I do always appreciate a man's affinity for musical theater, and also the fact that he knows it needs lots of revision and has actually put it up on an online wiki so people can edit and improve.
He is also a tall and gangly awkward DORK.
(bonus Nate!ankles!)
"I was a teenage grilled cheese"
And also the geek of the bunch, represent:
Apparently he dressed up for the Harry Potter movie. Also he has a tumblr where he posts things like Frasier comics and quotes Hark! A Vagrant and writes articles about how to build a robot that doesn't do anything from household materials.
When he is not being weird and dorky, Andrew enjoys being hot:
\o/
AND NOW:
Jack Antonoff:
Jack is 26, lives in New Jersey, and plays in the band Steel Train. His favorite movie is Noises Off, and the theme of his bar mitzvah when he was 14 was Star Wars. He can juggle and has a borderline ability to speak Hebrew.
GUYS. I mean pfffft, like whatever, I don't care, what, you know, I am utterly casual about this information la la la la.
Ahem. ANYWAY. Jack is the frontman of Steel Train, whose members met at Solomon Shechter Day School in New Jersey (but not the same Solomon Shechter that Gabe Saporta went to. Yes, I checked.) Steel Train has released 3 albums so far, and are still touring; he alternates between bands and both bands are big fans of the other.
Jack is very fiercely and actively a women's and LGBT ally. After 8th grade he went to a public school for the first time where he was bullied for two years, after which he transferred to a performing arts school in Manhattan where he was one of two straight boys in class and where he felt like he was, in a way, "saved by gay people". If I had the time, I would quote this entire afterellen interview with him here, and I don't but you should read it anyway. It's about him being a ~lesbro~ because he is a dude with lots of lesbian friends and it really is awesome and refreshing, hearing a band guy articulate an attitude that a lot of times we like to characterize bandom guys as having in a very self-aware way.
Highlights include: "I'm "straight," but in no way am I a zero on the Kinsey scale." :D
The interview was written by his friend Lindsey Byrnes, who is(/was?) also the girlfriend of Tegan from Tegan & Sara.
Jack and Lindsey
From everything I've been able to gather, it's all genuine. Steel Train has a set of pro gay rights official t-shirts. Jack (and respectively, his two bands) blogs and reblogs about LGBT/women's issues, stuff like helping raise money for an kid who started a GSA club at his school, or reblogging raising awareness, or whatever. Jack is an OKAY GUY is what I'm saying.
frequently worn Go Marriage Equality tee
What more about Jack? He was punched in the face by a clown when he was 11 and wrote a really thoughtful blog post about it. In 2007 he was in a really rough patch after one of his sisters died, his cousin was killed in Iraq, and he went through a bad break-up; he picked himself up by writing Steel Train's second album, Trampoline. He's written a long post about the entire history of Steel Train for NJ Underground, which might be interesting to anyone interested in the formation stories of baby bands and how they grow up. He used to have a Jewfro:
Before he turned into that dude whose name I bet you knew was Rick Moranis:
His high school sweetheart was Scarlett Johansson:
After they broke up he wrote a bitter song about her, but it looks like they're on okay terms, given that she contributed to the female artists cover album of Steel Train's third record. Yeah, that happened, and I listened to it today and it's pretty great. Other contributing artists were Tegan and Sara, Amanda Palmer, Greta Morgan and Gold Motel, and a bunch of others. (Secret download link here.)
He also used to date Alia Shawkat from Arrested Development and whip It, so clearly he has good taste.
K, more picture time:
Jack with Steel Train
Jack being contemplative
Jack being scary
etc etc etc
And oh, yeah. Jack has a sister, Rachel:
Rachel is a fashion designer and a writer who's also recorded some songs with assorted friends, and also contributed a Steel Train cover to the female artists album. She also happens to be dating Nate Ruess.
Rachel, Nate and Jack.
Next up (and very last):
Emily Moore
Okay, all I know about Emily is that she's one of fun.'s touring musicians, playing guitar and piano, and that she is extremely pretty *____*. She's also a yet unsigned independent musician, whose music can be found at her myspace, and it's folksy and really pretty. If I'm not mistaken she also recorded the female vocals on fun,'s album.
Oh wait, I do know something about her. From Andrew:
"Emily (keys/guitar) and I were racing up the stairs. Jack yelled "Trip her!" I was in the middle of yelling "I'M A GENTLEMAN AND WOULD NEVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT!" When Emily tripped on her own and gave herself this wicked bruise. Okay, so I didn't yell that, but Emily seriously tripped on her own."
We can has anecdote :D Okay, now pics:
......yeah.
OH WAIT wrong redhead.
Yeah, so she's a redhead now.
Emily and Hayley Williams from Paramore.
Emily and Jack.
OKAY I HAVE EXHAUSTED MY IMAGE BANK. Of individual photos. This is what they all look like together yay:
they are seriously the epitome of cool.
lol Andrew. Notice also that Nate's ankles are covered in exactly zero of these photos.
And we are almost done! Just one thing left:
The Bandom Connection
Panic! at the Dicso:
[band dude I don't remember and] Nate and Brendon backstage at one of new!Panic's first shows in February 2011
So Panic! and fun., other than having punctuation issues in common, are also huge fanboys of one another :D When fun.'s album first came out its theatricality was compared to Panic, to which Nate responded that he's taking it as a compliment because he knows Brendon and Spencer and they are awesome dudes. He's also incredibly jealous of Brendon's vocal range, but says that if they had to go head to head he'd just have to train for a week and then crush him.
Panic, meanwhile, learned about fun. in the summer of 2009:
Any bands you'd reccommend?
Brendon: Yeah, actually, we've been on a kick right now, Spence actually opened me up to a band called fun.
Spencer: Opened you wide up.
Brendon: Opened me so wide.
Video here, question asked at 8:50. Warning: you might not be able to concentrate after watching Spencer Smith at maximum hotness oh my god and flirting and hearteyes and so much pretty hair.
Uh, where was I. OH YES. Courtesy of the amazing starafar, here is a collection of mutually fanboying tweets:
ournameisfun: @thespencersmith @brendonuriesays sweatpants are a go! GGGBNHB.
ournameisfun: Trust me! @brendonuriesays has the best voice I've heard in forever. Not fishing. Just spitting science. Unreal musician too. Wow. An honor.
andrewdost: @Brendonuriesays i agree with @ournameisfun's last post. I wish I was still there. Kill it!
ournameisfun: Day two of bragging about how amazing @panicatthedisco is...@spencersmith is without a doubt one of the best drummers around. So musical.
brendonuriesays: I love @ournameisfun so hard. looking forward to more hangs very soon.
ournameisfun: Actually @brendonuriesays, The good news is that we all get to see "wicked" in NYC next week. And then we will have our way w you. Sexually.
brendonuriesays: @ournameisfun wicked.
ournameisfun: @brendonuriesays Very comical that you're sitting 2 feet from me and you can't say it to my face. I'll punch Spence again if this keeps up.
brendonuriesays: @ournameisfun prove it. let's go fist pumping later.
ournameisfun: @brendonuriesays still no real dialogue. That's fine. If you're not a "guido" (I say that in the most pc way) than I don't care to know you.
This next lot is from when Panic. flew to NY to hang with fun.:
ournameisfun: It's only been like 3 days and 3000 miles, but I am super pumped to see @brendonuriesays and @thespencersmith on our turf.
ournameisfun: @brendonuriesays things got a little out of hand. But we survived with nothing but a scratch (some might say bunt).
brendonuriesays: @ournameisfun haha next time we might not be so lucky.
also: ournameisfun: Decided we are gonna make @thespencersmith and @brendonuriesays honorary members of fun. It's like that whole sainthood thing..but cooler.
This was during Spencer's twitter hiatus, which is why no tweets from him at the time. Also there were a few @steeltrain (Jack) tweets about Panic, but I don't have them.
Finally, if you look at Panic's liner notes for Vices and Virtues, you can see that they thank (sorry for quoting the whole thing, I just like it lots :D): Zack and Carol Hall (luuuv you), Shane and Regan for their endless encouragement, John “Feldy” Feldmann for both musical and spiritual contributions, Pete, Rob “Babay!” Mathes, Butch Walker and Jake Sinclair (the Ambiguously Great Duo), J.D., Scott, Bob and everyone at Crush, Sam and Dave, everyone at Decaydance, Fueled By Ramen and Atlantic Records, Dallon and the Weekes family, Ian and the Crawford family, Shane and Vicki, The Plasticines, Jack and Rachel and the Antonoffs, Nate Ruess, Steve MacDonald and family, the Espinosa family, the Cohen family, Ryan Gottshall and Spencer Hoad, Ryan Ross, Jon Walker, and the most passionate people in the world: our fans.
So. All you guys going to shows and getting to experience both bands in one evening, be on the lookout for more interaction :-)
ETA: SO APPARENTLY YESTERDAY THEY PERFORMED C'MON TOGETHER:
...I love this video. Spencer in the background, how great their voices sound, Brendon's tiny little smile at 3:00, Brendon headbanging along to the keyboard, and Brendon and Nate's huuug at the end :D Keep it coming, boys.
Greta from The Hush Sound:
Rachel, Greta, Jack and Nate
The Hush Sound had toured with Steel Train, and as we said, both Greta and her new band Gold Motel contributed covers for the Steel Train cover album.
The Like:
So Rachel Antonoff, Jack's sister, is apparently good friends with Tennessee and possibly the rest of The Like! In the time it took me to write this post she even tweeted Tennessee, clearly the sign of a true friendship. This year, she designed a dress and some shoes for a special spring collection that Tennessee modeled for. With kittens.
(entire shoot here)
The dress is now apparently called a tennessee dress if you google it; you can also sometimes see Tennessee wearing it herself.
Also, The Like played at one of Rachel's fashion shows earlier this year.
ALSO, I have no idea where this came from, but when Andrew listed his heroes in a blog post, they included both of his fellow band members and Tennessee Thomas.
The Young Veins:
Will Noon, who currently tours as fun.'s drummer, used to be The Young Veins' tour manager/merch guy. He can be found at @willnoon.
So... I think I might be done! omg. Last photo:
And linky time:
Official sites:
www.ournameisfun.com
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/fun
Official blog: http://www.myspace.com/fun/blog
Bio: http://ournameisfun.com/press/files/fun.bio.pdf (original link is broken)
Twitters: @ournameisfun, @steeltrain, @andrewdost
Real tumblrs:
Jack: http://terrible-thrills.tumblr.com/
Andrew: http://andrewdost.com/
Appreciation tumblrs:
http://fuckyeahjackantonoff.tumblr.com/
http://fuckyeahnateruess.tumblr.com/
http://fuckyeahandrewdost.tumblr.com/
Random interviews I have in open tabs that I didn't link to earlier:
Andrew interview
Jack: interview
Nate: interview
Nate interviews Hayley Williams
Videos:
Music video of All the Pretty Girls
Music video of Walking the Dog
(note that IMO these two songs are the poppiest and most standard of their album, and while they are very cute they're not my favorites -- some of their other songs are a lot more interesting :-))
Youtube playlist of their songs if you just want to listen in the background.
Wherein the boys paint pictures of one another for promotional posters
Behind the scenes of the Walking the Dog video
Andrew and Nate utterly fail to make a videoblog by doing it during drums soundcheck
Andrew and Nate answer fan questions
Official YouTube channel with a bunch of random dorky videos
I really didn't talk about their music, but like. You really should listen to it, it's awesome, sweeping and orchestral and so many songs build up to this big climactic moment of awesome, and some of the songs are just quiet with really great arrangements and melodies. They use a ton of different instruments and fill their songs with ear candy and Nate's voice is kind of Mika-ish and it's really fun and gentle and beautiful.
Oh, and last of all, fandom: as far as I know, it's non-existent, ficwise. Do with that what you will.
comments on Dreamwidth.
Andrew, Jack and Nate from fun. You know, that band that's opening for Panic! at the Disco on their US tour this summer, and have absolutely fantastic music besides.
NOTE: For the sake of my own sanity, whenever I end a sentence with the name of the band, I will use only one period. Because oh my god. THESE BANDS AND THEIR PUNCTUATION COMPLEXES.
NOTE 2: I've only been a fan of this band for about, like, a month, and I only did the research in the interest of making a primer, so I'm not claiming to be an expert by any means. Any corrections/new info would be appreciated :D
So, fun.:
The band is made up of three band members:
Nate Ruess - 28, vocals, lead lyricist, from Arizona. Formerly of the band The Format, which broke up in 2008.
Andrew Dost - 27, vocals, piano, keyboard, trumpet, flugelhorn, glockenspiel, from Michigan, formerly of the band Anathallo which he left in 2006.
Jack Antonoff - 26, guitar, from New Jersey, also currently in the band Steel Train where he's the vocalist/songwriter. Being in both bands means that Jack doesn't always tour with fun.
From left to right: Andrew, Nate and Jack.
They also have a bunch of touring musicians - Nate Harold on bass, Will Noon on drums, and Emily Moore on guitar and keyboard.
fun. was formed by Nate in 2008. You can read his version of the story at the blog post he wrote here, but to sum up: a day or two after his previous band, The Format, broke up, he picked up some songs he'd written but needed help with and made calls to two musicians he knew and loved: Andrew Dost and Jack Antonoff.
Nate knew Andrew from back when Andrew's former band had toured with The Format. Andrew had also played keyboard for The Format for a while. Nate thought Andrew was extremely awesome: "I remember being on tour with him and just being blown away at his ability to play almost every instrument with ease, sometimes switching from singing and playing the glockenspiel to playing the piano and flugelhorn (all mid-song!!!) (oh and I just read that last sentence back to myself and it reads like something out of the renaissance fair pamphlet). On that tour we spent many nights bonding over our love for Weezer b-sides, among many other things."
They spent the nights bonding over Wheezer b-sides! SO THAT'S WHAT THE KIDS ARE CALLING IT THESE DAYS.
The other call he made was to Jack Antonoff, whose band Steel Train had toured with The Format a while back. The first time Nate had ever met Jack at a concert in New Jersey, they each thought the other was an arrogant asshole. Jack used to be all "Grrr, this guy" over Nate, for reals: “Me and Nate used to hate each other. But some of the people I end up liking the most in life I start out hating. We kind of had a weird vibe on each other.We toured together in 2004 and the first couple of days it was like, ‘Grrrr. This guy.’ But after like three days we became best friends and we’ve been incredibly close ever since."
So Jack and Andrew said yes, and a band was born :D Nate is the main lyricist of most of their songs and composes without actually playing any instruments, and Jack and Andrew - with the help of like, an orchestra, idk, their songs are all bursting with instruments - bring the music to life.
They released their album Aim and Ignite which you can listen to for free here, or download from iTunes here, or download less legally from mediafire here, but if you do, please be nice and find some way to support the band.
They went on a couple of US tours and a UK tour and in 2009 they collaborated on two songs with Panic! at the Disco, one of which - C'mon - was released earlier this year (Free stream, buy from iTunes, download from mediafire).
In the summer of 2010 fun. signed with Fueled By Ramen (Nate's announcement). fun. are currently on tour opening for Panic and I believe we are happy about that :D
OKAY SO THAT WAS THE INTRO. Let's look at the boys. I have a disproportionately large amount of information about Jack, so sorry for that, even though he's awesome so I'm not really sorry at all.
Nate Ruess:
Nate is from Pheonix, Arizona. His name rhymes with moose. He used to be in The Format, an indie band from, well, Arizona, with his best friend Sam Means, who remained a close friend even after the band broke up. He sings and composes and writes songs without playing any instruments. He used to write emotional posts with a million ellipses but has since learned how to both capitalize and punctuate! Because clearly he is now in a good place in his life. He's the band's frontman, he loves the band and the fans, if he were a Crayola crayon he would be dolphin green and he would love to collaborate with Mozart.
He also loves showing his ankles a lot.
He used to have long hair!
He does not anymore.
He like bopping around onstage barefoot
and has kind of knobbly knees
and is really mostly knobbly all over
well, not always.
ANYWAY I cannot keep up this pretense of wit, here are more photos of Nate being cute:
(that's Andrew in the background with the flugelhorn. We'll get to that.)
Next up -- Andrew Dost:
Andrew is from Michigan. I know nothing about his family, but on his winter trip home he blogged about hanging out with his dad in the snow and his brother playing pond-hockey and turning bushels of apples into applesauce and turning a 20-pound yam into fries, and it all sounds very wholesome.
He used to be in the band Anathallo, whose music I listened to today and it's pretty unique and heavily instrumental and captivating, and apparently they were a very cuddly bunch:
(top row, second from the right)
(top right)
He plays a ton of instruments, including the aforementioned flugelhorn and glockenspiel.
This is a flugelhorn. Okay, yes, I just enjoy saying that word. I bet that's the only reason he picked it up in the first place.
A few years ago he wrote a musical called Columbus which is pretty bad (unless it was supposed to be deeply ironic), though I do always appreciate a man's affinity for musical theater, and also the fact that he knows it needs lots of revision and has actually put it up on an online wiki so people can edit and improve.
He is also a tall and gangly awkward DORK.
(bonus Nate!ankles!)
"I was a teenage grilled cheese"
And also the geek of the bunch, represent:
Apparently he dressed up for the Harry Potter movie. Also he has a tumblr where he posts things like Frasier comics and quotes Hark! A Vagrant and writes articles about how to build a robot that doesn't do anything from household materials.
When he is not being weird and dorky, Andrew enjoys being hot:
\o/
AND NOW:
Jack Antonoff:
Jack is 26, lives in New Jersey, and plays in the band Steel Train. His favorite movie is Noises Off, and the theme of his bar mitzvah when he was 14 was Star Wars. He can juggle and has a borderline ability to speak Hebrew.
GUYS. I mean pfffft, like whatever, I don't care, what, you know, I am utterly casual about this information la la la la.
Ahem. ANYWAY. Jack is the frontman of Steel Train, whose members met at Solomon Shechter Day School in New Jersey (but not the same Solomon Shechter that Gabe Saporta went to. Yes, I checked.) Steel Train has released 3 albums so far, and are still touring; he alternates between bands and both bands are big fans of the other.
Jack is very fiercely and actively a women's and LGBT ally. After 8th grade he went to a public school for the first time where he was bullied for two years, after which he transferred to a performing arts school in Manhattan where he was one of two straight boys in class and where he felt like he was, in a way, "saved by gay people". If I had the time, I would quote this entire afterellen interview with him here, and I don't but you should read it anyway. It's about him being a ~lesbro~ because he is a dude with lots of lesbian friends and it really is awesome and refreshing, hearing a band guy articulate an attitude that a lot of times we like to characterize bandom guys as having in a very self-aware way.
Highlights include: "I'm "straight," but in no way am I a zero on the Kinsey scale." :D
The interview was written by his friend Lindsey Byrnes, who is(/was?) also the girlfriend of Tegan from Tegan & Sara.
Jack and Lindsey
From everything I've been able to gather, it's all genuine. Steel Train has a set of pro gay rights official t-shirts. Jack (and respectively, his two bands) blogs and reblogs about LGBT/women's issues, stuff like helping raise money for an kid who started a GSA club at his school, or reblogging raising awareness, or whatever. Jack is an OKAY GUY is what I'm saying.
frequently worn Go Marriage Equality tee
What more about Jack? He was punched in the face by a clown when he was 11 and wrote a really thoughtful blog post about it. In 2007 he was in a really rough patch after one of his sisters died, his cousin was killed in Iraq, and he went through a bad break-up; he picked himself up by writing Steel Train's second album, Trampoline. He's written a long post about the entire history of Steel Train for NJ Underground, which might be interesting to anyone interested in the formation stories of baby bands and how they grow up. He used to have a Jewfro:
Before he turned into that dude whose name I bet you knew was Rick Moranis:
His high school sweetheart was Scarlett Johansson:
After they broke up he wrote a bitter song about her, but it looks like they're on okay terms, given that she contributed to the female artists cover album of Steel Train's third record. Yeah, that happened, and I listened to it today and it's pretty great. Other contributing artists were Tegan and Sara, Amanda Palmer, Greta Morgan and Gold Motel, and a bunch of others. (Secret download link here.)
He also used to date Alia Shawkat from Arrested Development and whip It, so clearly he has good taste.
K, more picture time:
Jack with Steel Train
Jack being contemplative
Jack being scary
etc etc etc
And oh, yeah. Jack has a sister, Rachel:
Rachel is a fashion designer and a writer who's also recorded some songs with assorted friends, and also contributed a Steel Train cover to the female artists album. She also happens to be dating Nate Ruess.
Rachel, Nate and Jack.
Next up (and very last):
Emily Moore
Okay, all I know about Emily is that she's one of fun.'s touring musicians, playing guitar and piano, and that she is extremely pretty *____*. She's also a yet unsigned independent musician, whose music can be found at her myspace, and it's folksy and really pretty. If I'm not mistaken she also recorded the female vocals on fun,'s album.
Oh wait, I do know something about her. From Andrew:
"Emily (keys/guitar) and I were racing up the stairs. Jack yelled "Trip her!" I was in the middle of yelling "I'M A GENTLEMAN AND WOULD NEVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT!" When Emily tripped on her own and gave herself this wicked bruise. Okay, so I didn't yell that, but Emily seriously tripped on her own."
We can has anecdote :D Okay, now pics:
......yeah.
OH WAIT wrong redhead.
Yeah, so she's a redhead now.
Emily and Hayley Williams from Paramore.
Emily and Jack.
OKAY I HAVE EXHAUSTED MY IMAGE BANK. Of individual photos. This is what they all look like together yay:
they are seriously the epitome of cool.
lol Andrew. Notice also that Nate's ankles are covered in exactly zero of these photos.
And we are almost done! Just one thing left:
The Bandom Connection
Panic! at the Dicso:
[band dude I don't remember and] Nate and Brendon backstage at one of new!Panic's first shows in February 2011
So Panic! and fun., other than having punctuation issues in common, are also huge fanboys of one another :D When fun.'s album first came out its theatricality was compared to Panic, to which Nate responded that he's taking it as a compliment because he knows Brendon and Spencer and they are awesome dudes. He's also incredibly jealous of Brendon's vocal range, but says that if they had to go head to head he'd just have to train for a week and then crush him.
Panic, meanwhile, learned about fun. in the summer of 2009:
Any bands you'd reccommend?
Brendon: Yeah, actually, we've been on a kick right now, Spence actually opened me up to a band called fun.
Spencer: Opened you wide up.
Brendon: Opened me so wide.
Video here, question asked at 8:50. Warning: you might not be able to concentrate after watching Spencer Smith at maximum hotness oh my god and flirting and hearteyes and so much pretty hair.
Uh, where was I. OH YES. Courtesy of the amazing starafar, here is a collection of mutually fanboying tweets:
ournameisfun: @thespencersmith @brendonuriesays sweatpants are a go! GGGBNHB.
ournameisfun: Trust me! @brendonuriesays has the best voice I've heard in forever. Not fishing. Just spitting science. Unreal musician too. Wow. An honor.
andrewdost: @Brendonuriesays i agree with @ournameisfun's last post. I wish I was still there. Kill it!
ournameisfun: Day two of bragging about how amazing @panicatthedisco is...@spencersmith is without a doubt one of the best drummers around. So musical.
brendonuriesays: I love @ournameisfun so hard. looking forward to more hangs very soon.
ournameisfun: Actually @brendonuriesays, The good news is that we all get to see "wicked" in NYC next week. And then we will have our way w you. Sexually.
brendonuriesays: @ournameisfun wicked.
ournameisfun: @brendonuriesays Very comical that you're sitting 2 feet from me and you can't say it to my face. I'll punch Spence again if this keeps up.
brendonuriesays: @ournameisfun prove it. let's go fist pumping later.
ournameisfun: @brendonuriesays still no real dialogue. That's fine. If you're not a "guido" (I say that in the most pc way) than I don't care to know you.
This next lot is from when Panic. flew to NY to hang with fun.:
ournameisfun: It's only been like 3 days and 3000 miles, but I am super pumped to see @brendonuriesays and @thespencersmith on our turf.
ournameisfun: @brendonuriesays things got a little out of hand. But we survived with nothing but a scratch (some might say bunt).
brendonuriesays: @ournameisfun haha next time we might not be so lucky.
also: ournameisfun: Decided we are gonna make @thespencersmith and @brendonuriesays honorary members of fun. It's like that whole sainthood thing..but cooler.
This was during Spencer's twitter hiatus, which is why no tweets from him at the time. Also there were a few @steeltrain (Jack) tweets about Panic, but I don't have them.
Finally, if you look at Panic's liner notes for Vices and Virtues, you can see that they thank (sorry for quoting the whole thing, I just like it lots :D): Zack and Carol Hall (luuuv you), Shane and Regan for their endless encouragement, John “Feldy” Feldmann for both musical and spiritual contributions, Pete, Rob “Babay!” Mathes, Butch Walker and Jake Sinclair (the Ambiguously Great Duo), J.D., Scott, Bob and everyone at Crush, Sam and Dave, everyone at Decaydance, Fueled By Ramen and Atlantic Records, Dallon and the Weekes family, Ian and the Crawford family, Shane and Vicki, The Plasticines, Jack and Rachel and the Antonoffs, Nate Ruess, Steve MacDonald and family, the Espinosa family, the Cohen family, Ryan Gottshall and Spencer Hoad, Ryan Ross, Jon Walker, and the most passionate people in the world: our fans.
So. All you guys going to shows and getting to experience both bands in one evening, be on the lookout for more interaction :-)
ETA: SO APPARENTLY YESTERDAY THEY PERFORMED C'MON TOGETHER:
Click to view
...I love this video. Spencer in the background, how great their voices sound, Brendon's tiny little smile at 3:00, Brendon headbanging along to the keyboard, and Brendon and Nate's huuug at the end :D Keep it coming, boys.
Greta from The Hush Sound:
Rachel, Greta, Jack and Nate
The Hush Sound had toured with Steel Train, and as we said, both Greta and her new band Gold Motel contributed covers for the Steel Train cover album.
The Like:
So Rachel Antonoff, Jack's sister, is apparently good friends with Tennessee and possibly the rest of The Like! In the time it took me to write this post she even tweeted Tennessee, clearly the sign of a true friendship. This year, she designed a dress and some shoes for a special spring collection that Tennessee modeled for. With kittens.
(entire shoot here)
The dress is now apparently called a tennessee dress if you google it; you can also sometimes see Tennessee wearing it herself.
Also, The Like played at one of Rachel's fashion shows earlier this year.
ALSO, I have no idea where this came from, but when Andrew listed his heroes in a blog post, they included both of his fellow band members and Tennessee Thomas.
The Young Veins:
Will Noon, who currently tours as fun.'s drummer, used to be The Young Veins' tour manager/merch guy. He can be found at @willnoon.
So... I think I might be done! omg. Last photo:
And linky time:
Official sites:
www.ournameisfun.com
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/fun
Official blog: http://www.myspace.com/fun/blog
Bio: http://ournameisfun.com/press/files/fun.bio.pdf (original link is broken)
Twitters: @ournameisfun, @steeltrain, @andrewdost
Real tumblrs:
Jack: http://terrible-thrills.tumblr.com/
Andrew: http://andrewdost.com/
Appreciation tumblrs:
http://fuckyeahjackantonoff.tumblr.com/
http://fuckyeahnateruess.tumblr.com/
http://fuckyeahandrewdost.tumblr.com/
Random interviews I have in open tabs that I didn't link to earlier:
Andrew interview
Jack: interview
Nate: interview
Nate interviews Hayley Williams
Videos:
Music video of All the Pretty Girls
Music video of Walking the Dog
(note that IMO these two songs are the poppiest and most standard of their album, and while they are very cute they're not my favorites -- some of their other songs are a lot more interesting :-))
Youtube playlist of their songs if you just want to listen in the background.
Wherein the boys paint pictures of one another for promotional posters
Behind the scenes of the Walking the Dog video
Andrew and Nate utterly fail to make a videoblog by doing it during drums soundcheck
Andrew and Nate answer fan questions
Official YouTube channel with a bunch of random dorky videos
I really didn't talk about their music, but like. You really should listen to it, it's awesome, sweeping and orchestral and so many songs build up to this big climactic moment of awesome, and some of the songs are just quiet with really great arrangements and melodies. They use a ton of different instruments and fill their songs with ear candy and Nate's voice is kind of Mika-ish and it's really fun and gentle and beautiful.
Oh, and last of all, fandom: as far as I know, it's non-existent, ficwise. Do with that what you will.
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