Interview: Frogbelly & Symphony go fishing for a day

Forgiveness and renewal melt with waxy swirls like a Dalí painting in Frogbelly & Symphony‘s new video. It’s not literal; bodies or outlined shapes don’t distort into Wonderland forms. Instead, “Benjamin Went Fishing” whips as a serpent’s forked tongue across a melody that pulls from Scottish Gaelic tradition and dark folk music. “He thinks about the world / It’s growing on his back,” singer-songwriter Liz Hanley jots down on the song’s most surrealist line. That, too, isn’t literal. It’s a metaphor for when guitarist Ben Trott left the band and then swam back to shore. “We were imagining Ben figuring out what he wanted out of life and how the weight of that might feel growing on his back,” Liz offers to B-Sides & Badlands over email. “When I sing it today, I think about the state of the world and the enormity of what we’re facing.”

Mining their devastation over Trott’s departure, bandmate Tom Hanley first erected the the satin-teased melody and structure, and Liz swooped in later to collaborate on the lyrics ⏤ initially calling upon an old fishing tune to kickstart the story. “I had trouble tracking down the rest of the song at the time, so [it’s a] mishmash of phonetic ideas,” she says, highlighting great influence by “Scottish and Irish tradition of mouth music or lilting. Mouth music resembles scat singing, in that it uses nonsense words to carry the tune.”

Trott later rejoined the band, and the joke became that “he hadn’t actually left, but he’d just ‘gone fishing.'”

That’s when the accompanying visual, cinematic and subtly Monty Python-esque, became a “search party for Ben,” quips Liz. The stylized piece wrings their emotions dry, letting the pain drip and soak back into the earthy, and their musicality drags a vibrant brush collection onto a remarkable canvas. Their music replenishes their bones, reigniting their commitment to each other, and beginning a new era.

Below, Liz Hanley dissects the video’s weirdly exuberant style, forgiveness, finding strength, and another new one-off cut called “The Jolly Grinder.” Frogbelly & Symphony eye a new album called Canis Major, expected later this year.

What did you learn from Trott leaving and returning to the band?

When someone leaves a team, everyone else steps in to figure out what’s needed to stay operational. Going through this process of reevaluation helped us realize what’s most important to us. When Ben came back, we were already working on being a stronger unit, and it was a joyous occasion to welcome him back!

How did things change between you?

We improved the way we communicate with each other and how we look after each other as friends and humans, as well as band members in a business sense. Before he left and after his return, Ben has especially impressed us with his kindness, modesty, and readiness to share these human aspects. And we learned to understand that better and reflect on it more often.

As human beings, why is forgiveness so hard for us?

When we forgive, we let go, and transcend the experience. When we don’t forgive, we hang on to the experience and keep the wound open. I think it’s easier for people to blame their pain on external circumstances, than to try to fix it from within. Most of the time when someone hurts us, they’re just projecting their own pain onto us. Pain is a familiar human experience. It can seem easier to hang onto pain. When we show compassion and love for others and talk through the pain, the other side is a beautiful place, and we’re much better equipped for the next time pains comes our way.

Has finding renewal and strength always been vital for you, not only as musicians but as people?

Yes, definitely! Juha Hansen, who’s in a way been a fifth band member in the background and who also made [this] video, helped us through a bit of an auditing process. Together with his partner Janitha, we assessed and evaluated what works and doesn’t work in our band communications and got crystal clear about our goals. We had regular “flashlights” where each member of the group spoke about how they were feeling in that moment. I think we’re all super resilient and sensitive people. This kind of process has greatly benefited us!

The song’s final chant is as if you’re singing a hymn and letting everything releasing from you. Would that be true?

“We come to make it over, we’ve come to let you go.” Absolutely. It’s a mantra of love, acceptance, and freedom.

In the music video, how does switching up traditional masculine and feminine attire play into the story – or was that just a fun aesthetic choice?

Thomas and I have talked a lot about gender fluidity and how inspired we are by the younger generations today who feel free to express themselves and the generations that came before who made it possible. You may already know that Thomas and I are partners. I often feel like our masculine and feminine energies balance each other out in non-traditional ways, and we like to play with that, aesthetically. Plus, I think Tommi looks fetching in a dress, don’t you?

You also have a new song called “The Jolly Grinder,” with splintering vocals cast in a live setting with some frenetic percussion. When and where was this recording captured?

For the intro, Thomas wheeled me around a microphone in a wheel barrow. We have an awesome group of friends in the neighborhood of Nether Edge in Sheffield. We all gather at Cafe #9, which is a gorgeous music cafe. It’s kinda like Cheers, “where everybody knows your name.” We enlisted as many neighbors as we could to join us in the chorus and stand around us as Thomas wheeled me around. They’ve since been dubbed The Nether Edge #9ers. From where the band kicks, that’s just [the band] with Manny Grimsley taking the vocal lead. Manny is a well known folk hero in the Sheffield Music scene. We met him on the same night that we met Ben and is a dear friend.”

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