David Fetzer and Patrick Fugit are pretty straight forward when asked to sum up their musical collaboration. It's a pretty abstract analysis; a perfect way to describe the band's uninhibited and imaginative sound. Even if orange juice isn't your thing, the music of Mushman has more than enough creativity to satisfy any listener's appetite. With colorfully subjective lyrics and instrumentals that play like the soundtrack to any one's life, Mushman's debut album Eddie Do is undoubtedly a fresh glass of a familiar taste.
Through a course of music best described as melodic folk laced with a healthy dose of sadness, Eddie Do is whimsical compilation of scenes from the life of a fictional kid. “Eddie is sort of a...um...metaphor for my neurosis in relation to girls. I think it’s manifested as a 6 year old boy – that’s my emotional maturity when it comes to dating.” The songs Fetzer has written about his adolescent alter-ego give the impression that Eddie has some issues. But Eddie’s girl troubles feign in comparison to the very personal predicament of one of the album’s more colorful characters, Pirate Pete. “I was going to school at Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan for acting and theater. I was in a production where I was playing a character that had syphilis and so I was in a strange mind-set during that production. There is a certain scene where he is loosing his mind and it was really messing with me. At the same time, my roommate had this figurine of a pirate with a provocative looking telescope... the two sort of combined and then I wrote the song.”
If Eddie Do sounds destined to be the musical companion to some very interesting cinema, it’s because it already is. The final instrumental, “Brennan’s Theme”, was included in the extremely well-reviewed soundtrack to Wristcutters: A Love Story, the recipient of the Grand Jury Feature Film award at the 11th annual Gen Art Film Fest. Patrick Fugit, who also stars in the movie, says the film and the theme were a perfect match.
“I had asked my friend Seth Bernard to do the score for a documentary I was filming about T. Casey Brennan and I just loved what he did. It captured this guy’s tragic and crazy side; the part of this dude who took way too much acid. We thought we should make it longer, so the version of the CD ended up a little different. I knew what the music for Wristcutters would be like because the director played it on the set. When I did Almost Famous Cameron Crowe would play the soundtrack on the set too, so I like working like that because it really helps. I was actually reading the last scene of Wristcutters to “Brennan’s Theme” in my trailer and I brought everyone in to listen to it and they were all pretty stoked.”
Mushman started when the self-taught duo recorded a demo for friends, but their material has grown exponentially since. Finished recording Eddie Do, they already have two new albums in the works. “I plan on going back to Michigan in the fall and by then I would like to have one of the two CDs we are recording now completed,” says Fugit. “We’ll have twelve songs in it - three songs a-piece given to a fictional character.” Alongside updates regarding Eddie, Mushman’s latest will play host to the soap operas of a spaceman, a strawberry, and a gnat. Till then, they can be found playing live in Utah, where they were a hit at the Sundance Film Fest in Park City earlier this year. The best way to chug your daily glass of OJ, however, is to check them out on myspace.com. The band’s site has biographical info and an ever-changing selection of sound clips. Drink up.
