Los Angeles punk and garage rock band Fidlar frontman Zac Carper and bassist Brandon Schwartzel developed a quasi-Christmas tradition while sharing an apartment. After their Thanksgiving celebrations, Schwartzel would deck the halls and everything else in their home to create a winter wonderland that would make any retail store after Halloween jealous.
The tradition quickly evolved into an idea for a Christmas-themed show dubbed “FIDmas,” which is slated for its second iteration at Pappy & Harriet’s in Pioneertown on Friday, Dec. 15. The event will include the band playing acoustic tunes, Christmas songs and some of their B-sides that are currently only available via YouTube.
“This all started because Brandon is obsessed with Christmas,” Carper said in a recent phone interview. “We started joking about doing a Christmas show and were like, let’s keep it small and grow it. Now, every time we do it, Brandon decorates the place all Christmassy.”
Fidlar will also hit the road next year with their own headlining shows and alongside Oliver Tree for his North American tour, which includes a stop at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles on Thursday, Feb. 15.
Christmas traditions are just one thing the band’s developed since they last released a full album in 2019. They dropped “That’s Life,” a loud and feral six-track EP in March. In true Fidlar fashion, it was inspired by a DMT ceremony that took place during the pandemic. It was later fortified at Rick Rubin’s famed Shangri-La studio in Malibu with the help of Dave Sardy, who has worked with artists like Spoon, LCD Soundsystem and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
“Shangri-La was in itself a crazy place, and the craziest part about it is that it’s a recording studio by the beach, which I’ve never experienced before,” Carper said. “We’re used to recording studios in dingy little holes or without windows. This felt more creative and more like us. Recording by the beach is a very Fidlar thing.”
The band has three full albums under their belt: the self-titled, full of booze and drug-driven party-anthems; “Too,” a consequential sobering insight of when the fun goes too far; “Almost Free,” a fuzzy funk and hip-hop trip into societal despair.
Each album experiments with different genres and sounds, and while every fan hasn’t always welcomed that, Carper noticed a change in the audience when “Too” debuted. He said audiences now skew younger and have more women present, which he attributes to the band’s more happy-sounding songs. The growing fanbase has felt vindicating to Carper, leading to more confidence in his artistic intuition.
“When I was writing ‘Too,’ I had 50 songs before the songs that came out on the record got written,” Carper said. “I felt like I was stuck in this trap of writing to sound like my first record, and once I realized that, I thought, ‘Wow, I sound like a Fidlar cover band right now.’ So I was like, I’m just going to dig deep and figure out what I want to write about. There will always be backlash when you change the sound, but I don’t write music for them. I write music for me.”
Although the band hasn’t released an album in the last couple of years, Carper said now that he’s sober, he feels less emotionally suppressed, making his songwriting that much more honest. He’s also found inspiration listening to indie rocker Alex G and taking note of his ability to release music consistently.
“When I was in my 20s, you couldn’t stop me from putting out music, but music is just a part of being a band,” Carper said. “The touring and the business of it (keeps you) very busy. So I have been going back to the basics and that, to me, is to write as many songs, put them out quickly and highlight the way we play live. Everything that we’ve been writing recently has been like, ‘OK, how do we make this feel awesome live?’”
Carper, a Slipknot, Korn and Deftones fan, said part of the fun of a live show comes down to his love of making and performing heavy music. Fidlar cut their teeth playing house shows and often channel the chaotic backyard show energy onto whatever stage will host them. The band wrapped up their UK tour with a sold-out show in Paris, where Carper said the FIDiots, a term of endearment the band uses to refer to its fans, showed up ready to party.
“It just kind of blew my mind that our music has translated to a different language,” Carper said. “I started asking the promoters, and they said they think it’s because France is having a big surf and garage punk revival right now. There’s a big surf community with pro surfers and surf shops in the beach towns.”
Fidlar’s more recent singles incorporate the familiar heaviness, but don’t make it the main focus. “Nudge,” “Move On” and “Get Free” gives longtime fans a nod with their signature heavy guitar riffs, but also include pop choruses and lyrics driven by the soul-searching struggles of people in their 20s and 30s. In contrast to their distortion-filled chord progressions, they also released “Unplug,” an EP comprising stripped down versions of several songs spanning their complete discography. A new single, “Orange County,” which focuses on the bittersweet feelings of unrealized dreams and breakups, will be released sometime next year.
“It’s kind of a story of running into a friend that doesn’t want to be in a band anymore,” Carper said. “It was heartbreaking to see somebody give up on their dreams, but at the same time, there was some kind of peace that he had where he was no longer fighting the fight and chasing the fame and success.”
While the band continues to disperse singles while out on tour, another full-length album may be on the horizon.
“(We’ll) either do a new album or just put out more music we’re sitting on,” Carper said. “But our favorite thing to do is to play shows. So right now, we just want to play more shows.”
Fidlar’s FIDmas
When: 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 15
Where: Pappy & Harriet’s, 53688 Pioneertown Road, Pioneertown
Tickets: $50.99 at pappyandharriets.com.
Also: 7 p.m. at the Hollywood Palladium, 6215 Sunset Blvd, Hollywood with Oliver Tree. Tickets start at $59.95 at Livenation.com
