Attila

Love 'em or hate 'em, Attila is a force to be reckoned with. The band continue to grow and prosper with each and every album they put out. Polarising as they may be, the band's success can not be put down to luck or happenstance - they are a band full of talented musicians who know how to reel in fans and are dead on the money with their target demographic. Frontman Chris Fronzak is easily the biggest reason for both the bands detest and admiration from audiences. His willingness to push buttons and poke the bear have made them a band that is constantly being brought up on social media for his comments or their antics. But speaking with the man himself, I was delighted to discover that he is actually an eloquent and charming man with a lot of poise in his speech and a lot of courtesy to others (he used manners long forgotten when someone handed him a drink mid-interview). We spoke of the band's latest and greatest record, 'Chaos' and also of the divisive lead single, 'Public Apology'. Oh, and of course memes were brought up. Because of course they fucking were.

Hey Fronz, how are you today? 

Great, man! How are you?

I'm good! You guys are in Kansas now as we speak, so how is this whole tour going for you?

This tour is going amazing. It’s cool because we’ve never played this many new songs live before. We’re playing all four singles and people are loving it. It’s awesome!

Why would you say you’ve never done that before?

Well typically we don’t like to play a lot of new songs because we like to give our fans time to settle in and learn the new songs and know the lyrics and get into it more. Because typically you get a better reaction when people are acquainted with the songs for a while then playing really brand new songs. But this time it’s really working! I definitely think we’ll be playing more new songs in the future much earlier. This is going so well and people are really enjoying it.

Ah, right, good to hear. Now my next question might sound confrontational but I assure you it’s not. But why the fuck you should I go buy ‘Chaos’?

I think you should go buy it because this is the most work we have ever put into an album before. Not saying we haven’t put effort into our other albums but with this, we really went above and beyond. It was a two-year process to write and record from the time we came up with ideas to the two months we spent recording the final product. We put so much time into it. When you make an album usually, you look back on it and you’ll find there are some songs you don’t “love”. But with ‘Chaos’ I love. Every. Single. Track.

[caption id="attachment_1088579" align="aligncenter" width="601"] Attila's new album, 'Chaos'.[/caption]

To me, the hardest part about this album was choosing which songs to release as singles because they’re all so good. I know I’m biased because it’s my music but taking myself out of my own shoes, I do believe this is the best album we have created. There are songs that are reminiscent of our first two records, songs that that sound like ‘About That Life’ and songs that are much heavier like ‘Guilty Pleasure’. It’s really a mix of everything we have ever done and more. I even do clean vocals on two tracks and we have bigger choruses. It’s next level. There’s no filler.

Great sell! Speaking of singles, in regards to ‘Public Apology’ I found that it really wasn’t as “shocking” as I thought it would be. I hear words like “shit” and “cunt” all the time here so it felt a little paper thin I guess. Did you think that those would actually generate a buzz or was it more just the overall message of the song that was the focus?

Well, I think you kind of answered your question right there. You’re Australian and down there, it is a totally different ball game to the rest of the world. You guys are the least butt hurt country out there! You have a sense of sarcasm and you know that words are just words. I don’t think people in Australia would let a song offend them. But those words do offend people over here. Trust me! It’s crazy, and that’s the point of the song. I say those words and people get offended by everything. I was giving in to what everyone already thinks and telling them that we aren’t the problem; they are. They’re just words. Speaking to an Australian, you don’t get offended by words but that is such a big thing here in America. People get butt hurt by everything and it’s like walking on eggshells over here!

There are certain words of course like the N-Word that you shouldn’t say due to its history and it’s potential to be derogatory. I have black friends who call me that and I’m not offended by that because it isn’t my place to be offended by that word. But by no means is that something I would say in our music or would I ever call someone that. I can see how to some people it is just a bad word that they don’t mean, like how I say bad words but don’t mean them. Yet I do think that might be the one word that is crossing the line.

Agreed. One of my last questions I want to ask is in regards to you and your Fronzilla page. I’ve noticed that over time it’s become kind of like a Unilad, SoFlo page that rehashes meme content. When did it sort of become that and do you think it’s a merited way to grow followers and likes - that resharing of memes?

So pretty much I’ve always liked that kind of stuff. It’s like the candy of the internet. It’s delicious and you can never have enough of it. I’ve always liked that type of content personally, so the way I see it, I just didn’t use my Facebook before. I was neglecting it and even still I had two-hundred thousand likes and I never even used it. My friend hit me up one day and was just like, “Hey, what do you think about trying to grow your page? Let’s make it huge and post funny stuff.” I was down for that, and it kind of just blew up. Over the course of less than a year it went up to a million likes. I do enjoy it, and it’s content I enjoy personally. But I’ve never been very personal on Facebook, so if my fans want to connect with me they can follow my Snapchat or my Twitter or Instagram. It really just came down to my friends and I saying: “Let’s blow it up!”

“Blow it up to a million likes”, he says casually.

[Laughs] Hell yeah! Why wouldn’t we?

[Laughs] Awesome, Fronz. Hey, thank you so much for your time today. Also, best of luck for the rest of the tour and on the album's release!

Thanks so much, Matty. Have an awesome day!

'Chaos' is out now, and you can read our review of the new record here.