We were fortunate to meet Fallon Bowman on February 9th, 2022! She is an alternative artist who has rocked for over 30 years. And this is our 30th #BRUTalk.
Our interview covers everything from her newest Amphibious Assault concept album and Kittie to acting. Thanks again, Fallon and you out there for tuning in! Much love.
INTRO | CREATIVITY | BACKGROUND
This is Nicole Kali with
Fallon
Bowman, Black Rockers United. And we've reached out to the alternative diaspora
since 2006 with a feeling that rockers like us needed it.
And we revisit what Black History means once again with our special guest:
Fallon! Welcome to #BRUTV.
Fallon: Hey! Thank you for having me.
NK: Yes, the pleasure is all ours, Fallon! How are you doing? [Laughs]
Fallon: Uhhh, doing well, doing okay...you know, considering what's going on in
the world. I'm surviving. I can't ask for more than that, honestly, at this
point so yeah [laughs].
NK: [Laughs] I hear that, sister. You know, we're here, we're still surviving
and we're rocking most importantly.
Fallon: Yeah! That's the most important thing.
NK: Yes, Happy New Year by the way!
Fallon: Oh, same to you. It's literally February, it's insane.
NK: It's February, it's almost halfway through, like time is just zooming on us,
right?
Fallon: Right? This is insane. I was just dreading 2022 for a while 'cause I'm
just like "Jesus. What else is gonna be thrown at us this year?" But so far,
I've been cautiously saying it's okay.
NK: Tentatively can agree that this is a cool year.
Fallon: Tentatively, yeah, exactly!
NK: Can I just take a moment to also say that this means so much to be talking
to you right now? Thank you.
Fallon: Thank YOU, thank you for having me again, like really—it's, I'm
surprised that people even give a shit really! [laughs] I'm like 'Oh, really,
you wanna talk to me? I don't know!' Uh, 'sure'!
NK: No, absolutely, Fallon! Like it's essential that we hear your story because
you're one of the most prominent rockers of the last 30 years! You know, like,
when you look at your discography and your impact on metal, it's that—that big.
Fallon: Oh, well! [Hype] Love it, thank you. But yes, thank you, that means a
lot.
NK: Yes, and every time we reflect on the last three years especially with the
pandemic and their impact on us as people—as creative people and artists—you
know, I think we all deserve a lot more respect and props so props to Fallon.
Okaaay?
Fallon: I mean, I had some people reach
out to me, saying like "How are you able to be creative in this time? It's so
difficult to gather up the courage and gather up the, like, muster up the
courage to do this kind of work at this time 'cause it's just so unpredictable.
And I'm like you know what? "I don't know how either!" Some days I'm just really
productive—I don't know, TikTok has convinced me that I have ADHD. And my dad
likely has it as well so that's probably where it comes from.
But like, I can be incredibly productive for just a
short period of time. And then I'm like 'Okay, I don't wanna do this anymore'.
And then I'll take like, a little time off so like, that's how my music, like,
productivity goes. So I mean, it has an impact, certainly but anyways, tangent!
NK: That is relevant. You know what I mean, like, I love hearing how
your creative process works with the way that you think as well because they're,
it's connected!
And you can only do things in short bursts because that's how long your
attention span lasts, right? Yeah.
Fallon: Yeah, you should see, like—I'm collecting hobbies like
it's going out of style. And I never realized that that's like a problem or a
thing or like, a part of a...
When I find people on TikTok that are like "I do that too!", I'm like "Really? I
don't feel so alone!" [Laughs]
NK: [Laughs too]
Fallon: I'm like 'Maybe I need to do knitting! Maybe I need to
do crocheting! Maybe I need to do this!' I have all this shit sitting there, and
I have never touched it.
NK: So busy, right? Like that's also the thing: where does the time come
from for these things?
Fallon: Oh no, there's no time. No, no time.
NK: So like, that leads us to not necessarily a hobby but your latest
musical project which you're the mastermind of:
Amphibious Assault!
Fallon: Yay!
NK: All right! And that's our kind of futuristic electro-punk. That's
our style. So how did you—from Kittie and then from Pigface—how did you find
yourself in
Amphibious Assault, making this really cool futuristic music?
Fallon: I think my love affair with uhh, synthesis in general
and just like, working with synthesizers (and not just strictly starting on a
guitar, which was how I did it previously) started probably at the end of 2000,
maybe mid-2000 into 2001?
And so I started kind of thinking about how I could do—either incorporate that
into the next album for Kittie or something like that, like, the thought was in
my mind. But it certainly was not something that I could bring to the table at
that time because it was just like...
Genre-wise was not what we were at all which I fully understand now, but at
the time, I didn't so I kind of kept it for myself. And then I ended up leaving
the band anyways. So then I'm like 'Okay, I have these ideas!'
I didn't have any synths or anything at that time yet but I was able to get some
and then start actually writing stuff later on after I left. So started in the
end of 2001 after I had a deep depression.
And then I came out of that...and then
out of that came the building blocks of what became
District Six, which is my
first release in 2003. That was in, like, the very beginning.
NK: That's incredible, Fallon, that's almost 20 years ago when you decided to do
this—this particular style.
Fallon: I think it's also cool too that I was still a teenager when I was doing
that, right? Like I was still—so I had two albums, well, actually three.
NK: Three?
Fallon: Four—four albums, like if you count
Kittie's EP's, one, two, three,
that's four before I even hit 20. I didn't think about that until recently. I
was like 'Holy shit, okay. I was really cool when I was a teenager!' Not [like
I'm not] cool anymore but I was cool then.
NK: Yes.
Fallon: So there's that...which is super-cool, so yeah! Then I came out with
On
Better Days and Sin-Eatings which came out in 2007. And I said that I was never
gonna do Amphibious Assault again. I was going to kind of go more
kinda rock-y and
maybe do a little more metal-y stuff like faster stuff! The metal stuff didn't
happen but the rock-y stuff did.
I had a band called Fallon and the Grace Dynasty which was myself, my roommate
and a couple of other guys that we got together. And okay, let me tell you: when
I was in
Kittie, obviously we were children so we didn't party, and we didn't
get like crazy whatever.
But like, when I was in the Grace Dynasty, I was in my twenties, I was fuckin'
crazy—like, CRAZY! We would get drunk and it was, it was a fucking party all the
time. It—oh my God, I was thinking about it today, like that was so much fun
because like, we would have band practice.
And then we would be like "Fuck it, let's go out for a rip" and just get drunk
as always! Like that was truly the rock and roll experience that I never had
before, and it was...ah, it
was great. So—not that I'm advocating that, kids! Don't go out and do that.
Okay? I was, I was 25—24. You know, don't go out and do that. Just be safe but I
was not so there it is.
NK: [Laughs] That's the story of rock-'n-roll though. Know what I mean? Like,
now we can advocate doing it safer. But like, when we were rocking, when we were
that age, oh, we went all out! That was the time to do it.
Fallon: Yeah, it was great!
NK: And that was the place to do it.
Fallon: So—oh my God, there were so many shows that we would play with punk
bands or whatever. And the show would be insane, it would be sweaty. I would be
just drenched in beer by the end of it like "Yes! Why did we not do this in—"
like in Kittie, it was not like that at all. Like it was not wild? But that was
wild! Anyways.
NK: Sounds like the quintessential rock experience.
Fallon: It was the rock experience indeed. And you know, it was very
short-lived. and I ended up taking the songs that I wrote for that project and
then turning that into Human, Conditional which came out under my OWN name
because it was not quite
Amphibious Assault.
I mean, there were keyboards or synths in it, but it was a little bit
different...it was a little bit more straight-up rock.
NK: Nice!
Fallon: And it's funny because most of the guys that I have playing on that
record were all from Nashville: like, country guys! And it brought like, a
different vibe to the album in general.
Although the keyboardist, the synth player who I got, plays with Frank Ocean now
so he has a really weird, I—he was a fuckin' genius! Like oh my God.
NK: Wow!
Fallon: I was like 'I love your collection, so great!'
NK: That's so cool!
Fallon: Yeah, it was really fucking awesome: working with him, and the producer
was really great. He was also from the country world too so he brought like,
this really interesting vibe to the whole album.
So I'm proud of that work! It's very, very different. It's not for everybody,
for sure but I am proud of what came out of that. I thought it was really good.
And then I took a little bit of time off.
I went to school. I got my master's degree and I have all of these degrees that I use for nothing and uh [laughs] now I have all this debt, it's great.
And so I did not plan on really writing anything until 2014 where I was like
again, I think my ADHD came in clutch for me and was like "Hey, you don't need
to write your master's degree or your master's thesis!
Fuck that, you need to write music instead!" So my way of procrastinating was
writing what became
Simulacrima, which came
out in 2021.
NK: Last year! Yeah, killer album by the way, so good. When I listen to it every
time, I'm like "This is a journey right here, Fallon went somewhere with this
one."
Fallon: I went somewhere with it for sure. I went to a decrepit cyberpunk-ian
city. That is what, because it is technically a
concept album. There's like a
whole lore behind it that I wrote.
I'm writing a screenplay that is based on it: like it's got a whole thing that I
envisioned—that may or may not become anything, but all of the songs are related
to that world. So I'm kind of love with making albums like that!
Watch from here:
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