I have been tasked to provide a quick up-to-date Seazon of the Fly biography. There was little to consider. I’ve shot whiskey with these people and understand the music pretty well, so why not? Then I began to think about it. If I am to narrate the entire history of the band, would it be better to drive it, hammer and nail, into place the way it happened, or could it work to make the story up? There is merit in both considering new fans wouldn’t know the difference and old fans would like the joke. Still, after quick sketches in both directions, I’ve chosen to do neither. The first lesson to learn is that you must always cut. Keep what you know works and burn the rest. There is no room in biography, or in life for that matter, to play around with doubts.
A band’s biography must speak about music. That isn’t so easy either. Describing sound in writing is like explaining the smell of hatred. Many people feel musical taste is personal. They will tell you so when you argue with them, but what works in one good song will work in another. Any type of music lover will understand what that means. The confusion is in packaging and categorizing music for sale...because what feels right never really fits an easily definable market. You play shows with speed metal groups or stoned art kids, and your fans alienate their fans by pounding and sneering and laughing and not taking the game too seriously. Still, you make friends, fight like sons of bitches, and you rage because the music demands that you rage.
Right. Seazon of the Fly is a four piece from a cold, dirt road, bog of earth where men take vacations to finish other jobs, and women store vegetables in case winter doesn’t end next time around. The music is tribal rhythms and hole-in-the-floor blues, Minnesota fog metal and digital noise, a thick lyrical hook to sing with, and a swamp-based militia stage presence to yell at. They’ve home-produced a self-titled recording, a live performance,The Garden—a double album, and are between releases of a two part full-length titled Wonderfly. After that, who knows? To make your own way is like dating the wrong girl—all pain. Then you begin to think that all girls are the wrong girl, and the pain fades into a bullet-like, who gives a damn, kind of intensity. In other words, freedom in the long run to do what is right for your art.
