At the heart of all the best bands is an enduring friendship. That bond emerged between Fred and David of FEWS some years ago when Fred found David's MySpace page in 2006. Fred was living in Concord, a city 30 miles east of San Francisco; David was from the south of Sweden. Both were 15. David had posted some random tracks that he'd made in his dad's home studio. Fred dug what he heard, especially the basslines (the first album Fred bought was by Black Uhuru when he was six), and felt an instant connection with David, who had been brought up on outsider music by his musician father – bands like Television Personalities and Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Fred hadn’t made any music at that point in his life, but he knew exactly what sort of music he wanted to make and, more importantly, who he wanted to make it with.

The pair kept in touch online, but it would be five years until they would actually meet face to face. Fred came to Stockholm to visit his paternal grandmother in 2011 at the same time David was in the city. It was awkward, kind of like a blind date, but they hung out, drank beer and talked non-stop about music. Both were obsessed with Daniel Kessler of Interpol. When Fred returned to America they started exchanging musical ideas over the internet. David became passionate about electronic music. A night train ran directly to Berlin from Malmö, so he started making frequent trips there to go clubbing. Fred came to Malmö and would join David on his excursions to Berlin. They ended up living there for a while, staying in a friend's apartment in Neukölln, also known as “Little Istanbul”, going to weird clubs and staying up all night. They didn’t make any music, but their “crazy Berlin period” was as important to their future as it was for Bowie – it all fed into what would become FEWS, while strengthening their friendship and emotional bond.

"I think we knew from the start that we had something really good going on, even before we made anything together. But at some point we actually had to start the band." David.

Fred moved in with David in Malmö, a city where it’s still cheap enough to survive as a penniless musician. The pair recruited two good friends, Alex and Rusty, both accomplished guitarists, to play bass and drums - the duo's musicality shone through in the way they played their instruments. The name FEWS came from nowhere during a walk to the store to buy beer to drink in the park. It doesn’t mean anything, they just wanted “something short and something big that had a duality”. We knew a guy with a rehearsal space that was three hours from Malmö, but eventually got it for free because the owner loved the band, even when they totally trashed the place.
With a set of recorded demos to their name, the nascent four-piece came to the attention of Speedy Wunderground supremo and producer Dan Carey via a somewhat enigmatic email. On hearing the track - The Zoo, Carey was hooked, and quick to invite them to his London studio whilst offering to release the track via his Speedy Wunderground label – everything is recorded in a day (hence the name). London beckoned and FEWS were up and running….

Housed in a flat in Streatham, the band recorded their debut album, Means, at the back end of 2015, during a few productive months of late nights at Dan’s home studio. All the songs were already written, it was just a question of getting them down on tape and the atmosphere fostered by Dan was conducive to experimentation and creativity. The songs evolved under Dan’s open-minded guidance. The producer's fingerprints are all over the record, particularly in the subtle bleeps and ghostly interludes that exist in the fade-outs of the songs, but more overtly in the presence of his tape synth, the Dewanatron Swarmatronon, on the blistering Motorik album closer Ill. But it is still the record Fred and David imagined in their heads. Their frenetic, melodic guitar riffs intertwine (the influence of their hero Kessler is writ large), as memorable as any vocal hook, underpinned by the rocksteady rhythms of Rusty the human metronome, and the Hooky-esque realisations of the thunderous basslines.

FEWS are a scorching live band, their dark, danceable take on post-punk starting to translate into frenzied audience participation. Fred and David can shred with the best of them, Rusty pummels his kit like a machine, while Fred and David's shared vocals swing from dreamy reverie to anguished howls. But it's all about the bass. "Honestly, it's the bass that holds it all together," explains David. "That's the most important thing. It decides where the song is supposed to go." Following some personnel changes, the low end void has been ably filled by newest recruit Jay, who made his live debut on the band’s recent live sortie on the Spring King UK tour. It worked and he’s in.

Alongside Kessler and Carey, the more cryptic influences on Means include Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy, the surrealist painter René Magritte and the totemic Swedish footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic, as realised in the beautiful tribute song, Zlatan. “We love him, it feels like he can do whatever he wants and get away with it," Fred told The Quietus last year. Like Zlatan, FEWS' journey to global fame starts in Malmö, Zlatan’s hometown club, where the footballer is now a God-like figure.

Music is all there is for FEWS. "We don't have a choice," says David. "We've got to make it work." "This is what I dream of," reveals Fred. Means is one hell of an opening salvo, the sonic equivalent of a Zlatan hat-trick consisting solely of 30-yard screamers.

Joe Clay, March 2016