Fight Amp

When a band sheds a member, it's often not a good sign. But Fight Amp have experienced an uptick despite thinning out their ranks. "We've picked up momentum even more now than in the past," singer/guitarist Mike McGinnis told Noisecreep. "We became a three-piece and scaled down to one guitar player. We also started playing with a new drummer. Both changes happened a little over a year ago."

The band's latest album, 'Manners and Praise,' was just released via uber-cred indie Translation Loss Records, and a full tour in support of the record will kick off in January after the calendar turns. As if they weren't already busy enough, Fight Amp are also working on an EP which they plan to release sometime in 2010, too! Maybe their music will be tied into some BMX promotion in the near future, since bassist Jon Dehart's little brother Chase Dehart is a professional BMX rider.

'Manners and Praise' definitely catches the ear, and producer Phillip Cope was the driving force behind the album. "Phillip Cope was great to work with as usual," McGinnis said. "It was obvious that both he and the studio had stepped it up from the last time we went down to make a record. This time, Phil made it a point to crack the whip on us when we weren't on top of our game. It's both funny and scary when he gets pissed, but that's why we go down there to have him produce our records. We tend to be laid back about things and without his outside perspective, some things might slip through the cracks."

One of the main ways the knobsman was able to push the band to more impressive musical feats was via the drum tracks. "He also pushed to try a different technique with the drums this time around and it definitely paid off. All of the drums and cymbals were recorded separate from one another. That's not exactly an easy thing to pull off, but our new drummer proved his worth there for sure. It was our second time recording with Phil, Jay and Steve at the Jam Room and it met all of our expectations," McGinnis added.

The album artwork was also designed by Doug Foulke, who merged a painting and a scanned collage for the layout. "A lot of the pieces of the collage tie in with the themes in the lyrics," McGinnis said.

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