Fratellis want their music and their band to last

• By JOHN WIRT
• Music critic
• Published: Sep 19, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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The Fratellis, an infectiously exuberant and tuneful Scottish pop-rock trio from Glasgow, are in music for the long run rather than the quick hit.

So far, the United Kingdom has been especially responsive to the band. Two hit singles in 2006, “Chelsea Dagger” and “Henrietta,” preceded the Fratellis’ album debut, Costello Music, which reached No. 2 in Britain. “Mistress Mabel,” from this year’s Here We Stand, became another British hit. 

But even three years and two albums into the band’s career,  singer-guitarist-pianist Jon Fratelli sees the Fratellis as still in launch mode.    

“It’ll probably be a long time before we feel like we’ve achieved what we really want,” he said from Minneapolis last week. “That will be four or five albums down the line, and we’re gonna pace it that way.”

The Fratellis won’t gain fame through celebrity-fueled notoriety, he added. 

“We don’t get all the sensationalism,” he said. “It’s just gonna have to be something that we build. We’re building everything right now. We have to be patient and wait for it.”

Even though the band members aren’t linked with drug- or drink-addled fashion models and actresses, British media still manages to release gossipy stuff about them. Last month, an NME.com headline reported that the Fratellis were at war with fellow bands Razorlight and the Kooks. Previously, the Fratellis were said to be feuding with Artic Monkeys and their fellow Scots in Franz Ferdinand. 

“I’ve never even met those guys,” Fratelli said of his alleged war with Razorlight and the Kooks. “That may have come from just one comment. But one comment’s enough. Actually, somebody asked Barry (the Fratellis’ bassist) if he liked the Kooks. He said, ‘No, I think they’re awful.’ And I do, too. We try not to say that in print, but sometimes your love for music takes over and you can’t help yourself, you tell the truth.”

Reporters in the United States are more responsible than their U.K. cousins, Fratelli said.

“I don’t find them as lazy as in the U.K. Here they’re more interested in delving into things, especially in music. Back home they’re just looking for an angle to turn into a headline, where there’s some sort of scandal in it.”

But Fratelli admits that early on the Fratellis often pulled journalists’ legs. “It was always the U.K. ones, to be honest,” he recalled. “They don’t give you much space to do anything other than repeat the same answer over and over again. It’s just a waste of your time.”

Not telling the truth came back to haunt the band, he added. 

“Every lie that we told we ended up spending the next six months explaining. We try not to lie anymore, but it just happens that, a lot of the time, the same question you’ll be asked has the same answer — and it was never that interesting an answer to start with.”
Fratelli has often described the Fratellis — whose unrelated members each adopted Fratelli as a last name — as lazy. The description is at odds with the band’s creative ambitions and frequent touring.