Why Andrew Falkous Is "Not Scared Of Being Called A Pansy"

Future Of The Left's music is beautifully brutal. And the band's frontman, Andrew "Falco" Falkous, has a trademark, irate vocal delivery that has never really reminded this scribe of anyone else up 'til now. On this album (and Back When I Was Brilliant particularly) John Lydon's vitriol springs to mind. "It's interesting that, isn't it? Because whenever I see John Lydon being interviewed, most of the time I think, 'Nah, thanks'," Falkous laughs, before admitting that Future Of The Left have "a thing with comparisons". "If a comparison instantly occurs to someone in the band then chances are that's probably not the way for the band to go... With Mclusky [Falkous and FOTL drummer Jack Egglestone's previous band], there's a song when we recorded the album Do Dallas - a song called No Covers - which ended up being a B-side even though it's a really good song. The reason it ended up being a B-side is it just sounded like a Nirvana song to us."

"The reason it ended up being a B-side is it just sounded like a Nirvana song to us."

There's an accompanying mini-album with Future Of The Left's latest album and Falkous reveals that, had mini-album track The Cock That Walked been finished in time, it may have made it onto the album proper: "I think that's probably a 50/50 call with one other song, which is on the album, that I won't reveal because I don't want to make it feel insecure when it goes out and meets the other songs in the schoolyard. I don't want it to know that it was close to being culled, you know? We have to support it fully."

FOTL set a strict deadline so that The Peace & Truce Of Future Of The Left would "make the vinyl manufacturing date". "Sometimes, especially with a group of people as wayward as musicians, the best thing to do for those people is you give them a deadline, you know, 'Hey, guys, give me a record in three months and if you don't give me a record in three months then it's time to piss off and do something else. Because you're in a band, so it's time that you wrote some songs and did a record.' And it might sound ridiculous, but usually when people are knee deep in a creative endeavour, they don't give themselves such explicit mission statements - although they should remember not to call them mission statements, hahaha, that makes them sound like a massive bunch of pricks!"

There's a mystery sound and then Falkous explains, "Hang on, I'm just puttin' some cat biscuits down." We're sad to learn that Falkous' cat called Chicken ("a wonderful old soul") passed away two years ago. After grieving the loss of his "friend" for "about three months", Falkous shares, "We got two cats that were rescued from a farm - they were actually found in a tractor's digger - and they're called Genghis and Bonsai. They're amazin'!"

Fast forward to more music-related banter and Falkous stresses, "I'm not scared of being called a pansy by saying that an album is a work of art. And a live show is - it's light entertainment, basically, and the opener is the best you've got. I don't, genuinely, give a fuck if anybody in the band is sick of that song [laughs]."

Given that Future Of The Left bassist Julia Ruzicka's "family is in Melbourne", Falkous reveals, "We always try and get over around Christmas and New Year, you know? Just before or just after. So that's the plan as ever if it comes off to do that."

And we'll leave you with some classic Falkous advice: "If you have fun, keep doin' it. Unless it's cannibalism."