When the Twin Towers were hit on that tranquil September morning in 2001, The Fixx’s frontman, Cy Curnin felt it was time to leave the States.
“After 9/11 I started to get bored of the way that big cities were just full of fear,” Curnin explains. “I started wondering what would happen if the supermarkets were to shut down. Mine and everyone’s way of thinking was becoming fear-based.”
Upon Curnin’s American departure, he and his girlfriend moved to a remote farm nestled in the countryside of France, where they began raising pigs and tending to their extensive vegetable patch. “Living in a big city, you become so apathetic thanks to things like easy credit,” says the socially aware Curnin. “I realized once I moved to the countryside that my writing had started to have a different rhythm. There was a specific element of self-awareness that I was ignoring while living in the city.”
The Fixx’s new album, Beautiful Friction, now available everywhere, captures the transformative process that Curnin experienced after his move from the US. Beautiful Friction reflects the underlying impacts that specific social and recent political issues have had on the Fixx’s individual members. “As a whole, we [the band] have always been more inspired to write when we are motivated a little by anger,” explains the English native. “When I am writing for the band, I try and get a collective thought going. So a lot of the writing process for this album was based on the surrounding conversations we had about issues that are going on in our world today.”
Made with the same, original line-up that gave us hits “One Thing Leads to Another,” “Saved By Zero,” and “Red Skies,” Beautiful Friction provides a slew of politically charged tunes with the same moody new wave rock that the Fixx has always heralded. Curnin and drummer, Adam Woods, have created a provocative lyrical chemistry on the track, “Just Before Dawn,” that strikes a cord with the feelings surrounding social movements like Occupy Wall Street.
“Musically, the song has a great vibe and the emotion of the track is very hopeful. In a world where everything seems so negative it’s good to have something hopeful. It’s a song that we are very proud of,” says Curnin.
Curnin’s overwhelming excitement regarding their upcoming tour transcends the band’s recent release of Beautiful Friction, as he gushes about his anticipated reunion on stage with his longtime friends and bandmates. “When we get up there on stage together it’s like the past, present, and the future are all rolled into one. When you have been playing with guys for over thirty years, it just feels like this is what you were born to do.”
The Fixx at Brixton on the Redondo Beach Pier July 19. Doors open at 8 pm. See www.brixtonsouthbay.com or call (310) 406-1931.
