Interview with A.S. FANNING (2/2)
In the first part, we spoke to A.S. Fanning about the beginnings and creation of the new album “Take Me Back to Nowhere”, which is released today. We continue our illustrious conversation.
Intensive
Orkus: The new album was recorded in a remote farmhouse in Sweden that had been converted into a recording studio. You also worked there and helped to improve it. To what extent did this location influence the album as it sounds now?
A.S. Fanning: I think the main influence on the sound of the album and the way it was recorded was that we were all able to go there for a few weeks and live on the farm and concentrate on the album during that time. We all lived together in one house, cooked together and hung out together, and in the morning we just had to walk across the yard to the studio to start working. I think that makes a difference to the sound of an album. The immersive experience of producing it that way meant that we were all living in that world for a short, intense time, very focused. I had traveled there occasionally over the last few years to help Robbie – even before we recorded the previous album “Mushroom Cloud” in his studio in Berlin – so it was nice to enjoy the space from the other side and appreciate what all the work had been towards.
No man’s land
O: There is also an atmospheric video clip for “Today Is for Forgetting”. Is there a background story to the song?
ASF: It’s about a psychedelic experience and the feeling of entering a kind of no man’s land between worlds – or another dimension of existence.
Esoteric
O: What was the inspiration for “Western Medicine”?
ASF: That was one of the more ironic moments on the album. I think it’s about esoteric thinking. It kind of fits with the themes of the album because it’s really about boiling things down to a simpler explanation or attitude. Ignoring the immeasurable, the complicated and the unknown.
Touching
O: “Talking to Ourselves” has something almost sacred about it when it says: “Everyone dies as far as I know.” How did this song come about?
ASF: I read a news story from the US where a man had murdered his two children. There was a quote from his wife’s testimony in court where she said she had “all this love that has nowhere to go”, which I found very moving. So I started writing this text, which is mainly about isolation and the impossibility of real human connection.
Absurd?
O: The overall mood of the album is heavy and melancholic. Would you agree with that?
ASF: To a certain extent. I think there are also light-hearted moments. For me, the main feeling I had in my head while making the album was a surreal kind of confusion, of unreality. Like being immersed in an impassive fog. It can be melancholic, but if you take a step back, you can also see the absurdity in it.
Melancholic?
O: Would you describe yourself as “melancholic”?
ASF: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think people who know me would describe me as melancholic. Maybe I have a bit of a dark sense of humor sometimes.
From Dublin to Berlin
O: How did you come to Berlin as a true Irishman?
ASF: I started touring in Germany with my former band The Last Tycoons over ten years ago. I was pretty bored with life in Dublin at the time and wanted to get away. There wasn’t much for the band to do in Ireland or anywhere else at the time, but we had a lot of gigs in Germany, so I decided to move here for a while and see how I liked it, and I’ve been here ever since.
Freedom
O: What do you find particularly appealing about Berlin?
ASF: I think I’ve felt a sense of freedom here that I didn’t have in Ireland. Sometimes, even in a relatively big city like Dublin, it can feel like everyone knows about everyone else. One of the first things I noticed in Berlin was the feeling that people felt free to do their own thing without being judged or stigmatized for it.
Turning away
O: You’re going on tour soon! How are the preparations going? Have you finalized the setlist yet?
ASF: No, we’re still working on it. The new songs require a very different approach to some of the older songs, so we’re figuring out how to bring it all together. I think it’s going to be a bit of a departure from the sound we’ve had in recent years, which is exciting.
Claudia Zinn-Zinnenburg
And how! Here are the next dates:
March 16, 2026 DE-Langenberg, KGB
17. March 2026 NL-Gronigen, A-Theater Gronigen
18. March 2026 NL-Utrecht, Tivoli Vredenburg
19. March 2026 UK-Brighton, The Folklore Rooms
20. March 2026 UK-Bristol, The Louisiana
24. March 2026 UK-Glasgow, The Hug and Pint
26. March 2026 UK-Manchester, The Talleyrand
26. March 2026 UK-London, The Grace
28. March 2026 DE-Altenkirchen, KulturSalon Stadthalle
21. April 2026 DE-Hamburg, Knust
23. April 23, 2026 DE-Dresden, Ostpol
April 25, 2026 DE-Oberhausen, Gdanska
April 26, 2026 DE-Offenbach, Hafen 2
April 29, 2026 AT-Vienna, Rhiz
April 30, 2026 AT-Salzburg, Rockhouse
02. May 2026 DE-Berlin, Neue Zukunft
Do you already have your tickets?
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Watch the video for “Stay Alive”:
