[Band's bio] [Ricky
Martyr] [Krist the clown] [Liar
Gallagher]
TFBP was brought to life in September 2000 by its founding members and longtime
friends Liar Gallagher and Ricky Martyr. At the time Liar was involved in various
hardcore/metal projects, while Ricky had just completed his guitar studies with
recognized Italian Bluesman Claudio Lodati.
In spite of their different musical background, both Ricky and Liar loved Type
O Negative and other more or less gothic rock bands, so the main goal of their
new project was to combine the most sensitive and atmospheric elements of gothic
music with rough, hard rock guitars and caustic rhymes inspired by a wide range
of thoughts, emotions and real life issues.
Looking for a keyboard player the duo almost immediately contacted long time
friend Krist the Klown, who had a Classical background and later on they recruited
Andrea Fasano (he never had a nickname) as bass player. As long as Ricky had
a few songs already written for a musical project which never came to life,
the band, known from that time forward as The Fair Bitch Projekt, started working
"seriously" since the very early days refining their songs, building
up new material and playing live here and there throughout Turin and places
nearby.
In early 2002 Andrea left the band due to musical differences (they became a
trio, recruiting live bass players when needed), but he agreed to produce their
very first demo cd: a collection of five songs entitled "Work in Regress".It
took three months to get the job done (May to August), but the end result was
quite disappointing as the sound was primitive and somehow low-fi, the songs
were roughly executed and in the end it didn't succesfully captured the band's
real attitude.
It certainly wasn't the best demo ever, but the guys loved it anyway as it was
their very first record, so they decided to use it for promotional purposes.
To do so they built up their official website, posted most of their songs on
the mp3.com website and sent cds to a great variety of music labels. They couldn't
get a contract, but their abortion did quite well despite low quality: thanks
to their popularity on mp3.com they received requests for interviews, reviews
and promo cds from websites, magazines (e.g. Gothic Rose Magazine from Canada)
and enthusiasts all over the world, they caught the attention of well known
journalists/promoters such as Thomas Thyssen from Germany and their song "Burning
the Way" was aired on New Acts Channel and 2002 Halloween Channel of the
once famous streaming radio "Gothic Radio".
Encouraged by these surprisingly good responses, the guys started working on
a new demo cd which was completed in late 2003 and entitled "True Fake".
Produced by Ricky Martyr himself in order to save money, it was a twelve songs
demo/album from which the band extracted a three tracks promo cd entitled "True
Short". Obviously this new effort didn't sound as good as a commercial
release, but it was certainly better than "Work in Regress": overall
sound was a lot clearer and louder and songs were almost nicely executed. The
inclusion of pure rock, new wave and a little bit of electronic elements improved
the band's own style, as it became more personal, enjoyable and a little bit
more aggressive than before. The guys called it "Depressive rock with primitive
technology" to point out that they were more than just an average gothic
band and they also started to question the gothic scene itself: according to
them, it was getting close to be just a bunch of kids dressing like vampires.
Unfortunately, True Fake/True Short came out at the wrong time: mp3.com died
and when it resurfaced on the net it was no longer hosting independent bands,
Gothic Radio and other known alternative streaming radios ceased to exist (the
internet/music relationship was getting into a transitional state which still
goes on these days) and the guys just didn't have time to find new promotional
means because of job/university related issues (Ricky also had to start Civil
Service which was mandatory in Italy at the time). They just managed to include
a couple of tracks on tfbp.net and send promo cds to some labels, magazines
and a few websites, getting positive reviews from Hammer (UK) magazine, Legacy
(Germany) magazine and Mexican webportal Sonido Obscuro, but they couldn't keep
those five seconds of fame they had gained in 2002. To add insult to injury,
Ricky's own little studio got destroyed due to power failure. From June to August
2004 the band was dead, but it somehow came back to life in late September.
At this stage, the guys considered True Fake obsolete, so they started working
on new material.
In early 2005 they built a new mp3
page on http://music.download.com: they included tracks from both True Short
and Work in Regress (which are still there nowadays) and quickly drew the attention
of quite a huge number of listeners, but nothing special happened during the
following months.
Personal issues were yet to be solved (life's a bitch), but in August the band
almost officially changed its name into TFBP (cause it was easier to remember
and "more commercial") and it was time to record a new promo release.
In order to avoid internal controversies, an external producer was hired: it
was Ricky's blood brother and clone Zio Belin Mariano (aka the Living Curse):
Zio didn't help avoiding internal controversies, but at least he agreed to work
for free (???) at Ricky's studio, which was reconstructed thanks to the money
earned during Civil Service.
It took a lifetime to get the job done cause the guys were never satisfied and
everyone (including the producer) had to face personal issues as usual, so,
one year later (August 2006), after a couple of "technical" compromises
due to studio limitations, TFBP's third and most current promo release saw the
light of day, being entitled "Dead to Death".
Death to Death expands True Fake's most innovative aspects and then it goes
further, leading TFBP's sound to a new stage of maturity which hardly fits into
a particular genre (but maybe it's just rock music). Lyrics are also more inspired,
emotional and sometimes more sarcastic than ever.
These days the guys are exploring every possible way to promote their new release
and they hope Dead to Death will eventually be successful on reasonable terms.
Maybe one day there will be some kind of "Dead to Death part 2" to
turn TFBP's recent mini album into a full release.
Ricky Martyr - vocals, guitar and (at the moment) bass too ! |
Ricky
Martyr a.k.a Wicked Ricky,F2A,DoctoRM,Alex,Ale.
|
Krist the Klown - keyboard |
Krist the Klown aka Oreste, Padre Geppo, Gheppuso, Sulu, Marcio. Born in Torino on 13/4/1977, this very complex individual started his piano training at the very early age of 7 (only Mozart could do better than him in this kid vs kid contest !).Basically a classical piano player, he turned into electronic keyboards after the birth of the infamous TFBP.He’s got the best life a young guy like him can ask for (he has recently and successfully completed University, he’s got a job for which he’s regularly paid and last and first his girlfriend is one of the kindest human beings who ever appeared in this world, almost supernatural !) but he keeps complaining all the time about this and that : a very “dark” person indeed, in fact gothic rock (with its derived styles) is the kind of music he can’t stand at all (it’s booooooring !), but he’s happy (maybe, no one’s really sure he is) to be a TFBP member as long as no one says he’s actually playing goth music. A living mistery himself , he recently claimed he was a priest in his “second life” and he also talked about other “experiences”which are too obscene and illegal to be reported.Also a great talker with a nice sharp sense of humour, he’s the guy every band should feature to make biographies more interesting. |
Liar Gallagher - drums |
Liar Gallagher (little is known about Liar’s nicknames…it seems he’s known as “Kermit” inside his metalcore band “Kill Your Boyfriend”, but that’s not sure) was born in Torino on August 3rd, 1974. He started playing drums in few bands involved into Torino hardcore underground scene more or less five years ago. After a couple of unsuccessful experiences in two different hardcore bands, he became the co-founder of a grind metalcore band called Kill Your Boyfriend. KYB are still active and always ready to kick your ass, if you want to…When he was the full-time drummer of KYB, Liar decided to enlarge his musical horizons and create a new gothic rock band with his friend Ricky and….oh yeah, if you already read TFBP’s biography you’re supposed to know all this stuff, so let’s talk about Liar ! In real life he makes his living as cad (computer aided design, you know…) operator in a well known Torino automotive industry. Besides drums, he likes mountain bike, model railroading (especially his Union Pacific Big Boy – 1/87 scale) and strong ale beer. His secret desire is to perform the main theme of a James Bond’s movie soundtrack. |
