I knew about Fetsoc before you - just like how I knew about Bathing Suits before you. You want to know how my ears are so close to the ground and your favourite bands were my favourite bands whilst you were still listening to Fontaines DC? Well check this out. Clem, who is the frontman and main songwriter for Fetsoc, is actually the bassist of my band Mince. Now I sometimes talk about bassists that wanted to be bassists from the get go. Clem is not that guy.

A bit of back story on how I met Clem. It’s 2021, Mince have like four songs (I know it's hard to imagine) and were ready to gig. A promotion company made of ‘This Feeling’ defectors called HotWaxx offered us a gig in the far away land of March 2022. The time got closer and closer and our previous Bassist (who is now married and has a kid) decided to dip. Luckily, this website, Joinmyband, which I’d also found Matthew Banks on years prior, brought up this first year student studying politics, who’d previously been the frontman of a group in London called Tracey. I think the dude just wanted to play music in Leeds, nothing too serious. I wish I could find those old clips of him showing me he could play the very simple basslines I gave him for ‘Pigtails and Plaits’.

Whilst Clem was a fantastic addition and the true final piece of the puzzle, I knew he wanted more than just to be the Bassist. And honestly, he was destined for more, he was and is the most musically talented member of Mince, (Sorry Matthew, Owen and George). I remember him showing us this riff that sounded class, he was trying to direct us how to play along with him and we just couldn’t figure it out! (although I don’t think Clem could either in our defense). The point is, even if Mince had become a household name, with record contracts and brand deals, Fetish Society was inevitable.

I don't half yap do I? Anyway, with all that context, let me bring you back to the end of July. I go to pick up my close friend Clem, who's been so supportive of Contact Buzz up until this point - awarding me aura points for selling merch at January’s Regtown to demanding that I show my recording with Eszter Vida’s Paper Rounds to Gordon Raphael. With him after their Skyrim online session is Lucas of Elwell and Clitspit - formerly of Bathing Suits Freyja’s Cagegirl. We drove up to Eiger to meet Maddy of Hitlist and No Sale and Aleks of Imaginary Husband. So undeniably a Leeds Supergroup. As were about to go in, a lad no older than 14 approaches the band. ‘Are you Fetsoc?’... maybe not the audience they were expecting, but being recognised after like 2 gigs is pretty impressive stuff.

Lucas is here today ‘for the vibes’ so I was told, so the first job we undertake is getting the structure of the track down and by proxy, Clem is the captain with Maddy’s bass in tow. Clem borrows Aleks’ Mustang and plucks through this slowed and reverbed version of their upcoming track ‘Threesome’ and Maddy can do nothing but wait for the downbeat. It's the glisten on top of the notes that puts us in that Garden of Eden. We pulled out the keyboard that piqued everyone's interest - the Roland VA-7. It's certainly a distracting keyboard, we probably spent half an hour on voices the tunefully propelled statements like ‘ohhh baby’ and ‘set me freeee’. I rest the BM88 dubiously on the speaker and listen to that - pure lofi keys.

Then Maddy had to get going and the rest of us trundled off to get a maccies - bumping into Ex-Chased by Machines front man, Cam! Lovely to see him. When we got back there wasn't much else to do. I gave the BM88 to Clem to deliver the most angelic performance I've seen from him. The reverb made it sound like we lowered him into a well with a microphone, but in order to keep that feeling of frolicking through the Garden of Eden, we got Aleks to punch in some bird sounds courtesy of the VA-7. The repetitiveness of that bird sound keeps the track sour, along with those pangs of metallic guitar Clem makes happen. Lucas did end up playing a role in the soundscape, with his cymbal, scrapes and hits. By the end of the song it's somewhere between heaven's gates and a sheet metal factory. Sparkly!

For fans of: Deerhunter, Japandroids, Broken Social Scene