Slices of Everything

Interview With Freddy's Four Fingers

Long Beach

From Issue 1.4, March/April 2005

No one in this band is named Freddy.

The name has nothing to do with Fred Flinstone or Freddy Krueger.

How the name Freddy’s Four Fingers came to be, is really a kind of accident.

One night, vocalist and guitarist Andrew Hilbert was jotting down a list of potential band names.  One name happened to be inspired from the character Frankie Four Fingers in the movie “Snatch.”  At the time though, Andrew thought it was Freddy-not Frankie.

He showed his brother and bassist, Jacob Hilbert the list.  The rest, as they say, is all history.  

The Long Beach band, which also includes drummer Robert DeLatorre, has come a distance from their starting days playing one-minute punk songs.  With more years and experience, their music has matured into an eclectic mix of blues rhythms that sometimes borrow from punk riffs and political or historical lyrics.

As with their band name, inspiration for their music or the lyrics can come from some unlikely places. The song “Civilization” is taken directly from a newspaper article on an Israeli siege of Palestine in which the journalist wrote “two more weeks and the water will run out.”

From that one line, Andrew was able to write the lyrics for an entire song.

Despite the subject matter and their album entitled, “World War III,” this band is not political.

The music always comes first.  Although, lyrics are important, they have to mesh with the music.

Freddy’s Four Fingers are just three people having fun with music that has proven to be both an outlet (after a stressful week of school or work) or therapeutic (the song “Blues is Dead” is about the death of the Hilbert’s grandfather, who was killed by a drunk driver.)

“I thought the blues are sad.  What could be sadder than blues music?  Plus, what hapens when you die?  Who knows,” said Andrew of how the song came to be.

Then again, sometimes the songs have no meaning.  Take the song “Rat Patrol,” one of the trio’s favorite songs to play live.

“It’s about nothing; it’s like ‘Seinfeld,’” said Andrew.  “We don’t want to write propaganda,” he continued.  “If we stay within only one label, then we can never write a song about let’s say...ducks.  It seems any kind of  label is limiting.  Politics is important, but it’s important people don’t get us mixed up [with that label.] Calling us a political band would be a stretch though.”

A song about ducks may be a little bit out there, but to label this band with some  comparison to a famous band is really a stretch in itself. The music and just the band’s existence in what DeLatorre mentioned as a “cutthroat industry,” in and of itself is iconoclastic.  For what this statement is worth, they play traditional music in an untraditional way.

They grasp the concept of music from the technical to the emotional elements of their instruments.

DeLatorre began playing drums at 7 with his first beat being ska.  He has even taken a pair of hammers to the floor to practice rudiments.

“You can only get better. I kind of keep my eyes open and try to rub off other drummers.  I’m always learning, and I try not to limit myself,” he said.

Interestingly enough, DeLatorre is now listening to a lot of salsa music and learning from the salsa beats made of “complex patterns that are hard to duplicate.”

Andrew and Jacob started out playing the saxophone.   Andrew then took up the guitar, while Jacob learned the piano and then bass.

Indidentally, Jacob has the uncanny knack of being able to pick up songs in a few hours on just about any instrument.

“He’ll be zoned out,” said DeLatorre.  “From my experience, and he won’t admit this, he has a lot of knowledge on how music sounds. He’s really easy to read off of.”

“He’s a tinkerer,” added Andrew.  “He’s kind of like a musical wonder.”

He also likes to sleep a lot according to Andrew who usually wakes up Jacob before shows.  In contrast, Andrew usually paces before a show and makes sure the entire bands arrives to venues early, which they all joked about.

From their backgrounds, it is obvious they have an appreciation for a variety of styles which is mirrored in the music.  They do not copy or emulate bands from the past or the hot bands of the moment.

“A lot of bands, they kind of play music for themselves.  We do it in a way where everyone enjoys it,” said DeLatorre.

“We don’t really belong to any scene, which has been both a curse and a blessing.  It’s a blessing in that no one can really put a finger on what we sound like,” added Andrew.

True.  Often, that is the mark of something destined to be timeless.