The Fismits: 10 Interesting Facts You Might Not Know

The Fismits are a three-piece Indie “Space” Rock Outfit who just released their debut album Before The Hindsight. With radio personality Mark Biagio at the helm on Guitar & Vocals (Mix 93.8 FM and now Rebel Rock Radio), the band are poised to rock your socks off with their unique brand of Indie Alternative “Space” Rock!

Mark asserts that “music is my passion and an escape. Music is never background. I’ve been doing this for over 34 years and I continue … the dream has not changed!” You probably don’t know much about this band, but today my aim is to change that…

Here are 10 Facts That You Might Not Have Known About The Fismits

1. The band members (Mark, Nielle, Arthur) have been around in many bands over the past 35 years. Bands like The Embers Band, The Mind Theatre and 10 Drops Of Valium, Son Of Hendrik, Still Black At Sunrise are just a few of the bands that have had to deal  with those three. If you total the bands ages you’ll get to a figure of over 100!

2. The band members all met each other while serving on the worship team at Church. They decided they need an out of church band and after a few failures and some time The Fismits emerged. That’s why the current members have been friends with each other way longer than they have been in the band.

3. Mark is a hard arse, software geek, family man and sailor. Arthur is the plumber, father of two boys, loves Lego, fly fishing and always answers the phone “Hey, what can I do for you bro?”. Nielle loves to discover old and older school rock, is also software geek as is perhaps the most chilled guy you’ll ever meet.

4. When lazing on the coach, on the box are movies and shows like Life Of Brian, Star Wars, Lord Of The Rings, Game of Thrones, The Crown, Black Adder & The Young Ones.

5. They don’t talk sports with each other, it’s The Lions vs The Sharks, Mclaren vs Ferrari and Chiefs vs Pirates. They don’t even talk music, there is a huge page of influences like Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers, The Clash, Depeche Mode, Deftones, Tool and At The Drive in.

6. The band’s debut album Before The Hindsight was supposed to be a series of EP’s. They failed at trying to cut it up – so it became an album.

7. The band’s name has nothing to do with the band The Misfits. It is rather a play on the word, misfit, as they felt like a bunch of misfits that didn’t fit anywhere and no one wanted to jam with. In the practice room week after week, was just the trio, no lead singer, no second guitarist, no keyboardist – hence the name, “screw it we’ll do it ourselves and we will be an awesome three piece, like The Police, New Model Army or Muse”.

8. The album features Mark’s sons doing backing vocals on a song about bubblegum and their cousins.

9. The album is a window on middle aged life in SA – alcoholism, family, suicide, love, irresponsibility, corruption, poverty, death, struggle and sanity.

10. The first single “I Can’t Believe” was a last minute addition to the album. It was written, recorded and mixed only a few weeks before the album was finalised. Other tracks like “One Dead Friend” were recorded late in 2017! The album is a journey of the past 4 years, 2017 – 2020.

I hope you’re feeling schooled now. I would like to thank The Fismits for supplying these facts and I wish them all of the best with their future musical endeavours.

If you’re not familiar with their sound, watch their music video for “Questions” (a track that’s also on their Before The Hindsight album)

Watch this space for updates in the Music category on Running Wolf’s Rant.