Fluid Ounces has been rocking the South for well over 10 years. What keeps them going, you ask?
“The possibility of being able to sell out,” says front man and piano master Seth Timbs. “I’m not going to beat around the bush, I would sell out very cheap and do it in a heartbeat. Doesn’t every musician want to be famous and reach the highest possible audience?”
Seth and Co. are no strangers to reaching large audiences: their first two albums Big Notebook For Easy Piano (1997) and In The New Old Fashioned Way (1999) were highly acclaimed by critics and even their last release The Whole Shebang (2004) brought in some great national reviews. The Ounces have even enjoyed some attention abroad when their album Foreign Legion (2000) was released and followed by several appearances in Japan.
The Ounces have not been at rest for the last two years. The songsmith Seth Timbs actually began writing for a new record before the The Whole Shebang hit the shelves.
This newest offering, titled Instant Nostalgia, is a collection of those songs. Instant Nostalgia features the latest and one of the longest lasting line-ups since the original. Along with Timbs on piano and guitar, the record features Brian Pitts on bass, Kyle Walsh on drums and, returning from a four-year hiatus, Brian Rogers on guitar.
“Brian actually requested to re-join the band,” says Timbs. “After I moved back from California I was trying to get another line-up together and he wanted to come back and I thought that was just the greatest idea . . . he has always added something ?fancy’ to the music with his guitar playing.”
Timbs and Rogers co-produced Instant Nostalgia, which Seth claims was “a lot of fun, his studio knowledge was much needed to make this record happen.”
The lead track “Millionaire Meets Millionaire” starts off with an almost “parlor-piano-esque” intro which has a very “Randy Neuman-type influence” says Brian Rogers.
“Stylistically, this record is all over the place,” says Timbs, “but I like to keep it that way. Some of my favorite records have many different styles and that’s what keeps a band interesting.”
Rogers adds that “making a record with all different styles of rock is the way we always visioned the band.”
The rest of the album goes from a radio-friendly style pop represented in the song “There Ought to Be a Law,” to some power piano rock in “It All Looks Good To Me,” a slower, cooler track like “Come On Out,” and Timbs favorite “Oh! Tatiana!,” which features a very upbeat polka-style Slav rock, while other songs have a more Southern “Nashville” sound. The love song “How 2 Be Happy” (which is often dedicated to Timbs’ lovely lady Malin) is more of a personal song, but Seth explains “all my songs are personal whether they are about me or those close to me . . . there is nothing but truth in the songs I write.”
When asked if his prolific tendencies have already jump started another record, he replied, “This may be the last Fluid Ounces record, I want to start an all-guitar rock band.”
