unFact / David Wm. Sims Interview
unFact / David Wm. Sims Interview

unFact / David Wm. Sims Interview

unFact David Wm Sims
unFact David Wm Sims

unFact is a new solo project of David Wm. Sims (Jesus Lizard, Scratch Acid, Rapeman) and in an online interview he provided insights on project’s debut single “Dead Wasp” (as well as some details about an upcoming book on Jesus Lizard)

What’s in a name? Why Unfact?

I came across the non-word unfact in a poem by Miller Williams.  I don’t remember the context right now, but the non-word stuck in my head.  It feels appropriate for the age we live in, when there’s so much deliberate political misinformation being spread in the media.

Unfact is described as “solo bass experimental project”. In which ways is it different from your work with other bands (Rapeman, Scratch Acid, Jesus Lizard)?

The music I do in unFact is much more loosely structured and improvised than the things I’ve done with the rock bands.  Each of the songs has a general structure that I try to follow, but there’s also a lot of space to try new things each night.  It’s different than how I’ve done things in rock bands, where I kind of had a vision of how the perfect rendition of each song sounded and we spent hours trying to hone the song to that razor edge.  With unFact, the songs are supposed to sound different every time.  I decided not to use any prerecorded samples or loops.  For me, it’s important that each song be built from the ground up every night as a unique performance.  The challenging part for me, as someone that’s always played music that was more closely rehearsed, is to get comfortable riding the train wreck when I’ve improvised myself into a place I wasn’t expecting.  It’s challenging and exciting.  Some nights, it actually works.

The artwork on Unfact’s debut (“Dead Wasp” 7″ single) is amazing.  Can you tell a bit more about the artist (Jonathan Hargreaves) and why he was chosen for this project?

I only know Jonathon via the interwebs.  He lives in England.  He was a frequent commenter on my blog (davidwmsims.com), and I think we became Facebook friends somewhere along the line.  He linked to some of his artwork on a FB post and I messaged him about doing some artwork for the unFact single.  He was into it, and we worked it out from there.  His friend Andreas England did all the layout as well.  It’s just one of those 21st century things you can do online, working with creative people you’ve never actually met face-to-face.  It was a great opportunity to have a artist of his talent work on the single artwork, and he seems happy to have his work used for an unFact record.

According to your blog – there’s a Jesus Lizard book in works. Can you tell more about this project?

The book slowly moves forward.  Right now, we think it’s going to be a coffee table book, an oversize book that mainly emphasized photos and graphics.We are assembling photos, posters, ticket stubs, whatever people have related to the band.  We will scan that stuff and write some things about the band, touring, recording the albums, etc.  Its probably going to take a while. We may recruit some other people to write about their impressions or memories of the band.  I thinks it’s going to be amazing, when it’s finally finished.

In other news not covered above, I’m releasing a split LP with Noveller in November and also doing a European tour in November with Aidan Baker and Noveller.

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