The Fruits, Raw and Uncut: An Exclusive Interview with the Band
When was the last time you paused before sinking your teeth into a crisp, hombre apple? Do you allow yourself to savor the visual, tactile, sensory experiences life leads you into? Fall is the perfect season for enjoying a full smorgasbord of experience. The bounty of harvests is ripe for the picking.
Take a lesson from Detroit’s up and coming, jazzy boyband, The Fruits: When the apple falls from the tree, take the time to seek it out and savor the flavor.
Sean Mallare, Drew Machak, and Nick Press have been playing together all around the Midwest since 2017; but they will be the first to tell you, it is their collective experiences that make up the crowd-pleasing band they are today. After a fun and fruity interview, it is clear this band has a ripe future performing original scores and creative covers for a wide variety of listeners.
Listen to their music, available on most streaming services, and allow this band to play you to something new. Just this past month, a Fruits original ‘San Francisco’ hit over 100,000 streams on Spotify. And if you are a Midwesterner, check out their website for upcoming event dates to see them live. The visual experience of their show is truly grape. Their fruit themed costumes and instruments are berry impressive.
Peel back the melon-choly you feel in your life and bite into a fruitful adventure. The only disclaimer is, you must have a little pun along the way.
MK: We have to start with the story behind the band name. How did The Fruits come about?
Fruits: The band started as a duo. Sean played percussion and guitar. Drew sang while playing guitar or keyboard. We would play mostly covers and a couple of Drew’s originals. A few of those songs are now part of the The Fruits’ collection, San Francisco being one that comes to mind.
When we were trying to produce a band name, we all agreed the name had to be something that anyone could recognize or be familiar with. After bouncing some ideas around, we decided on The Fruits. There was a slight influence from a pair of fruit shaped shakers that Sean used during gigs. Not much later, we recruited Nick to complete the current lineup of The Fruits.
The benefit of coming up with a name like, The Fruits, is that nobody ever forgets the name and there is a lot of attention drawn to it. We are hard to forget, in part because of how we represent ourselves.
MK: After scouring the band’s social media platforms, I get the feeling “fruit” means more than just the fleshy, seed carrying by product of a plant. Does fruit mean something else?
Fruits: Of course, fruit most certainly means more. Representing fruit has become a lifestyle for us and it reflects our personalities. For example, Nick is the bad boy of the group so he can be a little bit sour and sometimes downright rotten. Drew is the baby of the band, he is very sweet. Sean is the old man of the group and a little bit over ripe.
MK: Is it natural for you to get personal with your lyrics or do you prefer to construct lines about material a bit removed from yourself?
Fruits: It’s that old saying, write what you know. Our original lyrics always have a personal connection, but that does not mean the lines directly correlate with our life in every song. Sometimes, we sing a story about hardships we watch our friends face – “Average Love” is about that.
MK: Share a story from your guys’ music career when your three unique journeys blended wonderfully together?
Fruits: This is something that happens on a consistent basis. We all have played in different capacities and have a varying range of experiences. Everyone brings something unique to the table.
While it is hard to pinpoint a particular moment, one memory stands out. The Fruits were invited to an incredible gig this past year, called Detroit x Detroit. It is an event where local Detroit bands cover a famous Detroit musician or band. We chose Madonna and were selected to headline the entire event, which was a huge honor.
Detroit x Detroit 2019 hit record attendance and we had a blast playing the set. The success of this gig was gratifying in that this was a very successful moment in The Fruits’ history. Months later we can recognize the lessons and experiences we had individually, shaped the moment on stage to make it so special.
MK: Congratulations on a successful event! We will wrap up with one recommendation you offer to new writers and musicians? Do you have any tips to get over a brain freeze and get back to creating content?
Fruits: Just keep working at it. Write about anything. You’ll never know where you can get inspiration from. It may come from something as strange as fruit shaped shakers sitting off stage.
A FRUIT IS THE SEED-BEARING STRUCTURE IN FLOWERING PLANTS (ALSO KNOWN AS ANGIOSPERMS) FORMED FROM THE OVARY AFTER FLOWERING.
More specifically, The Fruits are a trio of musicians from Detroit, MI who celebrate all things fruit. We are raising awareness to the great cultural impact fruits have had on western cultures. Think about it, Chuck Berry pioneered rock ‘n’ roll music, Berry Bonds hit the most home runs in Major League Baseball history (although this is up for discussion), E.T. would not be the same without the performance of young actress Drew Berrymore, and what would Motown be without Berry Gordy? These are just a seedling of reasons why The Fruits play music. To pay homage and celebrate the seed bearing structure that has provided so many with good eats, good beats, and grape athletes!
