All you ever wanted to know about FSM but were afraid to ask...

"Best known for providing music for the hit TV Show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Four Star Mary is an energetic attack on the notion that alternative rock is dead. No samples. No loops. No rapping. No disrespect... FSM is just two guitars, a driving beat and strong melodies..."

Four Star Mary have been together for 4 years. The original line up was Tad, Steve, Buddy Chanda(drums), Falon Etienne (guitar) and Zu. Buddy left to pursue solo interests, to be replace by Chris. Later, Falon left, citing a desire to devote a larger portion of his energies practicing and studying yoga. He was replaced by Dave, who left this year to persue his movie making career, only to be replaced by ladies favourite Doug.

Apparantly, the name of the band came from an old bass player, who was a paralegal. He was looking into a case where someone was suing Exxon. The name of the case was Four Star vs. Mary ...

Band Influences:
U2
Catherine Wheel
Stone Temple Pilots

From the offical site:
What do you want to know about Four Star Mary? "Where did the name come from?" you might ask. Opinions vary: "A drag-queen bar in West Hollywood" Tad offers. "A fortune cookie" is Zu's response. Try: "Does the name mean anything?" Zu: "No, I thought we should've called the band Fortune Cookie."

Dig a little further and you might decide that the strangest thing about Four Star Mary is that it exists at all. None of FSM's members grew up within a hundred miles of each other. Falon grew up in Montreal, Tad is from Texas, Zu grew up in the San Fernando Valley and Steve was raised near San Francisco. Add to the logistical improbabilities of simply meeting a healthy dose of divergent musical backgrounds, and you start to see why at least one journalist has accused FSM of possessing "more sense and sensitivity (plus a dose of mighty melodic intuition) than they have any right to."-Johnny Whiteside, LA Weekly.

Despite the odds, the members of FSM met, and when they did, the synergy of minds and music led to a group which is not only prolific, but (unlike most of its brethren) actually writes as a group. According to Steve, "Four Star Mary is the most collaborative musical effort I've ever been in. Everyone in FSM is a good songwriter in his own right. And almost more importantly, everyone listens to everyone else. The only aspect of our songs which doesn't represent a combined effort by all of us are the lyrics, which are Tad's private domain." The result of this collaboration has been a slow but steady growth of Four Star Mary's profile within the overwhelming multitude of bands which comprise the L.A. scene. And in addition to their live shows, recent use of Four Star Mary songs television shows such as Fox's "Party of Five," MTV's "The Real World" and the WB's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has started to raise the band's profile nationally.Indeed, Four Star Mary has practically become the "house band" on Fox's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", providing music for the popular character Oz's fictitious band "Dingoes Ate My Baby" on several episodes, as well as providing source music for key scenes for the last two seasons. The result of this exposure has been a deluge of fan email requesting appearances across the nation, and soaring web-based sales of Four Star Mary's self-titled EP that show no signs of abating. From a business perspective, it is easy to imagine that, with decent distribution and a modest marketing effort, Four Star Mary could go platinum with a domestic release based solely on their Buffy fan-base!

Of course, that's not to suggest that FSM couldn't generate sales overseas. 1997 saw Four Star Mary winging it to Paris for a five night engagement at the Chesterfield Cafe, a 350 seat venue near L'arc de Triomphe (naturally). Although hard pressed to divide themselves from the the club's bevy of Danish waitresses, the boys managed to find time to make a strong impression on the multinational crowd with their stripped-down, pop-edged rock songs and a stage presence which alternates between brooding and exuberant. Case in point: France's premiere rock radio station showed up for what was intended to be a brief interview with the band, but instead returned the following night to do a live remote, broadcasting an entire set across the French airwaves. Ahh... imagine radio-listeners' disappointment when they found out that an FSM album isn't available in stores... yet.

I am not connected with Four Star Mary, their recording company or Network Of the World (NOW). No copyright violoations intended.
Updated: 15th Aug 01

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