Chris Farren Was Born Hot, Even If His Music Confesses Otherwise

By Eli Enis


It wasn't very long ago that Chris Farren didn't aspire to be funny. The 33-year-old singer/songwriter/self-producer has been a cult staple of contemporary punk, emo, and indie rock for the better piece of a decade. And within that ever-amalgamating multiverse of underground rock acts, Farren is most known for his comical personality— perhaps even more so than his actual music. His shtick, in a scene that's largely devoid of shticks, is simple although endlessly clever. Farren writes remarkably candid pop-rock songs about self-loathing and depression throughout which he ceaselessly refers to himself as a monumental failure. Although the version of himself that he presents publicly, both onstage and on social media, is that of someone who's tremendously self-absorbed and ludicrously confident.


His sets feature a backdrop of projected headshots, videos, and phrases like "Another brilliant set by Chris Farren!" His tweets and Instagram photos are outlandishly narcissistic and frequently reference his own perceived attractiveness, although he sings frankly about being dissatisfied with his appearance. And on his third record as a solo artist, unflinchingly titled Born Hot (out Friday by means of the Polyvinyl), he leans heavily into that "character" categorize in attempt to completely link the dedicated irony of his public persona to the music itself. At this point, five years soon after his debut, Like a Gift From God or Whatever, the Chris Farren project is so thorough and well-developed that it seems like he must've been carrying it out forever. However that's not at all of the case.


Farren grew up an only child to a loving single mother in Naples, Florida. As a self-described "annoying, extroverted child" who was habitually identified by his sense of humor, he certainly gravitated toward community theater. His mom habitually thought he'd be a comedian, nevertheless that path never appealed to him. As a teen, he speedily became obsessed with music and soon determined that doing it professionally was his career path.


"My mom routinely tells me this story where one day I came into her room mentioned, 'I'm not funny anymore,' As soon as I was 15 or something. And it also was a choice I was making. Like, 'I'm Mr. Serious right now Farren says while in a telephone call with MTV News. He remembers thinking that group in attempt to be successful songwriter along with a capital-A Artist, his comic disposition had to go. "I thought that it might not go hand in hand with being fun and funny."


In his late teens he formed and fronted a melodic indie-rock musical group called Fake Problems, which he ended up grinding in for nearly a decade. They toured for eight months out of the year and put out a couple records on now-defunct punk household SideOneDummy Records, nevertheless they never got to the point where they could perfectly headline entire tours. In the early 2010s, prior to recording their fourth record, their guitarist suddenly quit and the musical group unceremoniously fizzled to a halt. Farren was devastated.


"At the time it felt like the worst thing that had ever happened to me, and right now I'm so happy that it happened," he says. "It really made me analyse myself and my desires in life and what's critical to me, and all of that shit. And I think it really, really forced me to grow as a person and as an artist."


It also catalyzed his unexpected friendship with fellow punk underdog Jeff Rosenstock, who was simultaneously experiencing the disbandment of his longtime sort, Bomb the Music Industry! While Farren was attempting to identify what his impending solo career would look and sound like, he reached out to Rosenstock to do a split. "That sounds boring, we should just begin a musical group with each other is how he remembers Rosenstock responding. They determined to call themselves Antarctigo Vespucci, and soon after releasing a EP called Soulmate Stuff in 2014, they immediately became more popular than Fake Problems ever was.


Without consideration, Farren still wanted to prepare a solo record, and he wanted to be the one who recorded it. "I was sick of paying somebody $10,000 to be mean to me," he says only half-jokingly. Perhaps it should've been expected given lines of his like, "Why can't I bear to be alone with myself?" (2016's mention U Want Me") and "I hope you never visualize me like the way I visualize myself," (Born Hot's opener, "Bizzy"), however Farren's chronic insecurities are woven into the fabric of his musical history. He was so nervous about how people would react to his independent work that he determined to create his debut a Christmas album (and donate all of the cash charity) categorize in attempt to protect himself from negative criticism.


"Nobody can be mean to me about this," he remembers thinking.


He was happy with how the record came out and people usually admired it, nevertheless as soon as he started touring on it he became incredibly frustrated that his live show was just him and an acoustic guitar. Whenever somebody would ask me, 'Oh, I'm coming to the show, what's your set like?' And this isn't a dig on other people who do this because there really are people who are incredible at doing this. Yet me saying, 'Oh it's, like, me standing there with an acoustic guitar singing,' it hurt coming out of my mouth."


Out of an aspire to entertain himself more than anything, he started playing along to the backing tracks (drums, synths, bass) of his album. He admired it, nevertheless he still felt like something was missing, so he determined to teach himself how to prepare iMovie video montages with images and videos that vaguely lined up with the music he was playing. As he became more and more comfortable with the charming kitsch of an one-man-band singing about crippling depression in front of a projector screen, the comically self-involved attitude started to emerge.


"I think that's also sort of a result or reaction of once you are a solo performer performing under your own name, once somebody says, 'Chris Farren sucks,' that's my name. That's, like, me. The only way I might feel comfortable doing it is if I was, like, 'How can I make this amusing for myself?' Or so silly that it's either certainly a joke or you can’t tell what's real and what's fake."


Farren thought the contrast between his brutally self-deprecating lyrics and his over-the-top arrogance was the perfect segment of his set, and as he gradually became more comfortable in that role — and fans started to embrace it, both online and in concert — he started feeling a renewed sense of purpose as a creative.


"Ironically pretending to be confident gave me a level of confidence," he says. "Before, in Fake Problems, I never felt like a good front-person. I felt very awkward in between songs and never knew what to mention. However taking on the character thing is a fun thing to write for."


Beyond just being funny and strangely comforting for him, his tongue-in-cheek egocentrism triples as a commentary on a trend within music that he absolutely loathes: false humility. "There's a lot of bands who take pride in that they have no gimmicks," he says. "The kind of people who mention, 'Man, our show sold out. Life is weird, I'm so humble.' And I'm just like, 'Shut the fuck up, you are so full of crap, it's so annoying to me. It's so fake to me."


Farren wanted to turn that on its head by being so blatantly obvious about what every performer truly wants. "I'm like, 'I want attention,'" he says with puppy-dog glee. "Maybe because my dad wasn't around, or I don't know why it is. Although I just want attention."


He couldn't have been more upfront about that than titling his new album Born Hot and making the cover a self-portrait of him laying down seductively, shirtless, and questionably muscular. He wrote the album with his live show in mind, yet the music is still his regular fare of '80s synths, glittery power chords, and bombastic hooks that he sings with the swagger of a pop-punk king and the tenderness of John Darnielle. There's also a heavy dose of easy-listening influence in several of those songs, which likely stemmed from Farren's unexpected dive into Burt Bacarach's catalog.


His latest merch haul includes Born Hot stove mitts, an apron with his face on it, along with a throw pillow emblazoned with a photo of him (in just his bikini) lounging dramatically in a trickling stream. Although his real double-down came in the form of a rented billboard on "Sunset freakin' Boulevard, baby." Farren says he brought the idea to his label, Polyvinyl, however didn't think that they'd actually have the ability to prepare it happen. "I almost had to stop myself from convincing them not to do it," he says.


There's a song on Born Hot called "I Was Astonishing that starts with the line, "What if I was astonishing? / What if everything worked out?" Like all Chris Farren songs, he wades in self-doubt for a couple of verses before mustering just enough hope — or simply unloading enough emotional baggage — to create it to the next one. Yet hearing that line, "What if everything worked out?" While giggling at Farren's Instagram feed full of glorious concert photos, hilarious Photoshop jobs, plus a fan tattoo for an album that hasn’t even come out nevertheless — it almost makes his lyrical anxieties, as real as @they could be, feel as outrageous as his onstage bravado. Things are clearly working out for Chris Farren.