Tropical fuck storm
TALKING FOOD AND TUNES WITH TROPICAL FUCK STORM BASSIST FIONA KITSCHIN.
What’s on the menu at a Tropical Fuck Storm show? Emotions, beer, rockmelon, tequila, corn chips, hummus, ear bleeds, good times.
Which do you find more satisfying, writing a new song or making an amazing dish? Both are pretty satisfying. Being involved in the writing of a new song gives you an immediate high, and hopefully enjoyment for others. Cooking a tasty treat also gives pleasure to myself and others (again, hopefully). I get a kick out of cooking for other people – cooking just for me isn’t as fun. My boyfriend calls it showing off, but I prefer to call it showing love.
Favourite kind of music to listen to while you’re cooking? I’ve not really thought about this until you asked me, but now that I think about it, I like music without lyrics to cook to. The words don’t interrupt my thinking, then. Stuff like French composer Erik Satie or Dirty Three.
What are the essential ingredients of a really great song? I’m a sucker for the emo shit – not actual emo music, but songs that make you feel heroically sad. So emotional profundity, interesting lyrics, delivery of vocals and music that is unique in some way all help make a song that’s enjoyable to listen to. Plus good melodies, of course!
What’s your favourite food-related memory? Gaz and I had a little Mexican holiday at the end of a Drones tour with our friend Amanda. We headed to a sweet beach resort in Rosarito, where we’d holidayed the previous year after another tour. After checking in, we headed to our favourite taco van on a dusty dirt road in a beach shanty town. Last time we'd frequented this van daily, as the tacos were delicious in their simplicity: beans, cheese, a mix of chopped onion and coriander and salsas. We really talked this joint up to Amanda. We were asked if we'd like the mild, medium or hot salsa – and warned that the hot wasn’t for the faint-hearted. Gaz and I opted for the medium; Amanda, however, took this as a challenge and insisted she could take the heat. They were as delicious as we remembered, and after stuffing ourselves, we headed to a huge Mexican Walmart to stock up on supplies. While searching for sun cream and towels, Amanda started tripping and hallucinating in a serious way… Her arms started getting longer as she pushed the trolley. We had to make a quick getaway, and that trippy taco lasted many hours.
Have you ever eaten a meal that’s inspired you creatively? Most meals inspire a little lie down, digestion, maybe a nap. For me, a coffee buzz is more of a creative inspiration.
Favourite food to eat on the road? Quite a bit of time on tour is spent researching the best vegan restaurants in each different town or city – Hammer (aka our drummer Lauren Hammel) usually takes the reins on that one. So if we have time, and the town is amenable to our kind, we eat very well (our favourite place is Crossroads Kitchen in LA). However, if we’re on the road for 10 hours in France, for example, and can only access truckstop food, it’s a diet of potato chips. And two people in the band will get quite hangry (I may be one of them).
Sweet or salty: which reigns supreme? SALTY, SALTY, SALTY. Sweet is boring to my tastebuds. I don’t really even eat that much fruit because it’s too sweet.
Do you have a go-to meal to cook to impress someone? My go-to is ‘summer pie’ (or spring pie, winter pie, autumn pie – you just change the main vegetable to suit the season). It’s a great one to impress people because, apart from the pastry just being delicious, it’s so creamy and cheesy and salty and yummy – people can’t believe it’s plant-based. The tarragon salsa verde offsets the richness so well; I just love the combination of tarragon and tomato.