The Foes of Fern/Ruby Grove

The Foes of Fern
Ruby Grove (Boston, MA)

The Foes of Fern are a band of non-stop fun and gritty gracefulness; a troupe of eclectic musicians from New Jersey setting the record straight, left, right, and upside down.

Marrying drums, bass, guitar, tuba, ukulele, sax, trumpet, trombone and other wandering minstrels, the Foes carve out a segment in the music industry like a voluminous, awesome boulder. Their music is hypnotic and gang-busting in every sense, initiating you as part of the tribe upon first down-beat. A wall of sound thriving through each new moment on stage, feeling like the spontaneity of Hendrix while maintaining the rehearsed specialties in parts and orchestration reminiscent of the Beatles.

Better yet, the Foes are friends and they like it that way. In one swaying unit, they throw caution and attention to the wind all at once. They extend drama, cracking jokes on stage and taking turns describing their passion with spotlight solos and inciting coalition sing-along choruses. All hands on deck, all mouths on the mic.

Live shows with the Foes are a multi-instrumental face-melt sandwich. Your Fitbit is going to be off the charts from all the bopping, skanking, and singing along to this truly electric construct of sound. The Foes are the good time you can see coming from a mile away.

Foes leading man and guitarist Matthew Fernicola (Fern) created the Foes of Fern after five years in his first band, Airacuda. In stride with the early conception of the Foes, Fern cofounded all-star band, The Burns, which ultimately came to a close in 2019. Continuing to garner attention in the musical town of Asbury Park, NJ (home of the legendary Stone Pony and Sea.Here.Now Festival), Fern took the Foes to Grammy-winning engineer, Joe Pomarico, at Telegraph Hill Records. The team has crafted a gift that keeps on giving, with recordings complex in instrumentation that require multiple listens to catch every nuance. Under the audio-guise of misfit toys, they are the ignition of energy, theory, composition, rule-breaking, and friend-making.

In April 2018, the Foes single April Came in the Rain marked the first release of eleven tracks in the queue for their debut full-length record, Carpe Diem, set to launch August 28th 2020 at The Saint in Asbury Park, NJ. Title track, Carpe Diem, and song, Ghosts, occupy a unique interdependence and have been saved for the finale. The love-song substance of Carpe Diem, leads way to Ghosts’expression of the difficulty yet goodness of moving on from satisfactory love toward an even greater self-discovery. The Foes tell stories, speak emotion, cry truths, and make hearts sings; welcome to The Foes of Fern.

“Creating one sound, together. That’s what I love about music.” – (Fern)