On Friday, June 2, the Quarry Tap Room in Hallowell will host a popular quartet known as Fules Gold. I have seen that name pop up at various venues in the central Maine area for a while now such as Mainely Brews, for example, and have been very curious as to what they were like, so I decided to request an interview to learn more about the band. I discovered that band member Simon Quist was the gentleman with whom I should chat and a phone interview was quickly established where I called him on his cellphone at his home in Readfield. The results of that conversation follows:

Q: I was sent an MP3 “Mountains Peak” to help me prepare for this interview. Is that song an original?

Quist: Yeah, that’s a song I wrote about four years ago.

Q: Is songwriting something that comes easy to you?

Quist: Well, I think that it’s something that had to develop, for sure, just like with any musical venture. But the more I put my mind to the inspiration, really looking deep down inside myself, I found it easier to craft what it is I wanted, you know, what I wanted to hear.

Q: As I listened to that track there was a decidedly ‘Dead jam’ influence in there, if I heard it correctly, that is.

Quist: Yeah, for sure! I love the Grateful Dead, so a lot of my music has that type of feeling to it. Also, I really like jazz a lot so there’s inspiration from that, too, but “Peak” in particular definitely has more jam-y/Grateful Dead/rock ‘n’ roll kind of thing going on in it.

Q: Some of the soundscaping, like the knocking that runs through it, is intriguing and unique in itself. I discover different elements every time I listen to it. Is that song on an album?

Quist: Yeah, it’s on our album. We haven’t released it yet, we’re still putting the final touches on it, making sure it’s all mastered and what not. We’re almost done with it and I think we’ll have some type of blow-out when it’s finished. We’ve put a lot of work into it.

Q: Now is this forthcoming album going to be all original compositions?

Quist: Yeah, oh yeah.

Q: Are you the principle songwriter in Fules Gold?

Quist: It’s myself and the other guitar player in the band, Duncan Allen.

Q: How many are in the group?

Quist: There are four of us — just two guitars, bass and drums.

Q: Is “Mountains Peak” a good representation of what you guys are like live?

Quist: Yeah, definitely, that’s one of our staple songs. Every time we go out and play a show we pretty much play what we feel and sometimes we’ll even make a song up right on the spot. But we always play that song, yeah, that’s a classic for us, so to say.

Q: Do you cover any Dead material when you perform?

Quist: Yeah, we do. We play a lot of Grateful Dead. We try to play all original music because that’s really what we’re striving for.

Q: That’s a really good goal to have.

Quist: Yeah, but we have a lot of friends that like the Grateful Dead, and we love to play the music, so we always end up playing a couple of tunes by them. We have developed our own niche following and we’re just building our basis off that.

Q: How long has Fules Gold been in existence?

Quist: It’s been six years now.

Q: Where do you play? I’ve seen your name at Mainely Brews and in the Hallowell area.

Quist: Well, we have started to branch out. We’ll pretty much play wherever, if we can get enough gas money to get there, but we’ll pretty much play any venue. We really started off on the festival scene. We’ve played a lot of festivals up in Starks and the other one in Harmony. We got our start there and then we went to the local bars in our area — Hallowell and Waterville — now we’re trying to get into the Portland scene. That’s a little bit of a harder nut to crack because there’s a lot of other bands in that area.

Q: Now I understand that you have a solo career and a duo project with Duncan going, as well. Do you perform the same style of music or do you switch it up?

Quist: Yeah, it’s usually about the same. I’m working on songs I can just play by myself, so it’ll be a mix of Fules Gold songs and songs that I wouldn’t play, unless I was playing by myself. But when I do play by myself I play a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t play with the band.

Q: Like what?

Quist: Just personal stuff and I’ll cover some Bob Dylan or Willie Nelson or just people I really like to hear.

Q: Is there anything you’d like to pass on to the readers of this article?

Quist: Oh, I don’t know, just to keep things positive. I keep thinking about the state that the world’s in and I’m not really sure what’s happening — who really knows what the future holds — but I just want people to know that there is hope. With our music we’re just trying to bring people to a good place, you know? There are a lot of bad things going on in the world, but we’re really trying to create our own little universe right here. Hopefully we can expand that into something bigger, you know?

Lucky Clark has spent 48 years writing about good music and the people who make it. He can be reached at luckyc@myfairpoint.net if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

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