The Fair Attempts is the “Black Mirror of Industrial Rock,” exploring themes of the future society we’re unwittingly constructing around ourselves. Each song reveals more of the dystopian world first imagined by the artist, Friendly Timo. The music has a hard and gritty sound while making you want to dance. Genres brought together to create this unique sound include Electro-industrial, Darkwave, and Synthpop.
Hailing from Finland, The Fair Attempts was founded in 2018 by Friendly Timo, the one man behind the compositions, lyrics, and audio engineering. During 2018, he released several experimental singles. The collection is called Indoctrination, and it didn’t represent the true core and soul of the music of The Fair Attempts, but it helped Timo discover and express his unique sound.
In early 2019, the debut EP arisTotal was released. The six track EP was well received at home in Finland and abroad. Soon after the release of the EP, Timo’s wife, Starwing, became an official member of The Fair Attempts, after working behind the scenes with him since the inception of the project.
During the autumn of 2019, their first full-length LP, Carnal Insect, was released. The Fair Attempts were so grateful for all the support they received from fans following the album’s release that they released a Carnal Insect Remixes EP and give it to those supporters for free.
In 2019, Timo began sharing his vision of a dark future for humanity through his music and the character known as “TFA Guy.” Timo spoke about the character, “It is like this gas masked character is my avatar for expressing some deeper aspects of me and tell a story through it.” He explained, “it personifies the kind of individual that part of me feels inside: behind shields and barriers from the outside world and influences, while cautious and protective about everything that may hurt me.”
TFA Guy was first conceived during the creation of the song, Catwalk from the arisTotal EP, and every song The Fair Attempts produces reveals more of the character and the dystopian future world he lives in.
Speaking of that world envisioned by Friendly Timo, arisTotal is the prologue that sets the stage and introduces you to the world, while Carnal Insect is the prequel that reveals the downfall of society and how that world was born. Before the Carnal Insect LP was even released, Timo began composing new songs for the second full-length album, called Dream Engine, which continues the story from where arisTotal left off. Timo and Starwing discussed themes for the new album, as well as the stories the songs would tell. Many of Timo’s ideas were so similar to a story idea Starwing had that she was inspired to write a novel based on The World of The Fair Attempts, which would be the companion novel for Dream Engine and would enable people to become more immersed in the dystopian future our world is speeding toward.
While the novel was being written and the album was created, they kept the connection between the two projects as a secret in plain sight, considering that Starwing’s novel is titled, Dreaming Your Dream. Of course, several followers of The Fair Attempts recognized the connection, and it was finally confirmed three weeks before the novel was available. Dreaming Your Dream is dystopian science fiction and also includes 50 Film Noir inspired illustrations painted by Melinda Maria Lack, that were also featured in lyric videos for songs from the Dream Engine LP.
Throughout 2020, Timo portrayed the protagonist of the novel through a form of cosplay in photo shoots for The Fair Attempts, rather than his TFA Guy character, to add to the art they were creating. Nevertheless, the symbolism of the gas mask as protection of the self from influences of the world continues in the visual art and the fiction behind the music.
In the autumn of 2021, the album Signals was released. It was heavily influenced by the novel Starwing wrote, which is the first book in a series. Starwing revealed the complete story of the series to Timo, and that enabled him to weave elements of the story and personal experiences of the characters into his lyrics. That continues to this day, as he and Starwing collaborate on themes for lyrics of new songs.
Throughout 2021, Timo portrayed another character with a new costume, which he wore in the music video for the title track of the album. The costume is based on a cultural story from The World of The Fair Attempts and is inspired by an illustration from Dreaming Your Dream. In the second book of the series (not yet published), a character creates a costume for himself based on the cultural story in their world.
In 2022, The Fair Attempts released several singles and another music video for the song, Rose Tattoo. The video is a symbolic portrayal of the backstory of a character in the book series (who was featured on the cover of Dreaming Your Dream). It confused some people who didn’t know about the character or her backstory. The video was also slightly controversial and became age-restricted on YouTube because of graphic and sensitive content.
Early in 2023, they released another full-length album, Lotus Head. While their earlier releases were well received, singles from the Lotus Head album were that much more successful, and the song My Frozen Heart was even added to an official Spotify playlist. The album is the first one to have album cover art created by Starwing with AI-assistance.
