Q: Who are you and what do you do?

A: I’m Dave Fritz and I sing and play guitar in the band Ramona.

Q: Is it true that Ramona haven’t even played a live show yet?

A: That is true. From the start I never set out to put a band together. I was playing guitar in Junior Achiever but I wasn't writing any of the songs. So I was being creative in my spare time instead recording all of these demos of my own material that I'd never finish. There seemed to be no point because I didn't have an outlet for them anyway. So my original idea was just to actually finish a record and burn a few CD’s for friends. Just for posterity really. To leave something tangible behind.

Q: So what happened that made you decide to put a band together?

A: I started playing the songs to some people, just to get feedback. When I did that I ended up getting some really surprising reviews. People actually liked it. Our bass player Matt was a catalyst of sorts. He fed my ego, which is what all insecure artists need to get motivated, and he helped me realise that Ramona could actually be something more than just a hobby.

Q: What’s the meaning behind the title of your EP, “Mornington Crescent Now Open”?

A: Mornington Crescent is a tube station (subway station) in London. It closed for renovations which were only meant to take a year but it ended up being closed for most of the 90’s. When I lived in England during that time, if you took the Northern Line it would pass slowly through that empty station, it was quite eerie really. It was dark and dirty and full of old advertisements. It felt frozen in time. It’s only opened again in the last few years. Restored to its past glory.

The songs on the EP were written during a turbulent time for me, a few things happened simultaneously that had a great impact on my life. I suppose I felt like I had been frozen in time for a bit and when I came through all the shit I felt renewed, restored to my past glory I guess. Thematically it worked for me, so I found a connection between myself and a Tube station! (laughs)

Q: I hear a lot of different influences in your music. A very American power pop sound with shades of Weezer and The Posies but you also seem to tip your hat towards England. In the break down of “The One” for instance there is a very Pete Townsend-esque moment. Are you a fan of British music?

A: I haven’t heard the Posies comparison before, but it’s interesting because I did like a few of their albums. I’m a huge fan of British music, I’ve always been drawn to it. From 60’s Mod and Beat stuff right through to newer bands like The Rifles and The Futureheads. It’s all been a huge influence on me musically but I don’t think that Ramona sounds English at all, so the fact that you even picked up on that is sort of a compliment. At the end of the day though I’m just a fan of pop music, whether it’s American or British or Swedish or whatever, doesn’t really matter.

Q: The EP “Mornington Crescent Now Open” is also being released in Japan?

A: Yes, in fact it’s actually coming out in Japan before it’s released here. It’s due out in late August of this year on “Fixing a Hole Records”.

Q: What’s the story behind the song “Kids In Tokyo”?

A: I toured Japan with a Junior Achiever last year and a few of our shows were as support for Shakalabbits. Those were big shows, about 1000 people each night. The audiences were absolutely brilliant, it was really refreshing. I fell in love with the country and the people and felt inspired to write a song about them.

It’s about Japan really, not just about the kids in Tokyo but for writing purposes I needed the extra syllable! I’ve become good friends with the members of Shakalabbits and I asked their drummer Mah if he might be interested in playing drums on the song. It just so happened that they were heading into the recording studio and I think he felt a bit inspired by the song and what it meant and he agreed to do it.

Q: It says in your bio that you were trying to make a record that was a bit “rough around the edges”. It doesn’t sound that rough to me, but there is an urgency in the way the songs are constructed. Can you expand on that a bit?

A: The production style probably came about for a couple of reasons. The last record I engineered I had like twenty microphones on the drums, and in the end most of the drums ended up being replaced by samples. They were edited to be in perfect time like a drum machine along with the guitars that were all played through modern high gain amplifiers. The record sounds amazing, it’s clean and pristine and as an audio engineer I really appreciate that super produced sound but I’ve heard it so much over the last couple of years that it’s all become a bit sterile to me.

I was listening to Graham Coxon’s (Blur guitarist) solo record “Love Travels At Illegal Speeds” and it’s really big sounding, but also dirty and raw and very exciting. I decided I wanted to make a record like that, four microphones on the drums, a guitar plugged straight into an overdriven Fender amp and the other reason comes into play here I guess, I was probably just too lazy to want to edit all the drums and stuff! (laughs) It takes loads of time to do.

Q: Who is the “A-list” girl that “jumped right back onto the screen” that you sing about in “The One”? Is she a real person?

A: Oh…she is real yes! (laughs) But I can’t tell you who she is because it might get her into trouble!

Q: Are you planning on making another record?

A: I never planned for Ramona to come this far so I imagine that there will be another record. Besides we need more songs for our live set! (laughs)