Fuyuko's Fables are a new band from Wellington who make the kind of lilting, melodramatic pop reminiscent of countryman Lawrence Arabia and the likes of Bon Iver further afield. UTR caught up with Jeremy from the band to find out how Fuyuoko's Fables started, what they've been up to, and why we should head along to the San Francisco Bathhouse and check them out tonight.
How did the band start?
The band started like most bands I guess. Scott, the bass player and main vocalist brought a bunch of his songs he had written along to a jam. Originally I think we were just going to do one gig with them but pretty much straight after that we decided we should be playing the tunes together and made a band from it.
How long have you been together?
We have been playing music together for a few years before we created Fuyukos and started jamming early last year and gigging around June the same year.
Describe your sound:
Describing our sound is not at all a task I relish but I guess if I had to it would be folky. Bits of country and rock and pop mixed in there too. We like to arrange the music quite a lot and definitely get into our vocal harmonies. I would say that's quite a big part of our sound.
Describe your influences and inspiration:
Its a huge range of things there is a lot of different music we all listen to. A lot of the sound just came from the songs that Scott wrote but in terms of arrangement and especially the vocal side of things I would say the whole Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, Dirty Projectors kind of thing was an influence. Stuff we had all been listening to at the time and like I said especially in terms of the vocals side, we all like the sound of lots of harmonies and lots of voices.
What are you working on at the moment?
We just released our E.P. on bandcamp (name your price) which has been our major focus lately it's good to have some recordings out. I think we are mostly focusing on playing a few shows around town and trying to get a live/video E.P. thing going in the near future.
What are the future plans for you guys?
I think we are just keen to get playing do a lot of live shows around hopefully set some up in Auckland maybe down south and even over in Australia if possible. The live e.p. thing I mentioned above and mostly just wanna get doing some shows see what we can make happen and get some recordings out there to whoever wants to listen, maybe some support slots with bigger/international bands.
What can we expect from the live show / why should we come see you on Wednesday?
We are playing as a five piece at the moment with extra percussion and bass clarinet and all of us singing so more layers of vocals extra voices. We're gonna play our full E.P. and then some of the new tunes we've bee working on which is exciting. Might have a few extra people jumping up to play as well its going to be a real big sound I think.
Also it's free and there is cheap piss...
Why are you excited about playing with the other bands?
Its always great to play with friends, Big River Chain is a real fun band it should be a good combo I think.
The state of the Wellington music scene is:
Good on the whole. There is a real different "Wellington" sound coming out at the moment, or maybe it's just a New Zealand thing. But there is more really good quality music coming out that isn't just in the dub/soul/reggae vein. Its good to see a lot of bands with their own unique sound but it could always use more, I think the Watusi closing down has left a bit of a gap for new bands trying stuff out. They were real good to us when we first started and it was sad to see them go.
Favourite Wellington Bands?
Seth Frightening, Glass Vaults, Paper Ghost. I really enjoy the whole Sonorous Circle sound, and City Oh Sigh we played with recently who were amazing. Also Brockaflowersaurus-Rex & The Blueberry Biscuits is dam entertaining and a real good band too.
- Courtney Sanders
