The Fauves

Mon 3rd Nov, 2008 in Features

Ask Andrew Cox what it was like recording his ninth album, When Good Times Go Good, and he’ll respond with an amusing, “Aw yeah, it was alright,” laughing as if queried about buying a carton of milk.

The lead vocalist isn’t particularly interested in dressing up the experience, even if the record marks the 20th birthday of his band, The Fauves. Produced by long-time collaborator Wayne Connolly and Midnight Oil’s Jim Moginie, the group’s latest effort is an upper. It’s a collection of cruisey melodic pep tunes doused in biting lyrical mischief. Guitarist Phil “Doctor” Leonard also makes a return to form, contributing five tracks as opposed to his one on 2006’s Nervous Flashlights.

While the quartet isn’t unloved, Cox, Doctor, drummer Adam Newey and bassist Timothy Cleaver definitely don’t sit with the cool kids of the Australian rock playground. They’re well clear of infancy, walking the tentative path of middle-age. But their lack of commercial success isn’t necessarily an age thing – simply a fact of life that they’ve shrugged off rather than endured.

“If a band doesn’t have a sales record then it doesn’t really have to match up to anything,” Cox points out optimistically. “We’re long past the idea of worrying about whether or not we’re going to be number one or anything like that. I think it’d be pretty sad sitting down with a guitar and feeling stressed about impressing people with what you’re going to write.”

It’s hard not to feel a little warm and fuzzy about a group that favours personal satisfaction over the glamour of playing rock stars. If anything, The Fauves seem to revel in the – œanti’. Exhibit A? Fight Me: I’m 40, the standout track on When Good Times Go Good. The definitive rock tune of the album, its lyrics juxtapose the band (as a bunch of defiant Dad-rocker types) with young image-conscious musicians who act like they own the stage. With lyrics like, “I shop for clothes at Best and Less/ I don’t wear no gel in my hair/ Style is fleeting but talk’s for life/ I fight with my knuckles bare”, the tune is as self-deprecating as it is provocative. Beyond the humour, however, is a bold criticism of superficiality within contemporary music culture.

“Image is a huge part of the music industry,” Cox says. “For instance, a lot of record companies would probably be quite horrified with the idea of a band telling their audience that they had a couple of members that were 40. When I was 20 I would have looked at 40-year-old musicians and thought, – œHow tragic’. And I’m sure 20-year-old musicians will look at us today and think the same. Rock and pop music is supposed to be eternally young. But you get to a point where you’re comfortable to throw off a lot of those affectations.”

When it comes to image, Cox is a little beyond – œcomfortable’. Recently, he authored a non-fiction book called I’ll Work When I’m Dead, which both foregrounds his life as an unsuccessful musician and acts as a user’s guide to being on the dole. “It’s not a sort of – œAndrew Cox: My Life’ kind of thing,” he laughs. “I don’t think anyone’s too interested in reading that. But yeah, I guess it’s a bit of an alternative to books about groupies and limousines and cocaine parties. It’s a bit more, – œWe load our gear out of the pub after playing in front of twenty people at 3am’ kind of thing.”

It’s because The Fauves aren’t being whisked away by a limo each night that the group is constantly interacting with its fans. After 20 years of hand-shaking, the quartet has a pretty solid insight into the world of fan culture. They’re now in the process of writing a television show exploring fandom in all its oddities.

“I couldn’t necessarily gloss through a set of side-splitting anecdotes about weird fans,” says Cox, “but that’s the thing, it’s more subtle. I dunno…it’s a funny occupation being in a band. I mean you could be a plumber and people don’t come up to you after you’ve fixed someone’s toilet wanting your autograph, you know?

“I mean, we’re four nobodies really and yet there are people out there that still think the idea of meeting us is somehow special. I know a lot of bands that I’ve been into over the years and never ever wanted to meet them. But there’s something different about the people that do. And there stories are often quite poignant. So, the sort of stuff we’ve been writing about isn’t straight piss-taking. There’s often a more moving side to it.”

“Still,” he laughs, “the idea of paying money to come and see people standing on a raised stage…if you strip it back to its bare essentials, it does seem quite strange, doesn’t it?”

When Good Times Go Good is out now on Shock Records.