Recently, I got to (virtually) sit down with my friends Nolan and Jake from the Fairview to talk about Warped Tour, politics, their new record Fresh Faced and Effervescent, and everything in between.
SBN: There’s likely lots of folks out there who don’t know who the Fairview is, so in your own words, who are y’all?
Nolan: Firstly, we’re a band from Southeast Massachusetts originally, but we’ve kind of spread out since then. Some of us met in high school, but we’ve had a couple member changes since then. I knew Jake through mutuals, so when I needed members for the Fairview, I hit him up. It just kinda snowballed from there.
Jake: He had me fill in for a couple of shows and then it got to the point where it was just like “is it okay if i start writing”? The way you could say it now is the Fairview is just the culmination of the last three years of trial and error. We are a band that plays what some people would call pop punk, what other people would call emo. We just play what we like to play, and we just like playing shows with people and meeting people. Our mission statement is to reach people with what we write and to just do good where we go.
Nolan: Just a bunch of, it kind of snowballed. We found ourselves being a touring band which I didn’t expect to get there if you had told sixteen year old me. It’s been quite a trip seeing people react to our music, which i think kind of fuels us as well. We’ve tried to never take ourselves too seriously as a band. Like Jake said, we’re just people playing music that we like in a band together. That’s kind of what it’s always tied back to.
SBN: So, you’ve dropped a few EPs of recorded music a couple years back, but there was no recorded output for almost three years. What led to that drought?
Jake: Yeah. We put out It Could Be Worse And It Is in 2017, but we recorded our full length album in the last few months of 2018. We tracked the last three months of 2018, and there were a lot of factors that delayed it. There was a studio fire where we had recorded. There were a number of bumps in the road. We changed mixers at one point. There was a lot. But in that time we went on small tours; co-headlining with other bands at our level. From here and from Georgia. So we kinda just toured for a while and that’s all we really did.
Nolan: Which was really reaffirming to do. It was an awesome experience. But at the same time we were really craving putting out that record. The frustration that came along with those two years of waiting is indescribable if you’re an artist. It started to feel like: this record was made in 2018 so it is 2018 us. We’d rather not have that out so much later. It was a while. We still had fun.
Jake: We made the most of the couple of years but the years were excruciating. We definitely thought we would have it out in 2019.
SBN: Is it weird hearing your 2018 self and 2018 songs coming out in the latter half of 2020?
Nolan: What’s crazy is that some of it still rings true and is still relevant in its way. Which is cool. Some of it did that, which is great. But it’s kind of a trip.
SBN: I’m going to ask you a question that might make you feel very old, but you guys played Warped Tour, right?
Nolan: Yeah, we played the Massachusetts date in 2014 and 2016. Jake wasn’t in the band yet for the first one.
SBN: How do you think the lack of that tour or an equivalent is affecting the alternative scene? I know there are certainly many bands in our scene that would do super well in that market but for whom something like that doesn’t exist.
Jake: It’s strange. I feel like for a lot of bands the feeling is that Warped is the way. The only way you’re going to be anybody or anything is by getting on Warped. That attitude surely existed.
Nolan: I think now knowing how flawed the tour was, maybe this younger generation that is coming up that is a little younger and cooler than us will have a better version.
Jake: I think not having Warped around as the template is kind of freeing. I think we see a lot of creativity from younger bands very early on that I don’t think I saw when I was 17 playing with my high school bands. I think it’s kind of neat that they are allowed to dream bigger than one particular sound.
Nolan: We devoted a lot of time to thinking that scene was going to put us on a platform and was going to be what got our music heard more. That was kind of an illusion. Yeah, we were the local band that got to play a date here and there, but at the end of the day, you give late teenagers that sort of inspiration they are going to get wrapped up in it. I’m kind of glad that ended for us.
Jake: Especially now knowing what a cesspool of abuse that was. We should all move forward.
SBN: Do you guys have particular favorite songs on the record?
Nolan: Plan B is a banger. I like our singles Adhesive and Your Hair in the Rain.
Jake: I think if I had to pick a favorite it would be In Rib Cages. That song makes me feel like a lot of older Mayday Parade makes me feel when I was younger. I don’t think that was consciously in my mind when we did it but it became this very emotional song.
Nolan: The way that song came about in the studio was a very cool experience for us. Some of it was really written in the studio and in the moment.
SBN: It’s likely a different experience every time, but how does a Farivew song come to be?
Jake: For me, a lot of it starts with stuff on an acoustic. Just playing around with chords and melodies. I improvise for a while until I find something I can expand upon. Usually I demo it in my house. I get the guitar and I start to build drums and bass and stuff like that around it. Lyrics came around a lot later. So we would have the bones of the song. It wasn’t really until we came together and practiced before recording that a lot of the song became what it truly is. Because like, my demons are just my guitar work. Isaac adds so much to the drums, and everything he does is so purposeful. Nolan adds a lot to the guitar parts. Especially to the melodies. It starts in a basic way. I try to let myself have bad drats and underdeveloped drafts. That’s the only way I am able to write what we write is just to be okay with things developing over time. That’s when things become the best when they have time to marinate, I think.
Nolan: Jake is so strategic with his songwriting. There’s a saying that “art is not finished, it is merely abandoned.” Jake knows where to abandon the song. He gets to the point where, in my eyes, the song is perfect, and then he abandons it at that moment. My form of writing is I’ll be working at Dunkin Donuts and what I think is the song of my career will smack me in my brain in the moment of a morning rush and then it will escape me by 2 when the existential dread sets in.
SBN: My favorite song on your record is definitely Leviticus 4:20, not just for its lyrical content but the deeply haunting opening melody. Obviously you guys have a specific point of view, but do you consider the Fairview to be a political band?
Jake: We were just talking about this actually. Yes and no. I think the reality for songwriting is that in a sense you’re always centering yourself. You see what’s happening. It makes you upset. You’re calling out what you see. But you’re at the center of it. There’s some stuff that we can talk about. I had a very religious experience so I feel comfortable being critical of chrisitianity and evangelicalism in America.
Nolan: Things that you can relate to, otherwise where’s the honest feeling in it?
Jake: There’s something a little disingenuous about a white guy seeing injustice and singing about how it makes him upset. We’re always going to talk about what we believe in because that’s what we do, but I don’t think we’re ever going to be a political band.
Nolan: Being in a DIY band is political in itself. Making it work without big industry, you have to be removed from certain parts of society. You have to not conform to certain things in order to embody what underground music is. At least taking a stance for something. While doing that, you might reject whatever aspect of society is perpetuating the problem. It’s political to be an artist.
The Fairview can be seen and heard here:
