The Faim have been making serious waves since their debut single Saints of the Sinners dropped earlier this year. The band, from Perth, has turned some pretty impressive heads – and they’ve already worked with Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz and Twenty One Pilots drummer Josh Dun on tracks for their debut album. Impressive stuff.
We caught up with vocalist Josh Raven and bassist Stephen Beerkens to chat all about their sound, fans, and working with some of rock’s biggest names.
CelebMix: Welcome to Slam Dunk! How was your set today?
Josh: It was crazy! It was so much fun. We had so many more people there than we thought – it was almost packed out. It was crazy, especially as we’ve only had a few songs out, and people were singing the words to songs we haven’t even released yet.
It was great to see everyone in the crowd that we’ve met – even over in Australia – there were people here.
We’ve started to build a relationship with them too because we start to know them, and know their story, and we start asking ‘How’s your parents? How’s your brother’ and stuff. It’s really weird but it’s really great!
We’re absolutely loving tour so far, it’s been a process of learning and growing and understanding more about each other, and coming closer. It’s been absolutely amazing so far.
CelebMix: Can you tell us a little bit about The Faim for anyone who might be hearing you for the first time?
Josh: I’d say it’s pretty diverse, it’s reflection of ourselves and we all have different influences and different inspirations. I think when we show the album to people they’re going to be kind of very surprised at first at how the songs have been put together. I think that’s the best way to put it really.
Stephen: The very first song we put out Saints of the Sinners is quite heavy, so it’s a heavier song and then it’s sort of shifted back to a classic rock feel, then Summer is a Curse is a sort of alternative rock / pop song. There’s a lot of diversity in there.
When we write a song we do kind of, we’ll write melody and lyrics and everything, and then production-wise we’ll let that complement the lyrics. We write the music and production to complement the song itself.
Josh: We let it flow naturally, I think that’s where we find our unique sound. That’s really where we find our niche.
CelebMix: You’ve worked with the likes of Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz and the guys from Twenty One Pilots – what was that experience like?
Josh: Yeah we worked with Josh Dun, he’s a great dude.
Stephen: When we were working with Josh we were at the Soho House in Malibu beach, and I got the biggest sunburn because I didn’t go inside for hours. And it was just on one side because I had my guitar. So one part of my arm was just this big red burn – I was like a lobster.
But working with them – you definitely learn a different style of writing. Our perspective on song writing changed, especially with Josh, because that was based on just talking. We sat with him for like an hour or so and just chatted about life in general, and then the song kind of just came out from that.
Josh: It was interesting because especially Josh Dun you know he’s a very popular guy, he’s very talented and very successful, we were just talking to him about hopes and dreams and stuff like that it was really nice to just get to know the person behind all the music.
We’re huge fans too so we had to kind of tone it back – like ‘Pete who?’ and ‘Josh Who? Sorry, what’s your last name?’ – it was really inspiring to us. Even though we’re fangirling on the inside, it was great really kind of understanding basically just that they’re normal guys who love music just as much as us – they just worked really, really hard. And that’s what we want to take from that experience.
CelebMix: If someone is hearing you for the first time today what would you want their first impression to be?
Josh: I guess that these are just four guys who love what they do. When it comes to Saints of the Sinners, the message of that song was kind of ‘Don’t listen to anyone else, just kind of focus on your happiness, your direction, and your dream.’
Our overall message as a band is that through music, you’re never really alone. No matter what you can always connect with us, connect to the music, I think that’s a big part of who we are.
Stephen: Everything that you see with us – what you see is what you get. Whether we’re on stage or on our social media, whatever you see is exactly who we are – we love connecting with fans because some people have been waiting years to come see us.
We put ourselves right out there, and it feels like we know them, and they know us.
Josh: We don’t give people false expectations of who we are, and the type of person that we are. It’s like they already know us – there’s no wiggle room for being fake.
CelebMix: What can you tell us about your upcoming debut album?
Josh: We have worked on it! It’s all ready – it’s all done. It’s diverse, and hopefully it’s going to be out this year but it’s kind of chopping and changing at the moment we want to do the best that we can to put it out in the best way possible but there will be more singles, more music videos and stuff like that.
Are you a fan of The Faim? Let us know @CelebMix!