FYF Artist Portraits

THE DRUMS

What was the last thing to make you say, "Fuck yeah!"
Jonathan: When I saw my husband for the first time in 2 weeks. Last night, I came home and it was like, whoa, yes, this is amazing!

Sean Carlson founded FYF at 18 due to his love for punk music. If you were to have a career in one of your passions from 18, what might you be doing today?
Jonathan: We both were really into analog synthesizers when we were 13/14. We were collecting them our whole life so maybe we would have a vintage synthesizer museum somewhere and have everything in glass cases. I think we would have done that had we not made music ourselves.

FYF was very DIY in the beginning with stages set up in shops and alleyways. Can you tell us about one of the best DIY shows or festivals you've been to or played at?
Jacob: Cake Shop.
Jonathan: Yeah, I was just going to say. It's not DIY because it's a venue but it feels very DIY. It's in a basement.
Jacob: You want to describe it more, like where it is?
Jonathan: It's in New York City, the biggest and best city in the world.
Jacob: Uh-oh!
Jonathan: It's this nice little place. I think they make and sell cakes or cupcakes but it's the first place were ever played [at] as The Drums so it has a little bit of sentimental value. I think it's a wonderful venue because it's kind of like anyone can just call and be like, hey can I come and play I have a band now? And they'd be like, okay we'll pencil you in next Tuesday. You know, that kind of thing.
Jacob: It's sort of an old school approach.
Jonathan: The venue itself feels like you're just standing in a hallway.

LA FEMME

Sean Carlson founded FYF at 18 due to his love for punk music. If you were to have a career in one of your passions from 18, what might you be doing today?
A festival with no wristband. A free festival. Everybody in the greenroom and the concert in the greenroom.

COLD CAVE

What was the last thing to make you say, "Fuck yeah!"
Nothing makes me say that. I'm a man of my word and respect and I don't use that language.

Sean Carlson founded FYF at 18 due to his love for punk music. If you were to have a career in one of your passions from 18, what might you be doing today?
It would be similar. I knew Sean when I was 18 so we grew up in the same [period]. He used to book all my old bands. I think he was like 15 when I met him. It would be the same as this. I would start booking small bands and I would let it progressively grow and do its thing. I think he's amazing and has done a perfect job.

FYF was very DIY in the beginning with stages set up in shops and alleyways. Can you tell us about one of the best DIY shows or festivals you've been to or played at?
When I lived in San Diego in 2004 they would do shows with generators and sewers so that was pretty amazing. Other than that, I think that kind of stuff is overrated and annoying right now.

METZ

What was the last thing to make you say, "Fuck yeah!"
Alex: In-n-Out Burger.
Chris: Yeah, In-n-Out Burger for sure.
Alex: Basically every day there's so many reason to say fuck yeah.
Chris: We listen to the radio a whole lot. A Kenny Loggins song came on the other day and I was just like, fuck yeah!

Sean Carlson founded FYF at 18 due to his love for punk music. If you were to have a career in one of your passions from 18, what might you be doing today?
Chris: I booked an FYF festival in Toronto at a small club when it was a touring thing so it's nice to see that thing become a big thing but if I could make something really big that I liked when I was 18 years old it would probably just be pizza. It's already super huge.

FYF was very DIY in the beginning with stages set up in shops and alleyways. Can you tell us about one of the best DIY shows or festivals you've been to or played at?
Alex: We all have gone to thousands of them. We grew up in that kind of world and think it's really important to just make things happen yourself and that's kind of the way we approach the band in a lot of different ways and the way we fell in love with music in the first place was through people doing shows, doing bands, that kind of shit.
Chris: Our band was built on shows we booked ourselves. We did all sorts of DIY shows. We booked ourselves until we started touring a whole lot and we couldn't do it ourselves anymore so we did all sorts of DIY stuff that we would actually start, book, find all the bands, find the venues, do everything. We would put the whole thing together ourselves and that was the early stages of our band.

Any particular stories that stand out?
Chris: There's this venue in Toronto that exists and existed when we were first starting up called Parts & Labour. I'd say we went from playing to 3 people in that room to playing to... we'd have a line up down the street. It was the basement of this kind of high-end restaurant but this total grimey little venue. I'd say our last show there was sort of this celebration. We just put out our first record and I remember Matty the chef, Matty Matheson, kind of a bit of a famous tv Food Network type chef now, he had two bottles of champagne and he basically popped them, screamed, turned them upside-down, and poured them entirely on my pedalboard. The next day I had to replace the whole thing. Anyways, yeah, DIY shows can get a little out of hand but they're always a whole hell of a lot of fun.
Alex: You can do things like that, like mosh with champagne bottles.
Chris: Somehow we went from it being like really crappy bottles of beer to being high-end champagne.
Alex: It was pretty bad champagne I'm guessing.
Chris: It was really terrible shit.

LOWER DENS

What was the last thing to make you say, "Fuck yeah!"
Probably somebody being like, you can go to sleep now.

Sean Carlson founded FYF at 18 due to his love for punk music. If you were to have a career in one of your passions from 18, what might you be doing today?
When I was 18, I already knew I wanted to be a musician and I started writing songs and then I kept doing that so I can't think of anything else that I would have rather done. Or, I can't think of anything else that I possibly could have done because I don't have any other gifts or talents or interests really.

FYF was very DIY in the beginning with stages set up in shops and alleyways. Can you tell us about one of the best DIY shows or festivals you've been to or played at?
I live in Baltimore and during the first few years that I lived there they were having a city festival called Artscape and Wham City, the art collective, was also throwing something called Whartscape and I went to those and sometimes helped work at them. Those were great because there were a lot of local musicians playing and [it was] a very relaxed environment because it wasn't so regulated. There's no corporate sponsorship or anything like that so you could really get away with a lot more than you can at some other festivals. Getting to watch Baltimore bands that never really made it in a huge way outside of Baltimore but are really great on mushrooms with a bunch of my friends. That sort of thing's really, really fun.

DJ HARVEY

What was the last thing to make you say, "Fuck yeah!"
Bowl of New England Clam Chowder I had at Santa Monica seafood, post today's surf.

Sean Carlson founded FYF at 18 due to his love for punk music. If you were to have a career in one of your passions from 18, what might you be doing today?
And thanks to him and others like him, I'm completely living my dream, finally paying my rent from my art.

FYF was very DIY in the beginning with stages set up in shops and alleyways. Can you tell us about one of the best DIY shows or festivals you've been to or played at?
The spirit of FYF still feels like that to me. The Woods stage this year was like a small micro fest within a festival. I went to a festival in the East of England in 1984, Albions Ruffham Tree Fare -  if you care enough to look that one up it's a fun read. I remember falling asleep in the mud.

Shot by Hadas Di