INTERVIEW: Fauvely – Looking in all the “Beautiful Places”

By Reegan Saunders

Beautiful Places is the latest dreamy release from the four-piece Chicago-based band Fauvely. Inspired by an assortment of musicians such as John Frusciante, Orville Peck and John Prine, the album presents itself as a pop-focused, melody-driven project with softer folk elements.

Fauvely is composed of Sophie Brochu, Dale Price, Phil Conklin and Dave Piscott.  I had the opportunity to hear lead singer Sophie Brochu’s thoughts on Beautiful Places.

“It’s sort of about acceptance. I think of it as this life-affirming album where it encapsulates beauty, sadness and pain, but hope. And I really wanted it to reflect reality. So it’s like, little vignettes, little stories about, I guess, a plethora of emotions,” Sophie said. 

After a year of unexpected moments, the cancellation of SXSW and Fauvely’s tour due to the spread of COVID-19, the band decided to reallocate their time and funds into recording a new album–an album they hoped would bring a bit of light into the world. 

“I really wanted it to feel optimistic. A lot of the music that we’ve done in the past has felt kind of sad. Even though I’ll tell you, it’s never felt sad to me,” said Sophie. “I think making music has always been such a positive thing for me, even if the song sounds sad. I think of it as just a positive expression.”

Beautiful Places closes out with “Florida,” a song that features Sophie’s haunting vocals and a magical guitar track. It also happens to be Sophie’s favorite song on the album.  

“‘Florida’ to me is like a little bit of magic. That song was written, gosh, probably like, two years ago now,” Sophie shared. “We were playing that live quite a bit before everything shut down. And whenever we would play that song, and it felt like the one that we all really connected on. And it felt like the audience did as well. It has that little magic element.”

Beautiful songwriting consists of lyrical and musical inspiration. Sophie knows that when words fail her, the music will speak on her behalf:

“It’s actually really hard for me to sometimes put words behind any of this stuff. Because I hope at the end of the day, the music stands alone and can speak for itself.,”

When creating music, Sophie likes to envision how the songs would materialize visually in order to figure out what she is trying to say. 

“So I have a color palette. So it [Beautiful Places] would be mossy green. Fauvley for me has always been associated with nature. And I’m really inspired by nature and just natural elements and this bit of wildness. So mossy green, to me, fits the mood. It fits the tone. Other colors that I think are associated with it are mauve, black, gray. Those are the colors that I see swirling in my head,” Sophie said.

Check out Beautiful Places available on streaming platforms April 2nd.