THE FAUVES - The Buzz Of Cox - X-Press, Sept 2006

Hitting our shores to promote their most recent release Nervous Flashlights, The Fauves are back in town (see Upcoming Tours for dates). MIKE WAFER chews the fat with vocalist/guitarist Andy Cox about life in The Fauves.

Dry, self-deprecating, witty, and at times sardonic; Andy Cox is a straight-up funny guy. Not ‘peculiar’ funny, but ‘ha ha’ funny.
His disposition, it seems, is as much responsible for The Fauves as it is a product of it. After a massive career of undulating successes, it probably takes a sense of humour just to stay sane, and see things honestly… and Andy Cox is all about honesty.

“You know, after being in a band for years you come to understand a lot about where you stand. It’s unlikely that we’ll ever be a huge, Powderfinger-sized band, so once you come to be aware of that it does free you up considerably. Once you take that factor out of it you can then concentrate on the things that do matter to you, and you can schedule your life accordingly.

“That’s not to say I would knock back a fat cheque,” he adds with a full volume lung full of laughter, “far from it. But, you know, I know the band has a particular appeal, and we’re way past trying to be something we’re not in order to achieve ‘success’.”

There was a window, though. A time when The Fauves were one of the most talked-about bands in the country. Andy Cox remembers this time. “We were up there for a brief moment weren’t we,” he laughs. “It was kind of around the time where it was Jebediah, Spiderbait, Regurgitator… and us (laughs). We never got to the same level those guys did, but we were getting a lot of support from Triple J at the same time, and playing a lot of the same kind of bills. I think all of those bands seemed to drop off the radar a bit at the same time too. Mind you, Spiderbait made the comeback from hell didn’t they? Maybe that’s what The Fauves should do… pick a really great song to cover to resurrect ourselves,” Cox laughs.

While he sees things as they truly are, there is a lot of fondness in Andy Cox’s voice for that time, and those bands. Assuming many of the upper echelon bands of any epoch become friends, it’s quite easy to see how fondness would play a part in retrospect. Still, Cox seems happier with his situation than he did previously, as without external pressure, The Fauves are whatever The Fauves want to be.

“It’s great in that we can tour when we want to, or don’t want to (laughs). We can record when we want to. All of that. You know, you go through life and your priorities change, and new things come along. We all love doing The Fauves as much as we ever did, but probably a bit more now because everything is on our own terms. I guess that counts as success,” he laughs.