As I prepare to interview Joe Haege, the first thought that occurs to me is how at ease he seems - clearly a man content with his lot in life. I had expected an exhausted musician anxious to get home after touring Europe (not with Tu Fawning but as a touring member of fellow Portlanders Menomena, for whom tonight’s Brudenell show is the last in a series of European dates), but it becomes apparent that this is a man who loves what he does; not with a crazed hedonistic rock star edge, but with an unassuming artistic drive and a simple love of playing and recording music. He was truly a pleasure to talk to.
So how long have Tu Fawning been around?
We started about 3 years ago, but for a year and a half didn’t particularly do much - it was just Corrina (Repp, fellow Tu Fawning member) and I working on a few ideas here and there. I mean, Corrina and I have been working together for years. She sang on a few songs for my other band 31knots, and about a year and a half ago Corrina did a tour in France and I played drums with her, and during this tour we tried out a few of the early Tu Fawning songs. It was amazing being able to write with a woman with such a great voice. In fact, it was the main thing for me - the main reason for starting the band; someone with a voice of that calibre is just something else. It means Tu Fawning sound quite different to our other projects. I’d wanted to write stuff like this for a while but it wasn’t working out - I was trying to cram a lot of ideas into 31knots, but it just wasn’t the right project for it. And with the songs Corrina was singing on, we just thought “why don’t we have a different band?”
Are 31knots still going?
Yeah, we’re doing a record right now. Beyond that, I dunno. We just needed a break, and Tu Fawning has become something I’m pretty excited about. And working with City Slang, there’s a momentum we feel excited about and want to explore more. 31knots are still going though and we’ll probably do a tour of Europe in May.
So the reception to Tu Fawning has been pretty great?
Yeah, way more than we expected. We did a tour with Menomena in the US - we were first of three every night but we had an amazing response. Most of the press has been really nice about us… well, apart from Pitchfork, of course.
Haha, what did they give you? It’s all about the decimal, of course.
It was 6.2 actually.
I do wonder how they decide on the decimal score…
The fact that they brought the decimal point into music to me is very sad.
Yeah, it feels like albums are being graded like academic papers. But yeah, moving on. As well as you and Corrina, Tu Fawning has two other members (Liza Rietz and Toussaint Perrault). How much do they contribute?
It’s weird because we started off as just the two of us and those guys joined right before we did the record and wrote parts really quickly to the songs we had. We played a lot of shows and wrote two or three songs together as a band and those ended up on the record. They were a lot of fun and worked out really well, and so that kind of became another way we write. The big shift I see happening with the next record is that it’ll be more collectively written and will sound more like a band writing together - something that doesn’t happen so much any more. Bands don’t write like bands. In a lot of ways, and as cheesy as it sounds, you can capture a kind of synergy writing this way. But then again, you can get great ideas from one person when they’re just in their element, tweaking out one specific little thing that would never have come out through a jam. Both methods have their merits I guess, but it’ll definitely be exciting for me to write as a whole band for the first time in a long time.
Yeah, playing in a band as opposed to being in front of a computer feels like something totally different at times, even though the recorded output can usually sound quite similar…
Yeah, it’s a different environment, and you have to learn that dynamic of sensing it out and feeling it in the moment as opposed to “I did that ok, but I’ll do it again and again and again”. One thing that was really great for that was being part of Menomena’s choir for their last album. Corrina and I were both in it. It was completely amateur but helped us a lot vocally and helped round us out as musicians. I’d never been in a choir before so it was a great experience, so many people singing together.
So you’re a touring member of Menomena now… along with 31knots and Tu Fawning, that’s a lot of bands. Any other musical projects up your sleeve?
Haha, no, I just can’t do any more… although I have a solo record I’ve finished and I’m trying to put out, but I’ve no idea when I’ll have time to do that. It’s just me and a lot of MIDI. It’s my reaction to seeing so many bands influenced by the ‘80s… part of me wanted to react and say its all shit, but this is how culture works, it turns on itself. So basically I created a challenge to myself to make a record which sounds like it’s blatantly influenced by the ‘80s without ripping it off. But yeah, I’m pretty much going to focus on Tu Fawning for the time being, and finish off the 31knots record.
Are Tu Fawning touring in Europe soon?
Yeah, we’re planning a tour in February and March, doing two or three UK shows. Not sure on the exact dates or places yet but they’ll all be up online soon.