Story/ANGIE PICCIRILLO
Photos/SÈBASTIEN PERRON
If you missed out on the mysterious band that is BRÅVES and their first full length album release last year, you don’t know what you are missing. If you are a mega-fan of electro-pop and all-things-theatrical, this band is known to surely deliver — which means, now is the best time to get caught up on their tunes.
BRÅVES was known in the past to include high-fashion in their imagery, wearing highly stylized all-black menswear that never showed their faces. Their debut performance as a group was in a large dome which featured projected shapes and landscapes, with the band performing again without their faces showing.
Just recently, the band performed at the infamous weekly show in LA, “It’s a School Night” — where not only the show was at full capacity, the guys performed with their faces showing for the first time.
BRÅVES’ visuals are pretty spectacular as well, so if you want a major mind-fuck series of music videos, you should definitely check out “A Toast” and “Me The Thief.”
Today, the band releases their first single from a new collection of songs recorded in Paris last summer, “Hunger.” Band member Johnny What says, “Paris was integral to the sound of these new songs,” and though the vibes have evolved sonically from the first LP, you can count on those uber harmonic electro-chill vibes topped with a growling possibly-hungover vocal to give you all the feels.
How has your sound evolved since your initial releases as BRÅVES?
We’ve evolved in multitudinous ways since the early days of BRÅVES. But we’ve done it within the confines of our own genre’s genus. Exploring different voices and production techniques is one of our favorite things to do. And I think you’ll find with these new tracks, we really push the boundaries and blur the lines between pop and urban.
You recorded these in Paris, how did being there inform your sound and/or your lyrics?
Paris was integral to the sound of these new songs. We stayed in this gigantic flat in St. Germaine. Waking up, drinking espresso, we’d pick chords we liked, craft melodies over the top then head to the cafe to write lyrics, drink vin and eat fromage. From there we’d head back to the flat and record vocals. We had our vocal booth set up in this little closet built of stone. At night our friends would take us out to these lurid supper clubs where we would eat like kings and drink way too many martinis. Those nights were responsible for Jericho’s broken vocal tone. Each morning we’d wash, rinse and repeat. What a trip…
What is “Hunger” about?
Hunger (along with all the songs we wrote in Paris) is about those magical moments in bed with the person you love. Not just sex, but the moments surrounding it. Staring at your lovers face, holding their hand, sleeping in, laughing at inane jokes that only you two understand. And sex too.
You’ve recently started performing live (since we last saw your debut in the dome) — what are your live performances like?
We have a couple different show setups. Lately we’ve been doing a lot of stripped-down acoustic sets, which we love. However, we also have an electronic live setup where the three of us are playing with midi pads and looping vocals and creating beats and pads on the fly. We like to have the option to do either depending on the setting.
You’ve also been known to cover your faces in the past, which has added a major element of mystery about you — and now you’ve released photos showing your faces…. What made you decide it was time to unmask?
The covering of the faces and mystery served it’s purpose. It set a tone and created intrigue, which are great things for a new band. However, now we want our fans to get to know us and develop a deeper relationship. That doesn’t mean we won’t continue using high-fashion concepts in our styling, it just won’t be exclusively that.
You always have epic music videos to accompany your music, do you have anything planned for the coming months that you’re able to tell us about?
Oh boy, do we ever. We’re working on one hell of a music video right now. It involves someone you will undoubtedly know doing something you’ve never seen them do! Get those wheels turning!
CONNECT WITH BRÅVES:
INSTAGRAM // FACEBOOK // TWITTER
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