BIOGRAPHY

 

So Andrew Scheps, you've worked with Rick Rubin, Audioslave, Johnny Cash, U2 (I mean U2, please brother...), why did you contact an obscure Swiss rock band and ask them to produce their next album? 

-Because I've loved these guys ever since "from Lausanne, Switzerland"!

And so became what was to be the seventh album in the seemingly never ending life of Favez. 

After six records and over a thousand shows around the world, it could be easy to dismiss Favez as part of the furniture in the overcrowded indie rock living room. But take a closer look, and behind the playful humility, the hard work ethics and the anachronistic honesty, you might find something rarer. This band can write. This band can play. And, even though they forget it themselves sometimes, this band can rock.

-So Andrew, you've worked with the Chili Peppers, but also with The Duke Spirit and Blood Red Shoes, is it weird doing commercial giants as well as independent stalwarts?

-not at all, you just need to love the music and make them play their hearts out!

When a producer loves a band, he wants to make them sound like themselves, he wants to stay true to what the group really is. So Scheps flew from Los Angeles to Lausanne for a few days early 2010 to check out how the band sounded in the rehearsal space. He loved the new songs, told them to write a few more with big riffs, and that summer they all met in Wales to record at Monnow Valley Studios (Oasis, Stereophonics, ...). The band recorded live. One song a day. And invariably, the excitement got bigger as the night grew closer. At around 10pm, the song was wrapped and everybody opened a beer, sat down and listened to the beauty of End The Show's piano arpeggios, the ass-kicking of Like The Old Days or On, the epic choruses of Tearing Down The Highway or the ethereal strangeness of Closet Astronaut.

When mixing was done, Andrew told Favez that "this was one of my favorite projects I've ever worked on". The playing is proud, arrogant, the music sounds tougher than ever, the songs all shine their own light on the album, it's a record of juvenile maturity, of brutal sensitivity, a structured explosion of heartfelt melodies and, most of all, it's one of those records were the band gets it right. Thank you for listening. .

 

THE BAND

 

singer

Christian Wicky
Guitar, Vocals

guitar

Guy Borel
Guitar

bassist

Yvan Lechef
Bass, Harmonica

drummer

Fabrice Marguerat
Drums

Organ

Maude Oswald
Organ

 
piano

Jeff Albelda
Rhodes, Piano, Backing Vocals