Interview: Fencer’s Scott Sauve Talks “Sanitarium”, Writing About Loneliness, and HIs Approach To Bass Guitar
Loneliness can be a great friend, and yet it can be an even greater enemy. Mental health is a topic that is being addressed to a wide audience than it has in years prior, but there’s still a great deal that needs to happen as the conversation reaches broader spaces. One of the most important things one can do with learning how to tackle mental health is to be open about it. Fencer, the self-defined garage opera band from Los Angeles, is leaning into the conversation with an array of unique rock tracks that lyrically touch upon themes of mental health, loneliness, and the struggles that accompany both tackling issues head on and the conversations that follow. These songs make up the core of their forthcoming debut self-titled album, which is set to be released on February 3rd via Blood Blast Distribution.
While the world awaits their release, the band have unleashed their newest single “Joseph Courtney”, in addition to the release of last month’s “Sanitarium”, along with an accompanying theatrical music video. Around the time of its release, Shameless SF sat down to speak with bassist Scott Sauve about the making of “Sanitarium”, the lyrical themes and how they tie into the music video, and much more. You can check out the full video below, and you can click here to pre-order Fencer.
Note: Portions of this interview have been condensed and edited, solely for the purposes of clarity and context.
Main Photo Credit: Heather Koepp
Shameless SF: After listening to “Sanitarium”, I can’t help but feel like the lyrics to the song may have been inspired by the [COVID-19] pandemic and quarantine. It reminds me a lot of that beginning period of the pandemic, where everyone was locking themselves way from the world. Am I in ballpark here, or can you further elaborate behind the meaning of the track? What kind of themes were you hinting at?
Scott Sauve (bassist): I think you’re pretty on it. So, Field [Cate, vocalist and guitarist] writes all of the lyrics for our songs. He’s very open about the fact that most of his songwriting revolves around mental health and his struggles with that. He’ll never really write a song about a specific thing; I know he keeps it a little bit vague intentionally, so that anyone who listens to the song can have their own little interpretation of it.
“Sanitarium” is very much rooted in the pandemic. It’s supposed to be about loneliness and trying to rediscover yourself after a big event. At the time, I believe he had gone through a break-up at the time. But I believe you’re pretty on it with that interpretation.
Shameless SF: I could tell that there was a feeling of a relationship in those lyrics, but I feel like you could have gone either way. I thought “maybe it was about peacefulness and solitude with a partner”, or “maybe it’s about a breakup”. You could tune it to whatever you’re feeling specifically. It’s a mixture of both broad interpretation and specificity.
Sauve: Yeah, I think that way of writing lyrics is really good because you don’t want to write about nothing. But at the same time, when you write about something that’s so incredibly specific and obvious, it becomes a little bit less relatable for people. But if you leave it a little more open, I think it becomes easier for listeners to relate to it and feel a little closer to the song. It makes them like it that much more.
Shameless SF: How does the music video for “Sanitarium” complement the song, and how did this music video concept come about, with this one sole person walking around? There’s a sense of theatricality to this video. How does the concept relate to the overall meaning of the track?
Sauve: It was an idea brainstormed mainly by Field and our videographer at the time named James [Abroms]. The video isn’t supposed to be a direct play-by-play of what’s happening in the song; they wanted to approach it very artistically, so that it’s vague and there are a lot of really weird things happening. When we went out to shoot that video, we had really loose plans and wanted to walk around. We shot it at Bombay Beach, which is southeast of Palm Springs, I think? It’s kind of an abandoned art town now.
We wanted to just go down there, walk around, and build the video off of what we saw. We wanted to make it more like an art film. In the same capacity, the song is supposed to have themes of loneliness and seeking identity. A lot of [the video] is this character with a TV head walking around, kind of lost. The three of us are all three different characters, but at the same time experiencing different things before we all end up finding that. We have that one spot at the end where there’s that giant mural of TVs, and all three of us end up in that one spot. That’s supposed to be the [concept] of finding that identity, with that being the closure of the song.
Shameless SF: How did the TV come into play with the concept? It’s interesting; a television can be a great uniter in that everyone gathers around it, but it can also be a great accompaniment in moments of solitude, where don’t really want to do anything else but watch movies and television.
Sauve: I’d love to be able to have some super intricate story behind the TV head. Field and James had gone down to Bombay Beach to scout [the location], and they saw that mural of TVs. They built the idea off that; they wanted to incorporate it [into the video]. They basically started from the end, where they were like “we want a finishing shot here.” What better way to do that than to have someone with a TV head? I’m sure that it’s been done before, but it’s not something you’d expect to see, which makes it interesting.
Shameless SF: Sometimes, that’s the simplest answer! You’re making something for a visual medium. It can boil down to “we’re making something visual, and this looks cool”.
Sauve: It was very much like that; that’s how a lot of it panned out. We don’t want to assign a certain meaning to it, the video more so than the song. We want people to make their own interpretations of it, and let everyone have their own unique way of viewing the point or theme of that video.
Shameless SF: The release of “Sanitarium” follows the release of a few select singles that came out last year. In terms of the style of this track, how would you say that “Sanitarium” fits in with the progression of the band’s sound thus far? Where do you think this sound is leading you?
Sauve: “Sanitarium” is definitely softer than a lot of the songs that we’ve put out prior. We sort of lean into a little bit of heavier [style of] music, and this one is different. We have a very distinct sound that, over time, we’ve been able to mold and make our own. We’ve always thought that if you’ve had each song stick and stay at the same level of energy and style, especially if you’re listening to tracks back to back, it can be very monotonous. Even if it’s super energetic, it can old after awhile. It’s better to have a bit of a dynamic setlist, so to speak. This song is a little bit lighter, a little bit deeper in a sense.
I think, in terms of where our music is going, we’ve discovered that what we’re going for is trying to stylize ourselves as “pop rock”, but in the sense of trying to stick to our three instruments, and not much beyond that. Keeping it raw and working within that genre but working with it as minimalistic as possible. I think this song is showcasing how we’re going about that.
Shameless SF: Last question I had for you. I understand that you’re studying to be a guitar luthier. That requires a great of study and training. In Fencer, you’re the bassist. It’s not uncommon to see multi-instrumentalists in bands, but what made you lean towards bass for this particular project over guitar, where you’re writing rhythmic bass lines and adding that layer to the songs?
Sauve: I’ve been playing bass for fourteen years now. I started as a kid and I got private lessons for awhile. It’s been very much just bass for me. I picked up a guitar and, over the past couple of years, I’ve been teaching myself the very basics of it, but for the most part, I’ve stuck to the one instrument.
As far as my style and how I approach the band, I very much take influence from blues and funk-style bass. I think it’s interesting working with it because our music is very far from those two genres. But at the same time I like to try and fit that in with how I write my basslines and add a little bit extra into what I’m writing to make it a little more interesting. That’s always been my approach to it.
Fencer is currently set to perform at Harvard & Stone in Los Angeles, CA on Thursday, December 1st, courtesy of Breaking Sound LA. You can purchase tickets here.
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