“If you try to find me”: Undercover interview with artist known as fuvk

In a world of saturated media with untold avenues of the social media that musicians and artists have to drive down, it’s a little refreshing to stumble on a new musical talent that isn’t fussed by whether you listen to them or not. Apart from being in Austin and having the artist tag fuvk; there’s no name, no Facebook page, no (confirmed) photo, no gigs played, just a Bandcamp page with some quality music. As Rivers Cumou once said, “how cool is that?”

What sets her music apart is the sound and shape to what could be described as Emo. That is, the genre of Emo when the music is not about showmanship, but genuinely personal, and a respectable piece of music that can be taken seriously. As a result, fuvk is not your standard folk singer/songwriter fare, and it curiously becomes new and noteworthy music to listen to.

I was alerted to her music through ‘Latest Toughs’, a section of the Ovrld website I often write for which shows new Austin music. I then managed to track her down and asked questions of what her, and her music, is all about:

(This interview was published In April 2017 with Austin art mag ‘Almost Real Things‘. The interview there was condensed down to the best parts so not sprawling over too many of their pretty paper pages, so below is my full ‘unabridged’ interview)

What’s your expectation to pronounce your name? F u v k or just straight up drop the F bomb?

The expectation is for it to be read as the F word, but it was never my intention for fuvk to be an artist name in the first place. My friend sent me a message and typo’d the F word as fuvk right as I was creating my Bandcamp page. I thought it’d be a funny URL and didn’t think anyone would take an interest.

What’s your motive behind keeping your anonymity and zero social media presence? Do you feel a pressure to conform?

The anonymity is something like this: I don’t want people I know personally to be able to recognize the music as mine. It’s kind of a privacy thing. The lack of social media presence was not an active decision. I started this project for personal reasons so I never had reason to promote it. I’ve gotten messages asking about social media, but I think I’ll go without it for now.

The four EP’s you recorded over 2016 are mostly linked to the seasons. Will this be something that continues every year?

Yes, I think so, at least for the first half of 2017. I’m a student so my life is largely split up by semesters. Each semester and break contains its own unique set of experiences/feelings/people/locations so I section a lot of my music into these timeframes.

Do you see each recording you do as an EP, an album, or just a collection of songs? Do you plan on recording a full length album?

Each release is kind of like a chapter in my life – it represents a particular time period or sentiment. I start a new EP/collection when I feel that a chapter has ended. So I suppose a full length album is possible. I’d just have to feel the same way or experience one thing for an extended period of time.

The EP ‘Ghosted’ has “Labor day weekend 2016” as its theme, not a weather season like the others. What’s the reason for its change in pattern?

The two earlier EP’s encompassed more general feelings I had during a particular time period. The three songs from “ghosted” were more focused on one person and came to fruition within the three days I had over labor day weekend. It was a particularly emotional and productive three days for some reason. As I was working on the EP, I realized that these tracks really only held meaning for that weekend, which is why I chose to be more specific here.

You mention North Lamar Boulevard on the track “michael”, was this a conscious reference to a part of Austin to show your listeners your songs are grounded in reality? As in you’re not simply writing about your personal feelings but telling a story of something you physically went through?

It wasn’t a conscious reference to Austin so much as it was just a general reference. A lot of my lyrics already tend to contain references to specific moments and things, however, I find that a lot of my more recent songs lean towards storytelling. The track “michael,” specifically, was written about my experiences with one person so it’s a little more literal.

Is there any reason your name, album names, and track names are all in lower case letters? I want to see if there are deliberate artistic thoughts behind what you do or if it just looks cool.

I think I use lower case letters so as to not spend too much time on formatting. I want the music to be the highlight, and I don’t want anything to detract from that. At the same time, I also get a sense of professionalism from capitalization, and I am definitely not a professional.

Are all your songs new songs written between each season or do you have older songs that you sometimes draw from?

For the most part, they’re new songs. Sometimes I have tidbits hanging around, and I’ll pull bits and pieces from those. For example, the guitar part for “anywhere” largely comes from a song I wrote at the very beginning of 2016 but shelved because I was dissatisfied with it. A couple months later, it came up again in a jam session with my friend Clint, and I ended up building the song on top of that. But generally, I’ll write a song in one go and won’t fiddle with it too much after that.

What is the intention of your music? Is it simply a personal journal or do you want to grow an audience at the same time?

In the beginning, it was a coping mechanism. It helped me put words to thoughts, and I threw them on Bandcamp for organization. It’s more of a personal journal than anything so any sort of audience comes as a surprise to me. Honestly, I’m baffled that people listen at all.

You can listen to and buy the music at https://fuvk.bandcamp.com