THE FAUVES

The Fauves are an Australian rock band formed in 1988 by four school friends from Mt Eliza High School on the Mornington Peninsula near Melbourne. The initial line-up consisted of: Andrew Cox (guitar, vocals), Philip Leonard (guitar, vocals, brass), Andrew Dyer (bass) and Adam Newey (drums). The band took its name from the short-lived French art movement Fauvism which was characterised by both its intensity and infatuation with colour.

In 1990 the band released a five track EP 'This Mood Has Passed', as well as a single ''Fireman 451 / Daughter Abroad''. In 1992 the band released two six-track EPs on Shock Records, 'The Scissors Within' and 'Tight White Ballhugger'. In 1992 The Fauves featured on an EP called 'Dress Ups' (Shock Records) with other Melbourne bands The Glory Box and Pray TV with each band performing a track from the others' repertoire, as well as contributing one original track.

The band came to wider attention when they appeared on the bill of the first Big Day Out tour in early 1993. In October of that year they signed to Polydor Records and released their debut long player 'Drive Through Charisma'. The original release of 'Drive Through Charisma' included a 22 track bonus disc featuring early demos and some live songs. The bonus disc was accompanied by a separate booklet titled 22 Reasons Why A Band Shouldn't Put An Album Out in Its First Few Years. The booklet was written by the band and provided critical analysis for each track.

The 1994 computer game Quarantine featured the band's song "The Driver Is You" on its soundtrack. Their second album 'The Young Need Discipline' was released in 1994. In 1995 the band released a non-album single "Everybody's Getting A 3 Piece Together". The song was later included on the band's next album as a secret track. The Fauves's most successful album to date 'Future Spa' was released in July 1996. The album yielded considerable radio success with singles "Dogs Are The Best People" and "Self Abuser" coming in at #20 and #30 respectively in the Triple J Hottest 100, 1996. Between the release of 'Future Spa' and their album 'Lazy Highways', the band were filmed for Vanessa Stuart's one-hour documentary, The Fauves: 15 Minutes to Rock, which has since aired on SBS and was also screened at the Document Film Festival in 2004.

By the end of 1999 however the band was dropped from Polydor after the label's merger with Universal. Following their departure from the major label, the band wrote two songs, "Bigger Than Tina" and "Bigger Than Tina II", for the Australian movie Bigger Than Tina which were released as a single on Festival. Since then the group has released seven albums independently. They have had success on Triple J with "Bigger Than Tina" at #50 in 1999, and "Give Up Your Day Job" at #58 in 2000.

The Fauves released their ninth studio album, 'When Good Times Go Good', on 6 September 2008. It was recorded with longtime collaborator Wayne Connolly, who has worked on five of the band's nine albums, and co-produced by Jim Moginie from Midnight Oil. A video-clip was made of the "Underwhelmed". After a three-year break the band debuted tracks from their tenth album 'Japanese Engines' on 10 November 2011 in Geelong. The album was followed only five months later by an eight-track EP 'German Engines' launched at The Toff in Town. Andrew Cox announced on stage: "Japanese Engines was kind of the poppier record. 'German Engines' has a much darker soul, it's a bit heavier, it's a bit rougher." A double album, titled 'Driveway Heart Attack', was released in 2019, their 12th studio album. In July 2022, the band headlined a Melbourne show. The press releases labeled it "“last show till the next one”, the “first show since the last one. The band released their 13th album, 'Tropical Strength', on 1 November 2024. They recorded the album in Indonesia and in the accompanying press, they explained: "Very few Australians have ever been to Bali so we relished the sense of outpost exoticism and a culture completely untouched by Western influence. Here we could work in relative anonymity, far from the complete anonymity that tracks our every move at home."

Members

Andrew Cox (guitar, vocals), Philip Leonard (guitar, vocals, brass), Andrew 'Jack' Dyer (bass), Adam Newey (drums), Terry Cleaver (bass)

SINGLES
''Fireman 451 / Daughter Abroad'' 1990 Mutley Management
"When Luck Ran Out" 1991
"Daughter Aboard" 1991
"Misguided Modelling Career" 1992
"Thin Body Thin Body" 1993 Polydor 
"Marble Arse" 1994 Polydor 
"Dwarf on Dwarf" 1995 Polydor 
"Caesar's Surrender" 1995 Polydor 
"Everybody's Getting a 3 Piece Together" 1995 Polydor 
"Dogs Are the Best People" 1996 Polydor 
"Self Abuser" 1996 Polydor 
"Don't Get Death Threats Anymore" 1997 Polydor 
"Sunbury '97" 1997 Polydor 
"Surf City Limits" 1998 Polydor 
"Charles Atlas Way" 1998 Polydor 
"Kickin' On" 1998 Polydor 
"Bigger Than Tina" 1999 Festival 
"Give Up Your Day Job" 2000 Shock 
"Celebrate the Failure" (#81) 2000 Shock 
"Medium Pacer" 2000 Shock 

EPs
'The Mood Has Passed' 1989 Timbertop
'The Scissors Within' 1992 Shock 
'Tight White Ballhugger' 1992 Shock
'Dress Ups' 1992 Shock (with The Glory Box and Pray T.V.)
'Caesar's Surrender' 1995 Polydor

ALBUMS
'Drive Through Charisma' 1993 Polydor
'The Young Need Discipline' 1994 Polydor 
'Future Spa' 1996 Polydor 
'Lazy Highways' (#52) 1998 Polydor 
'Thousand Yard Stare' (#60) 2000 The Hypnotized Label 
'Footage Missing' 2002 Shock 
'The Fauves' 2004 Shock 
'Nervous Flashlights' 2006 Shock 

'When Good Times Go Good' 2008 Shock 
'Japanese Engines' 2011 Shock 
'German Engines' 2012 Shock 
'Driveway Heart Attack' 2019 The Fauves
'Tropical Strength' 2024 Valve Records

  

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fauves

http://top100singles.blogspot.com.au/