2008-05-30 | Schaffhausen | CH
Kammgarn
2008-05-31 | Oberentfelden | CH
Böröm Pöm Pöm
2008-06-13 | Zell | CH
Open Quer
2008-06-27 | St. Gallen | CH
Open Air St. Gallen
www.openairsg.ch2008-07-18 | Gurten (Bern) | CH
Gurtenfestival
www.gurtenfestival.ch2008-07-26 | Stein am Rhein | CH
Klingen Open Air
www.klingenopenair.ch2008-07-27 | Nyon | CH
Paléo Festival
www.paleo.ch2008-07-30 | Estavayer-le-Lac | CH
Estivale Open Air
www.estivale.ch2008-08-15 | Gampel | CH
Open Air Gampel
www.openairgampel.ch
vinyl
2008-02-20 00:00:00
This is a call to all vinyl labels out there: Gentlemen records aren't too good with the fine black stuff and we'd like to release the very successful "Bigger Mountains Higher Flags" as an LP. We'd give it away for free (you'd only pay for the mechanical rights) just for the thrill of having the record exist. If you're interested, please contact chris@favez.com.
Release of "Higher Mountains, Bigger Flags"
2007-09-21 11:51:25
So, sugarhoneys, Exciting times await the band as we are starting to uncover new grounds (new for us, that is....), first musically, as we've included massive keyboards mixed with a more subtle approach to the songs. We've told you all about the recording so we won't dwell on that too long, the album will be called "Bigger Mountains Higher Flags" and (wait for it...) we're EXTREMELY PROUD (and I mean goddam extremely proud) of this album, it's the first chapter in what we hope to be a very long story, we're going to be playing most of these songs live and we're soooo excited of what lies ahead... Also different is the label we're releasing that album on: Stickman Records and Favez have parted ways (in a very friendly way, fear not, there were no sex scandals with cats or pissed off band leaving for a major or anything like that), and the new album shall be on GENTLEMEN RECORDS, which is the label of our manager Fig (aka Pig, aka Fisch). So yeah, the label started out 6 years ago, he's released quite a few great records (Appleseed Cast, Honey For Petzi, Toboggan, etc...) and the moment seemed just right to recenter the whole thing and go for a bit of Lausanneswitzerland luuuurrrve baby... The songs will start appearing on the net pretty soon, so keep on checking, we're looking forward to hearing what yout hink of the new songs! The new album's gonna be released - in Switzerland on October 19th - in Germany on November 23rd - in France TBC (november or january) Upcoming shows : - in Switzerland in november and december (TBA later on) - elsewhere later :-) !!!
New album
2007-07-03 00:00:00
New album recorded in May 2007 with australian producer Greg Wales. To be released in september 2007. Two new members have joined the crew : Maude (Hammond) and Jeff (Rhodes/Piano). welcome to them ! more info on myspace The band is going to play at some festivals during this summer, trying out the new songs live and playing older stuff. It seems that the website has been down recently. We have some problems with our registrar. We hope it's gonna be sorted out soon. Thank you for your patience...
Myspace
2007-03-15 00:00:00
favez is on myspace now. visit our myspace page at www.myspace.com/favez New album recorded in May 2007. To be released in september 2007. more info on myspace
Update & rehearsals
2006-02-19 00:00:00
ouch ! We probably spent the longest time without any update on the site ! mmh ... Favez is currently rehearsing. We wrote lots of songs pretty quickly from november on, we drank tons of wine during that time as well. good wine makes good songs ! that's what we actually think. we still have some more to write (and obviously some more bottles to drink ...). We're quite happy with the new formula and you'll be probably surprised to see how we can rock with an organ, a guitar and a drumkit ... you'll need to wait some more months before you can see our forthcoming album and our next shows...so be patient
Good news & Bad news
2005-08-15 00:00:00
So guys and girls, stuff has been happening in the last few months, some good, some bad, and this is where the band stands right now: "Old and Strong" has been released for 6 months now, and it's quite a success, commercially and critically. Some people think it's our best album, others prefer From Lausanne, Bellefontaine, Gentlemen, or A Sad Ride, and the one guy who said Arrogance by the Favez Disciples was better is now sleeping with the fishes (everybody is entitled to his own opinion, but don't push it too far...) As some of you know by now, either by reading interviews or by long aftershow talks, Old and Strong marks the end of a cycle for Favez, we've been touring, touring, rocking out, touring, yelling and touring some more, we've made what we consider our definitive rock album, we don't really see how we can top it, and we've decided that for our own sanity and enthusiasm, the band has to go through a small mutation. We're going to be taking our songs in a different direction, and we're all very very excited to be going there together. Of course, this will take a while and the results might be surprising, probably a bit quieter but hopefully still very intense... Anyway, for the present we still have a few Swiss festivals that should be very fun even though my voice has been clinically declared dead ("Take a year off from yelling, don't push it" was what the doc said. I'll follow his advice after the last final shows, ooops, sorry). We'll be looking forward to all that is coming our way, thanks for the years of support and good times and here's to all the fun, the albums and the shows yet to come, cheers to you all! have a look on www.wennsrockt.de, there is an interview at the show we made in Basel ( Sommercasino, march)
Solitaryman records
2005-08-13 00:00:00
hello there, just a quick note to mention the website of our great friend Ingo donots, for his new label : solitaryman records. he's going to release some bands in Japan. have a look, even if you don't understand a word of japanese ... on the band's site, we decided yesterday that after the festival season, we'll take two months holidays in september and october. Then we'll begin writing new songs. No idea so far what those new songs will sound like, but we're gonna try writing less "guitar wall" songs. In the writing process, we'll use hammond organ, one electric guitar, drums and maybe one acoustic guitar... we'll see what'll happen ...
Thank you
2005-07-20 00:00:00
We played lately two awesome festivals in switzerland : Open air st gallen and greenfield interlaken. We had a lot of fun playing. Thank you for being there ! Don't miss the 5 remaining show for this summer : vinelz, herzogenbuchsee, trogen, schüpfheim and st-imier. Then it'll be time for a short break before writing new songs ... more coming soon about what we'll gonna do ...
Tour is over
2005-05-06 00:00:00
hey ! The swiss tour is over, and the european one as well. Thank you to all the people that came to the shows. It's been a wonderfull time on tour. We spent half of the european tour with Toboggan and the 2nd part with magicrays. we had a lot of fun with our friends on tour helping us carrying the amps ! Now it's the begining of the festival's season, so don't forget to check the tour section with all the new shows updated...
Charting
2005-02-23 00:00:00
Well, updating a web site is sort of a drug, and with our man yvan lechef taking over all the technical part of it, it's actually something that might prove to be more frequent, who knows. anyway, it's updating maaaaaania here at favez central, and we are very proud to announce that "old and strong in the modern times" is our first national charting record (yeah, ok, number 75 in the swiss chart isn't much, but hey, Linkin Park and Avril Lavigne eeeeaaaat our duuuuuust, hee haw), so thank you for everyone who went out and bought it this week, we got some emails from "the-people-in-suits-who-rule-the-music-world" asking us who we were, it's always fun... Thanks you also to the fine folks at rockstar magazine switzerland for voting us album of the month (Mando diao and neviss eaaaaat our duuuuust, hee haw) even though some of the metalheads actually prefer the new Kreator... right... ahem... hope you guys all like the record, we can't stop feeling very proud with what we've done (like the pretentious little dicks we are) and we'll be seeing soon, with loud live rock and roll blasting out of the speakers! Wedding Present and Cosmic casino eaaaaat our d... well, you get the picture... (updated listening to the new cult of luna album.)
Long time
2005-02-22 00:00:00
Hey, has it been a long time? Well, after a short three month pause, we're back on track and ready for some new adventures. And what has happened since, will you ask? Well, we went from the worst times of the band's life (the last rehearsals before going down to record the new album, for some reason we couldn't get along, couldn't play and basically sucked…) to the best days of our lives (recording what we and everybody thinks is our best album ever: “old and strong in the modern times”). The record was done in Sant Feliu Spain with the incredible Santi Garcia. The great man is a human compilation of all that is good in our scene, he's knowledgeable, open minded, he knows his way around a mixing desk better than anybody we know, he's humble and funny, friendly and god does the kid know how to ROCK! Three weeks of rocking out, all amps in the same room bleeding into the drum kid mics, basically having tons of fun, taking it easy on the beach of Sant Feliu, taking it hard in the Ultramarinos studio and we were totally satisfied with the finished tracks; it was effortless and incredibly gratifying to just go, play and rest totally on Santi's fantastic sense of how all this rock should sound… Anyway, the record has just come out in Switzerland and it's already our best selling album (look at the swiss charts), reviews and fan reactions are excellent (thank you thank you thank you thank you), we poured our souls into that album, it's aggressive and loud, it's tender and proud, it's a chunk of our lives in a time when our lives our changing, it's the end of a chapter and the beginning of a new one. On the gigging front, this year will be a bit calmer than the last six, we'll only be playing 12 week end shows in Switzerland in March, 20 shows in Europe (Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium) and a few festivals this summer, so catch us if you can, we're looking forward to this tour, rehearsals are seriously intense and these shows are going to be tons of fun! See you on the road, girls and guys! (updated listening to Damien Jurado "On My Way to Absence"
New album released
2005-02-16 00:00:00
uuh ! it seems that it hasn't been updated since a long time ... but here it is ! our wonderfull new album "Old and strong in the modern times" has been released two days ago ... we're really excited about it. the recording took place in the sunny spain with the almighty santi "hungry" garcia during october. On the other side, the rehearsal parties for the upcoming shows in march and april have just began ; and guess what ? it rocked ! the new webmaster
Pictures
2004-09-16 00:00:00
sort of a shot in the dark I guess: i'm working on the artwork of the new album and i seem to be using a few photos from a cdr that was sent to us months ago. it only has "favez 9.1.04" written on it and, As i'm sort of on the messy side (to put it mildly...), i have no idea who took these photos or where i could have put the contact. if the (excellent) photographer who shot us in what seems to be the Gaswerk in winterthur (ch) could get in touch (favez_box@hotmail.com), we can credit her/him, send her/him a few records, the usual stuff... (updated listening to the new year "the end is near")
Last show of the year
2004-09-08 00:00:00
we play our last show of the year on saturday in the lovely town of zurzach, we'll have a big party (or a beer and off to bed, we'll see) and then it's up up and away for a month of intense rehearsing... the album (working title "old and strong in the modern age") will be finished late october, we'll have it out sometime in February 2005 and we'll be back on the road around march. we'll try to keep you up to date during the recording process, we might even do the diary thing, who knows...in any case, and as usual, the best is yet to come, we're excited, fresh and rocking as ever, can't wait to see you all! (updated listening to the fantastic next cosmic casino record)
Pixies
2004-07-29 00:00:00
so how was it opening for the pixies, some of you ask... Well, sort of the same as opening for any legendary band; to quote the great man " they don't care, their audience doesn't care and you're way too nervous to play a good show and if the bass player comes to check you out you make a mistake just when she's looking". and that's sort of how it was, except that the audience was pretty nice to us, Mrs kim d. came to check us out and, as we didn't realise it, we didn't make any mistakes (he he he...). very frankly, we had fun but it's not that big a deal (ooops, bad choice of words here...); you're just playing before a band, sort of like a mini festival, nobody ever asked us how it was sharing a stage with Die toten hosen at gurten...hum...yeah.. well, you get the point, right? anyway, i'm in the mood for ranting, so let's rant: who is sick to death of seeing every american band in the past year opening their show with something along the lines of "duh, we didn't vote for him, not our president, not our fault, please forgive our countrymen for being a tad on the slow side, duh, war really suuuucks, rock against bush, yeah, come on kids, heehaw, merch stand on the left in the back of the venue, etc..."? this will not do, this doesn't even go a tenth of the way. when bush was elected, even though he wasn't really elected, hardly anybody moved, when they got september 11th, did they move? oh yeah they did, they moved like there was no tomorrow, whining about the "first attack on their soil", and quickly all rallying around the flag, giving their government all the power it asked for to invade, pillage, destroy and torture. Were they rocking against bush then? we were there at the time and i remember 90% of the bands we met, heard, heard of, read or read about claiming that George w. was making "quite a good job" and that "ye shall not criticise a traumatized nation". the time to act and to speak up was 3 years ago, but no, these bands and their labels were putting up flags on their websites, too scared of not selling enough records and hurting the feelings of the redneck parents of their fan base. great. they had the unique opportunity to promote freedom of thought, to speak as the independent rock community should speak, but no, i remember clearly a gigantic proportion of indie rockers wondering whether to still buy rage against the machine records because, on their website, that band had (gasp) said bad things about american foreign politics, and pointed out that it had led directly to the sept.11 attacks. that was the attitude of way too many of our fellow rockers at the time. now, as more and more of them (finally!) speak out, you can see the whole pack running after the all-new "bush-hating" market, how cool is that, they have their generation's ronnie reagan they can blame everything on! fun! so now sum 41 or sugarcult can pretend they're the dead ks or the minutemen... Yep, the rockers of the new millennium have failed at protesting, how ironic... the only reason an independent scene exists is precisely for it to scream out when something is wrong, not necesarily in song (we all know that a good website rant has more impact than a so-so v.04 protest song...), nor in between songs (most of these guys talk way too much anyway, i can't stand talking between songs, damn singers...), but at least as public personae, however small the public, in interviews, on the net, after the shows, etc... well, i'm all ranted out already. that said, if that bush dude gets thrown out, nobody will complain. i just hope our american colleagues will keep up the voices of dissent, cause that country, bushed or kerryd, stays a gigantic threat to the world... ... hey, we did a round up of the songs we're going to record for our next album and it's going to be really great, energetic, fun, melancholic, hardcore (slightly, we are swiss) and epic and out early next year, yeah! (updated listening to Say anything "is a real boy")
Pixies
2004-06-17 00:00:00
do we look like the kind of people who'd get all excited because we're opening for a band? No. we. Do. not. we're mature adults, we know that opening for a band does not make you part of their universe, they don't care, their audience doesn't care and you're way too nervous to play a good show and if the bass player comes to check you out you make a mistake just when she's looking and.. and... and... and yet... we're pretty excited to be opening for the pixies at the Geneva Arena on june 27th. yep. (updated listening to frank black and the catholics "dog in the sand")
Bellefontaine and next
2004-04-18 00:00:00
good mourning america, it's this special doghouse time of year, Bellefontaine avenue gets its usa release this week, april 20th, and it will be followed closely by the sad riders (chris' solo project). we probably won't be coming over to the us this time, as we're already on our way to recording the follow up to that (very successful, thank you everyone!) record. we're 6 songs in and the tunes are all over the place, we're hardcoring like mad, we got a really heavy 3/4 song, some poppier stuff too, and (ahem) a power-disco number... but basically the album will be a bit more aggressive than bellefontaine (what is it with men getting easily mad as they get older?) and we're definitely scheduled to record it in Spain with our man Santi garcia. summer will mean a few festivals, but mostly we'll be rehearsing hard to be tight as a preacher's ass when the time has come to lay down the tracks, we'll keep you up to date and we'll see you on the road. (updated listening to Sivert hoyem "ladies and gentlemen of the opposition")
Tour
2004-01-15 00:00:00
In two weeks, we'll be heading out for what should be our last shows in Europe for quite a while. We're going to take the rest of the year off to write and record a new album (with whom and where has yet to be decided, but we will do it quick, loud, live and fast!), so if you want to see us one last time before 2005, come out, come out wherever you are and we can have us some fun! We'll be trying out a few new songs on stage ("I hate this town" we think might be our all time favorite Favez tune) and playing all the old standards, of course. We don't generally talk of specific shows on this website, but we have to thank all the people who came out to see us play last weekend, the year could not have started off better, and we already think that the packed, sweaty and eventful Abart show in Zuerich with houston swing engine and brazen could be the year's highlight (how pathetic is that? January 11th and we're already satisfied with 2004...). And, yes, Lechef has a really ugly red mark on his forhead. the cymbal, on the other hand, is in perfect condition. Paiste:1, valais:0 Bellefontaine avenue has been doing really well accross europe and an american and japanese release is on the way for later in the year, we might even tour there again, who knows? on a sadder note, we would like to say goodbye to our longtime companions of Chewy, who split up a few weeks ago, may their new projects be big and beautiful. See you on the road, in the stereo, on the computer, wherever, take care. (updated listening to Rufus wainwright "want one")
Single
2003-10-02 00:00:00
As we like to say here at favez central: it's single maaaaaaaaania! first of all, a wonderful companion to the ever so sweet "bellefontaine avenue" full length album: the "Emmanuel Hall" single. Not only do you get a shorter version of e.h. (ahem, by that we mean the exact same song without the boring hammond intro), but you also have 2 new favez songs ("riviera" and "talking lausanne city blues") and a cover of motorhead's "ace of spades"! the four tunes actually go together quite well, and make for a nice 1/4 of an hour of music. riviera sounds a bit like an old grunge song (but in a good way) and talking lausanne city blues is chris doing a worldwide anthem for all the grumpy people on the planet. very warm and cuddly... but that ain't all: coming straight from that cute little island on our left, we are proud to be part of the first batch of releases from the uk's kickassest new record label "captains of industry"! They will be releasing a limited number of minus/favez split singles. Nothing unreleased from us, but something like a mini "best of" here, as "a better life" gets to share a bit of plastic space with "Someday all this will be mine" and "it's always ten to ten". and of course you get three incredible minus songs too! and last and on vinyl, a split 7" with hey mercedes! now hey mercedes come from the extremely unpopular us of a, but let us not hold that against them, because as you all know, they rule. our side features an alternate version of "it's a hit", tougher, faster and more rocking than the poppier "bellefontaine avenue" version, plus one of our best songs ever: "christobald plattolucci needs a girlfriend", sort of a cross between blur and hot water music. As you probably guessed, this punchy little number is all about our light man/merch guy extraordinaire, and, as the title subtely hints, his lack of female companionship... We haven't heard the hey merceds songs yet, but we have been told that they were quite something by our man Alrid from sound fiction recordings, who will be releasing this classy little object in norway and worldwide! these singles will be out in a very near future and you'll find everything you need to know on these three websites www.stickman-records.de www.soundfiction.net www.captainsof.com (updated listening to rancid "indestructible")
New Album Promo
2003-08-19 00:00:00
It has been sooooooo long... but finally, we got news! We've just received the first shiny glossy slick rocking promos of our new album! The record is 100% made in Favez, i.e. we produced it, recorded it and mixed it all by ourselves, in Yvan's lovely bellefontaine studio. The 11 tracks basically represent all we have been, are and will be: they range from uplifting pop music to tough no nonsense hard rock'n roll. We've worked a lot on the songs, on the arrangements, the album is definitely not as crude and mean as "from Lausanne, switzerland" was, we didn't go for the sheer energy this time, it's more produced (for lack of a better word...) and we put a lot of love and care into every one of those songs. We tried to give each tune a different character, make each part of every song special and, yep, you guessed it, we're quite happy with the result! All in all, we had tons of fun in the studio, rocking out, trying millions of things, changing the bridge of a hard rock song into a Jean Michel Jarre laser flute solo (on "killer show"), Yvan came up with the cheesiest heavy metal solos ever known to mankind (on "Heavy Metal 10"), Chris was allowed to put as many backing vocals as he wished (on "Emmanuel Hall", the first single), Fabrice could bring out the Keith Moon in him with a million killer breaks and the bassiest toms on earth (on "Olé José" and "sloganeering a.k.a. bockwurst"), Guy, who's definitely into 60's studio effects, got his two seconds of phaser (on "Times were high") and his inverted cymbal (on "Battle Weary Blues"), we have a pretty hilarious (and not that serious) pop song called "It's a hit", the traditional acoustic number "the System", a song that goes "ooohooohoooh" on the chorus ("The Light is coming in") and the pop-rock prototype song 101: "A better life" on wich chris gets to prove his unlimited geetar skills with yet another fantastic virtuoso solo. These songs make up our new album: "Bellefontaine Avenue". For those of you who have followed the making of this record, you know that mixing it ourselves was not our first choice, though we had been thinking about it. Mr. Ed Rose, known for his work with Appleseed Cast, coalesce or Motion City Soundtrack was supposed to do it. Unfortunately, due to numerous unfortunate personal circumstances, he couldn't afford the time and we were forced to take the d.i.y. road. Whatever, the record turned out great, we had fun, no regrets and no hard feelings... The echoes we've had from the few people who've heard it until now include "It sounds like a "best of favez" but with only new songs" and "this album sounds like a punch up between Aha, Motörhead, queen and fu manchu". Whatever, hope you guys and girls out there like our new baby as much as we do! We'll be on tour very soon, but before that, we'll be playing a few gigs and festivals amongst which a fantastic two night stint in september with 35007, Brazen and the Sad Riders at the stickman/intro intim night in Berlin and Koln. As happy as we are to do that, this means that we will not be playing these two cities on our forthcoming fall tour. We're very sorry about that, Berlin and Koln are very close to being our favorite places to rock out, but we'll try to make it up and come back again sometime in the spring. Meanwhile, we're on the road again, the record will be out on September 10th in Switzerland and September 28th in the rest of europe. we should also add that it's good to be a live band again after so many hours in the studio. the shows we played from january up to early June were fun, but sort of substandard due to many hours spent mixing instead of rehearsing, so let me tell you that we can't wait to get back on stage and kick out the jams correctly, motherfuckers! Soon! rock!
On Tour Again
2003-05-15 00:00:00
Off on tour again! Good old rock'n roll from the dry plains of Austria to the rich fields of Belgium, and of course the wurst-heavy teutonic lands! Our mates from Chewy will be keeping us company in the beautiful tour bus that we're boarding in an hour or so... This is going to be pretty cooooolll.... See you on the road, viel Spass!
Contest
2003-04-28 00:00:00
Contest time! Win tickets for our next German shows (Munchen, Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg, Koln) by answering one simple question on favez.de. Good luck to you alles.
favez.de and osla.de
2003-04-24 00:00:00
Some of you already know about favez.de, but you also might want to check out osla.de , go to N's room and click on the favez poster... many surprises, personal insight and fun facts courtesy of the truly wonderful miss N... The site is very (and I mean very!) funny, strange sometimes, and you get it in German or in English. This girl rules the world...
Japan cancelled
2003-04-04 00:00:00
Damnshitfuck, as Snapcase have cancelled Japan, Hot Water Music decided they didn't want to go (official statements on snapcase.com and hwm.com), so the tour is cancelled and we get to stay in sunny switzerland. hopefully, there will be a japanese tour in the near future, and i'm pretty sure we will get there eventually... oh well, the real touring starts in may, see you on the road!
Japan and diverse stuff
2003-04-02 00:00:00
We're off to Japan after tomorrow but before that, two pieces of bad news: it'll still be another couple of weeks before Ed Rose gets any mixing done (for personal family affairs), so we'll keep you posted, and Snapcase have cancelled their japanese tour, which means we'll only be playing with Hot Water Music, but hey, life goes on and none of the gigs are cancelled. Festivals are starting to line up, the summer will be hot, rocking and kicking!!! We had lots of fun for our first gig of the year, thanks to everyone who showed up at the Boeroempoempoem, you ruled!
update
2003-03-12 00:00:00
We have our very first official german fan site, courtesy of the great Alex of Bielefeld. the address is www.favez.de , and you'll find stuff in german, photos and a message board, which for ethical reasons has never seen the light of day here on the official website. Good work, congratulations and thank you Alex! The tour section is updated, we're starting to rock again... Also, even though our next album is still a few months away, we haven't been sleeping: Fabrice's side project, A season drive, have a new album out in a couple of weeks. It's called "Summer of '74" and features the great Fig on bass and guitar, plus our man Frank M from Houston Swing Engine on guitar and singing duties. Chris, apart from doing two featurings on the biggest swiss hiphop record of the year (Stress's "Billy Bear"), has a (sort of) solo album coming out soon under the name "The sad riders". The album features Fabrice on drums, Yvan Lechef behind the organ, Fig on bass and Greg from Chewy on guitar. More news on that later...
End of recording
2003-03-04 00:00:00
Hooooolyyyyy shiiiiiaaaatt! i've just put down my last vocal line on the last song ("Battle weary blues") and we'll be bouncing tracks for the next two days, and then everything is on its way to Mr Ed Rose in Kansas city! If everything turns out well, this album should kick some serious ass, from poppy choruses to heavy stoner riffs, it should be a pretty fun piece of rock and roll... We're still working on a title for the record, but here are the titles of most of the songs that'll be featured: -The Light is coming in -It's a hit -Emmanuel Hall -A better Life -ole Jose -The killer show -Battle weary blues -Times were high -sloganeering -Riviera -the people's choice and a couple of others that only have working titles... We'll be playing a few shows around Europe and Japan for the next few months, so look out for some of these songs live at a venue near you...
Quick
2003-02-14 00:00:00
Very quick update, we're working hard in the studio, everything is sounding really great, basic tracks are almost done, a few more geetars and we can start with the vocals! Recording ourselves is proving to be much harder, but also much more fun and gratifying than we expected, so hopefully Mr Rose should receive a nicely crafted bunch of mega-hits to mix in a couple of weeks... On a sadder note, today is Mr. Yvan Lechef's birthday... the poor old geezer is now 31 years old... If anyone feels as sorry for him as we do, please don't hesitate to send him an email at the usual favez contact address! (updated while listening to Nick Cave "nocturama")
Studio
2003-01-25 00:00:00
Well, we've just moved into the studio, we're doing the boring production job, finding the tempos, moving the verses and choruses around, and all in all, we'll start recording on February 1st. Exciting! We've decided on a guy to mix this album: his name is Ed Rose, he's worked with tons of bands we love (from Applessed Cast to Coalesce...) and he'll be mixing in Kansas City what we record here in Lausanne! Technology will never cease to amaze us... Thank you to all the people who came to rock at "Lausanne's burning" (more than a thousand people!) and sorry for all of you who had to stay out in the cold... Better luck next time... Japan has just been confirmed: 3 gigs in April with Snapcase and Hot Water Music! How fantastic is that??!! Next update will be during the drum takes.... hhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, Fabriiiiiiice!!!
Ready to record
2003-01-12 00:00:00
New year's resolution number 2: an update every two weeks starting today! One more week of rehearsals in our stinky little room, and we head out for the mighty Bellefontaine studio to rehearse there for two weeks. Bourgeois, us? Yep, very! We still haven't decided on who will mix our album, but we're in contact with somebody we like a lot, so, we'll keep you up to date... For all of you lucky enough to be in Lausanne on January 18th, you shall witness many great bands covering songs of peace and love. And you'll also witness Favez covering 3 Motorhead tunes. cute and lovely it will be... (updated while listening to Willie nelson "Stardust")
High spirits
2003-01-01 00:00:00
New year's resolution number 1: an update a week starting today! exactly one month left before we go into recording, spirits are high, songs are great, lyrics are yet to be written and we've got a bit of rehearsing ahead of us. We'll be doing a short gig on january 18th, a festival called "Lausanne's burning 3", alongside 19 other fantastic bands from Lausanne including Houston swing engine, toboggan, sludge, etc... All these bands are playing in support for an association called "e la nave va" who has been fighting for the past four years to get a place to open a rock club in this damn city! One lousy rock club!! This has been going on for too long!! Anyway, we'll all be covering songs of peace and love, and each band will play three songs. It will be a fun evening of rock and roll... (updated while listening to Frank Sinatra "sings for only the lonely" and Ryan Adams "Heartbreaker")
End of year
2002-12-30 00:00:00
hmmm... What a strange and beautiful year this has been. "(From lausanne, switzerland)" is officialy (and by quite a stretch) our best selling record, after 9 months with favez, our drummer fabrice has got the band in a more rocking spirit than ever, everything is looking good for a long and bountyful collaboration with Stickman and Doghouse in 2003, and we have just finished writing our new album today! We'll start recording it in February at the Bellefontaine studio in Lausanne. It's a cosy little place, it belongs to our bass player Yvan and we're going to take our time to record this rocking liitle bastard... After that is done, we'll get someone (we're not sure who yet) to mix it, and it should be out sometime next summer. In the meantime, we're going to Japan in April (hurrah, hurrah!!!!!), and Chris will be releasing his (sort of) solo record that same month. More details on this soon. on the internet front, our good friend alex from bielefeld is starting up a fan page for all you german dudes and dudettes, the address will be favez.de and it should feature many teutonic infos on the band, its whereabouts and the crazy antics of its members... Have a great holiday, take care of yourselves and see you next year!.
Schedule
2002-12-20 00:00:00
Well, we've finished a grueling schedule of 107 concerts from february 9th to november 3rd, promoting "from Lausanne, Switzerland" around the world (well, around Europe at least), meeting new people, hanging out with new found friends, and basically having the best year so far in the history of the band! We'd like to get on our knees and humbly thank every one of you guys for showing up at a show, whether it's the 20 people in Cognac, France or the 12'000 people in Lucerne, Switzerland, we're grateful to every one of you for making this year so special! The year's end also marks the first anniversary of our "rock formula"... This, my dear friends, is the answer to all the endless questions every band member has ever asked himself: "was this a good gig?" "We sucked but the people seemed to like it" "Horrible backstage but good crowd" "The fee was good but was it worth driving so far for so few people?", etc... The list is long... How do you rate a good gig, what is more important and what really counts in an evening of rocking out? We, here at Favez central, have been spending a fair amount of time in the van working out a complex, but pretty correct "scientific rock formula". It involves the number of people at the gig, the amount of merch that people bought, the time spent driving, the fee we got and of course the fun we had that night (that last one, the "well being factor", being the only subjective point). After counting everything, after arguing for hours about wether we should give (for example) the gig in the Ned in Montreux 1 point out of 100 in "well being" because the owner is a dick, and after fitting every number in the very complex formula (which involves many cubic roots and coefficients), Yvan Lechef comes up with that particular gig's rating in the year's list. So number 1 this year is Gurten Festival, in Berne, Switzerland (many people, nice crew, good fee, beautiful day and tons of fun on and off stage) and number 107 is KGB, in Barcelona, Spain (basically everything sucked, especially the sound, the band, the people working in the venue and the venue itself, but even there, when all was bleak, there was our friend Jordi from Bcore who rules, No more lies who kicked our asses, and the guys from aina who are adorable, and their presence made the evening enjoyable anyway). To tell you the truth, the rock formula has to be the stupidest waste of time ever invented by mankind, but hey, believe us, when you're driving from Lausanne to the Riesa Efau in Dresden (937 km away, rates 83rd in the rock formula), there's nothing better than arguing about wether or not the "well being factor" of a place that advertized the wrong date on the poster should be 1 out of 100, or a special -10... (the place mentioned here is the az in Aachen, and even though we settled for a generous 1 point, it still rates 106th in the the rock formula...) Enough slagging off, except for the 3 exceptions mentioned here, we've only met the nicest people... Playing in a rock band is great, we're off to write some songs and make a new record, love, the Favez guys.
On tour with the Donots
2002-10-18 00:00:00
Yo, we're back 10 days early due to poor Guido Donot injuring his hand. Sorry for everybody who wanted to rock out in Spain, Italy and France, but oh well, life is hard. The German, Austrian and Swiss leg of the tour was very succesful though, the donots filling up pretty gigantic venues, and us surfing on the wave of their success! not only were the shows a blast, but spending quality time with the donots was probably the most enjoyable experience any rocker could hope for... These kids have to be the nicest, kindest and bigheartedest dudes in all germany. Long talks in the awesome bus on the way to another show, enjoying their company and a cold teutonic malt beverage is probably the best time anybody can have on tour. Guys, we love you and we can't tell you how big a pleasure it was to be on the road with you! The future holds a lot in stock for favez, first (and at last!) the official french release of "From Lausanne, Switzerland", and in a month, the Japanese release of the same record! Now that our dearest piece of plastic/vinyl has finally found nests around the globe, it's ime to think about the next one! We're right now demoing stuff for an album that should hopefully come out sometime before next summer, although we still don't really know when, where and with whom we'll record it... The only thing we do know is that it will rock like a mutha, but that the pop side we'd sort of left behind might find a way back again... On the gig front, we'll be wrapping up our most active year ever with a nice three show weekend, in Biel with the fantastic Pale Four, in Seewen, and in Geneva with one of our all time favourite band: Girls vs Boys! The future's so bright, we gotta wear shades...
Longest tour ever
2002-09-16 00:00:00
We're leaving tomorrow for what will be our longest tour ever; 6 weeks of Germany, Holland, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and France. Most of these gigs will be with the mighty Donots from Germany, some will be with the fantastic K.V.L.R. (i.e. the Killer Vikings of Ludwig the Ruthless), and we'll be trying out some new songs which we are extremely proud of! After the tour, we'll hole up in our rehearsal room 'till February 2003, finishing our next record which should be out sometime during the first half of next year. This past summer has been a big leap forward for the band; we've been playing big festivals, filling up venues, we did our biggest show so far (thanks to everyone of the 12'000 people who came out to rock in Lucern...) and our spirits are higher than ever. Thanks to all of you for your growing (or steady) support and see you somewhere on the road!
Festivals
2002-07-21 00:00:00
summer, sunshine, shiny grey dw drums, festivals, thank you to everyone of the thousands who cheered on at Gurten, that was one of our more surreal (but oh so fun) experiences... these next couple of months are looking just as good as the past ones, Swiss and german festivals have so far been great, the Lausanne family night at Cargo/expo.02 was absolutely awesome, and we've just learned that we're going to be heading out for a month of touring again! we'll be playing shows in Germany, Austria and Switzerland with the masters of teutonic punk rock: The donots!!! We only met Ingo once in Osnabrueck, but if the other donot guys are as nice as he is, this will be a memorable 27 days...
Full Time Drummer
2002-07-09 00:00:00
I don't think anything could make us happier than this announcement: Fabrice has decided to join the band full time! We had the time of our lives on our last tour, we get along really really well, and we've started writing very promising new stuff. Not only is the man an incredible drummer, he's also very proficient in the guitar/tune department and with this very dynamic addition to the sound, the band is going in a very energetic and melodically epic direction... I don't know what the proverbial tricky future has in stock for us, but if the last couple of months are anything to go by, wonderful things are to be expected! The road, the rock, Fabruuuce!!!!
Feedback
2002-05-16 00:00:00
we're back in lausanne, switzerland for a one day pause in our european tour, so time for a quick update... the album has been released in the usa, and the reviews we're getting are really positive, which is always nice, and this brings us to a nice batch of worldwide journo enthusiasm: 5/5 k in kerrang uk and top five and "Schoenheit" rating in Visions germany amongst many cool stuff... we're leaving tomorrow for the uk, playing with tons of cool bands (a.o. reverse and sist), then off to Belgium and Scandinavia where we'll play with our friends from Kevlar, to Holland (a gig with Chokebore and another with the promise ring) and a couple of shows in Germany with teutonic kings of rock sweet zoe. Great! Spirits are at the highest despite our old Transit van dying on a highway in Spain... We had to demolish it in the beautiful town of zarragossa, and spend the night there instead of rocking out in San Feliu... This tour will not only be introducing the astonishing Fabrice on drums, but also the fantastic choupet on sound! Our official sound engineer Mr. Soft couldn't spare the time, due to him having a carreer as saviour of the world or something... It's almost a whole new gang, but Christobald Plattollucci is still there to save the world from insanity, and he's still single! If you want to come up to the merch stand and chat him up, take him home, do as you please, feel free... See you out there!
Fabrice on the drums
2002-04-24 00:00:00
to our enormous joy (and relief...), everything clicks perfectly with fabrice, our new drummer. the boy rocked his ass off for the two gigs we had last weekend, after only four days of rehearsal... long time fans present at the gigs told us they had rarely seen the band sounding so tight and rocking, and we all had an extremely fun time on stage! So for all the people spreading nasty split rumours, come down and check us out when we play in a town near you, you'll be happy to find that all is well in favez land! You'll also see one of the most awesome drummers to have graced the surface of the earth...
Fred is gone
2002-04-16 00:00:00
hmmm... what can I say... Fred has been our drummer for the last five years and with him, marvellous things have happened: we went from playing ten local shows a year to touring the world, we have recorded three albums that we truly love and we feel that we have achieved a million times what we set out for in our rehearsal space when we first met him in May 1997, jamming on Blur's "song2". All of us have given favez 100% of our lives during these five years and, to our great sadness, Fred can't do it anymore. He decided to quit after our last (and most succesful) German tour... We love him dearly and we will miss him on the road... However, the rock life goes on, we have gigs to do and we are happy to announce that Fabrice (who used to play in Chewy, now plays in Aseasondrive and is what we believe to be one of the best drummers in Switzerland) will be filling in on drums for the next couple of months... Our first rehearsal was fantastic, so expect to see a seriously hard rocking band on stage this spring/summer! Unfortunately, Fabrice won't be here for ever (he has a full time job), so the next definitive drummer for favez is still unknown. Hopefully, it will be our best friend Frank, but that is his decision. We all hope he says yes, though... We'll keep you posted on that one, and on some other, more trivial news, real soon
Feedback
2002-03-17 00:00:00
Alrighto! Funfunfun! This year has started out incredibly well... People have been packing up venues all over Switzerland, we've met new and nice guys and girls, everybody has been having lots of fun. What more could you want? Well, we're heading out for Germany in a couple of days, and it's looking good... Reviews for "from lausanne, switzerland" have been very good, we got a "schoenheit" in visions again, almost every article is really postive, and that's always nice... So I guess there's not much more to say, the band is in very high spirits, everything is rocking, we're playing our asses off on stage and Lechef on bass is looking and sounding more and more incredible every gig! Looking forward to seeing you all in those fine German clubs!
Album released in Switzerland
2002-02-04 00:00:00
The rest of Europe will have to wait till February 25th, but, in Switzerland, our new album is coming out today !!!!! You like dirty ass kicking rock and roll? You like heavy guitars and epic choruses? Well, who knows, you just might like "(From Lausanne, Switzerland)". Most people who've heard it until now agree that it's our best album yet, it's very aggressive and mean, and it has a great raw garage feel to it. Even though the album was recorded in strange and desperate conditions, we had a lot of fun rocking out at WaterMusicRecorders, in Hoboken New Jersey, a couple miles away from lower Manhattan, from September 17th to September 28th (many thanks to the high spirit of Johnny "No Depression, More Compression" Agnello). And as you will also have noticed, we have a brand new website too!!!! The design comes courtesy of the Rinnywebdesign company, and the picture at the top of the page was taken on the big Salt Lake by Mister Scott Ritcher during our US tour together this summer. Nearly everything has been updated, we now have a press room, where you can download bios and pics, a new discography, a great picture section that will grow larger with every pic you send us, new links, a new mailorder method and a [...] section where we unvail our horrible tastes in music, movies books, whatever. Hope you enjoy the site... Coming up next for the band, we have some relentless touring of Europe (all the usual places, plus, for the very first time, Scandinavia! Great!). Some gigs will be with Kevlar (from Sweden), some with Sweet Zoe (from Germany), some with Tobogan, Houston Swing Engine, Honey For Petzi (Switzerland). It will be great, great fun and we hope you'll all show up to see our new bass player Yvan Lechef on stage, grooving in his mysterious ways… See you on the road.
No update ...
2001-12-17 00:00:00
Yeahyeahyeahyeah... I know. It's all my fault and I suck. There has been no update in a while (to put it mildly) cause I was waiting for our brand new website to come on line, but it won't be here before January, so here goes: the last update on the old "Favez Airlines" site... Let's go back to early September (when the world was sweeeeet and innocent...). We were breaking in our man Lechef, he was getting the hang of that bass thing, and our songs were all set to magnetise some tape. We were supposed to go to New York on September 15th, but that got sort of messed up (duh...), and we ended up arriving on the 17th, to record on the 18th. The town was devastated, people were sad, angry, and us, well, we were shaken, but still ready to play some rock... Our producer John Agnello had escaped death by a couple of hours (he was supposed to be in the twin towers at 11AM that day) and he was still heartbroken to have his hometown brutalized and dismembered in such an ugly fashion. Of course, it was hard to concentrate on our project (i.e. to rock like bastards) but eventually, microphones found their places around the drums, in front of the amps, and, pounding and riffing our hearts out, we did the KICKASSEST-MEANEST-TOUGHEST-MO'FOEST album in our lives! It reeks of 70'S-HARD-ROCKING DRUMS and RADIO-UNFRIENDLY-BLASTING GEETARS. Of course, we still have the usual whimpy-cry-baby vocals, but with a touch of New Jersey-badass influences this time around. We had a lot of fun writing it, the songs are influenced by aproximately everything that rocks, or that has once rocked (from Breach to Shellac to Tom Waits to Fu Manchu to pasta salad), the lyrics are all about Steve McQueen, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and the usual corny personal stuff (Who? Where? Why?). It starts with "The Ages of Wonders" and rocks on for 12 songs, 37 minutes (our longest yet!) down to "Troubles Life Blues" (A Roger "Fat Boy" Rodgers cover...). It is called "From Lausanne, Switzerland" and it'll be out in February around the world. YYEEAAHH!! After the album was done, we said goodbye to Uncle Johnny and headed out accross the USA for a month of touring. And it SUCKED!!!! IT SUCKED SO FUCKING BAD!!!!!!! Well, you know what I mean: we had a lot of fun, sometimes people came, somtimes they didn't, the gigs were always entertaining and we did tour with the nicest people around (TimeSpentDriving, whom you already know from our previous touring adventures in Germany, and the great Scott Ritcher (from Providence, Rhode Island) who basically rules the universe). But the country... the COUNTRY.... booohooohooh! Shame on all the flag-waving pea brained morons we saw along the way! Learn about the world! This did NOT happen to your country by pure chance! This is NOT a battle of good vs evil! Aaaargh, the agony of touring the states in October 2001... "United We Stand", "God Bless America", "Land of the Free", "Home of the Brave"... GROW UP!!!! (Added after comments on December 22nd, 2001): I got a lot of mail from US fans about the paragraph above; needless to say we met many wonderful, open minded people. Most of the kids who came to our shows were fantastic. And, yes, the western world in its whole is responsible, but this is a case of how the "average" (if such a person exists) American thinks of the whole mess. Every American I've talked to who has been abroad since aggrees with this: the reaction in America (media, political and even in some sens in the artistic field) is pretty immature and self centered. I come from a country that has never been attacked and I guess I can't really relate to that, and I know that you don't like criticism from a foreigner and I can totally understand that. Still, things have to be said, and I just couldn't write down "Thanks to all the kids who came down to check us out, it was awesome, see you next year." We felt so alien and ill at ease amongst the many aggressive and hateful people we saw that I had to mention it... Sorry we couldn't be more positive... Anyway, we were glad to be back in Europe and this brings us up to November, where we played an award ceremony show in Zurich with some of the world's most ridiculous bands, most of which commited the sin of ...playback! They were basically so lame they would have been kicked off the stage by Dr Alban (yep, himself), had he been there to play and not just present some award. Thank god Crank were also there to purvey some rockandroll to that poor audience... Oh well... On the positive side, we were happy to play our annual Lausanne gig on December 1st, we had a lot of fun and the vibes were really cool... Lausanne rules! A few more gigs in December and January will bring us to February and the serious touring will start again, but we'll surely have time for some more updates by then... I guess two more important things must be said: 1) The European (Stickman) and the American/Japanese (Doghouse/Howling Bull) record covers will once again be different: Stickman get a full frame picture of Guy Borel (Gay Barrell?) in a rocking mood, a wonderful photo by our friend Thomas K., artwork by Pee&Dubya inc., while the Doghouse cover will be sporting a Scott Ritcher masterpiece: "Band Grooving on a Salt Lake". Fab Mr R. took the photo, did the artwork, and he'll also be responsible for shooting our new video, for the song The Ages Of Wonders. The man can do everything, he's awesome in the true meaning of the word and we love him dearly. 2) If anybody was at the Nirvana tribute night in Geneva last week-end, the dude playing bass naked in Nirvanus was our manager, Fig. And, yes, it is a dolphin he has tattooed on his back. Very nice... Well, here's for the end of the year update, stay safe, try to catch The Pale Four on tour if you can, and give your mothers a hug for Christmas, ok?
