A Chat with Anavae (20.06.18)

One’s a game developer, and the other’s a photographer.  Bring them together, and you have a unique alternative rock duo.  After their performance at the Isle of Wight, Jamie Finch and Rebecca Need-Menear of Anavae take a moment to chat with The Other Side Reviews.

OSR:  So, it’s a standard question, but Anavae is quite a unique band name.  How did you come up with it?

RN:  We created the word and meaning when trying to find something that properly represented what we wanted to do.  Every time we’re asked the question, the answer seems to get lost in the ether, so maybe it’ll become an enigma.

Since our formation, the name seems to have made itself onto ‘baby girl naming’ websites, which is surreal. In fact, I just gave it a Google a minute ago, and one of the websites says it has Native American origins?  WE DEFINITELY MADE IT UP.  It was nowhere to be found on Google before we existed!!

OSR:  How did you two meet and why did you form Anavae?

JF:  My friend auditioned for a rubbish bedroom band with a girl singer and hated it. He told me I’d love it though – that’s how I met Becca.

RN:  You fu*king love telling that story.  We eventually broke away from that project and formed Anavae together.  We wanted the freedom of being able to write what we wanted to write without too many voices diluting the ideas.  We wanted something to really feel like ours.

OSR:  In our research, we found Rebecca you’re a photographer, and Jamie you’re a video game developer (or something like that).  How do you find a balance between these day jobs and Anavae?

JF:  Yup, I make a game called TerraTech – available on Steam, and soon to be Xbox and PS4. 😉

It’s tough, but I like the separation.  Trying to sit in a creative space from 9-5 can drive a person crazy.  It made me not really like anything I was writing, so some space is good.  I definitely write better when I can take my mind away from thinking about music 24/7.

RN:  Coming from someone who sits in a creative space 24/7, I think I might have lost my marbles, but it’s hard to tell when you’re so zoomed in.  Working freelance is filled with such love and hate.  Sometimes the feeling of being free is overwhelmingly positive, but on down days, being completely in control (or maybe more accurately out of control?) of every aspect of your life feels impossible.  I’m just grateful I don’t have a boss to answer to when I have to go away on tour/ or just want to disappear for a few days.

OSR:  If you had to change your individual names, what would you choose?

RN:  I sometimes wish my name had a K in it.  The original Hebrew spelling, Rebekah, looks so much cooler.  I always seem to be mistaken for a Rachel though.

OSR:  Can you explain your Pledgemusic campaign to us?

RN:  We’ve had a pretty rough couple of years.  After emerging from that, we were a little lost as to where and how we were going to achieve what we wanted to achieve, so calling for help via Pledge Music seemed to make a lot of sense.  We weren’t expecting SUCH an insane response.  Knowing that so many people are still rooting for us, and are willing to actually financially help us keep creating music is a true blessing.

Our fingers are crossed that we’ll be finished and ready to release new music by August.  Our Pledge campaign will be open, leading up to release.  The more we raise, the cooler the music videos can look.  😉

OSR:  Do you prefer being an unsigned band to having a record label and why, or why not?

RN:  Being unsigned, alongside this Pledge campaign, means that we can write, record, and create exactly the way we want to, and essentially release it whenever WE’RE ready to.

OSR:  Have you ever fainted?

JF:  Oh yeah.  I fainted after our first ever gig actually.  Long story short, I had a lip piercing that fell out, but I had someone put it back in the morning after it had healed.  I felt and heard skin rip!  I passed the fuck out and got really embarrassed by it, like, REALLY embarrassed for no real reason.  The people around me were lovely about it, but it triggered my first bout of anxiety and panic attacks that I’ve been struggling with ever since.

It stopped me playing live for just over a year.  We had to pull in a new guitarist to play all my parts live because I couldn’t face being on a stage in front of people.  I was convinced I’d pass out based on no evidence whatsoever.  I was eventually convinced to get counselling (CBT), which helped me a crazy amount and got me functioning again.  I’m still in a constant state of anxiety or fear of passing out, but I have a couple tools that help me deal with it on a day-to-day basis.

OSR:  Rebecca, you directed your latest video.  What was it like to take the director’s seat?

RN:  Weirdly, nerve-wracking.  A lot of my friends are insanely talented filmmakers, DOP’s and directors, and I knew a few of them were going to see it.  Being a photographer as well, I think people were expecting something not shit.  It’s not a masterpiece, but I think it accurately expressed a feeling.

OSR:  What do you prefer – recording songs or making music videos?  Why?

JF:  Making music for me. Things make more sense to me in the studio.

OSR:  If you could design your tombstone, what would you have written on it?

JF:  Brb.

OSR:  Do you have any last words of advice for your fans?

JF:  You’d be surprised what kind of progress you can make by just chasing something constantly.

RN:  Search for a healthy balance between consuming art, having muses, and not comparing yourself to them.  Imitation at the start is a good way of discovering what traits you’d like to develop within yourself.  Once you know what you like, and what you want to create, the hard part is feeling confident about it, owning it, and feeling like what you have to say is worth hearing.  I could really do with a bit of arrogance.  I think that would improve my workflow.

Thank you to Jamie and Rebecca for speaking with us.  For more Anavae, check out their official Facebook and YouTube.

Related posts:

Anavae – Lose Your Love (2018)