Psychedelic, garage, drone, experimental. These are some of the terms you might use to describe Fayetteville band Voyageurs.
Other acceptable terms include “badass,” “trawesome (triple awesome), or more simply, “yes.”
The band has been playing in Fayetteville for a few years now, but seem to have hit their stride recently. Their 10-track album Freak Cave, released in July of this year, is one of the best local records we’ve heard in a really, really long time.
Voyageurs will be at The Lightbulb Club on Sunday, Sept. 18 with Denver, CO bands Poppy Red (featuring Fayetteville ex-pat Molly Long) and Woodsman.
We got in touch with Andrew from the band recently, and he was nice enough to answer some questions for us.
Fayetteville Flyer: What have you been listening to lately?
Andrew Donovan: Lately for me it’s been PC Worship, Fungi Girls, Dead Gaze, Gross Magic, Clams Casino, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and Lil B the Based God.
FF: We heard you got a new guitar player recently. Who makes up your current lineup?
AD: Yeah Kale Ogle just joined the band on guitar. Brad Simmons plays bass, Eric Nix plays drums, and I sing and play guitar.
FF:You guys just returned from a bit of an adventure, correct? Where did your recent tour take you?
AD: We did a quick east coast tour. It was a blast. We got to play with a bunch of sick bands. First we hit up Memphis, which was sick. We played at the Hi-Tone with Bake Sale. Our friend Joy, who used to live in Fayetteville, plays in that band. They were amazing.
Next was Oxford, MS where we opened up for Woods and White Fence at the Cats Purring Dude Ranch. It was cool to meet and hang out with the Cats Purring crew. They have a really cool scene down there. Plus, Woods and White Fence were sick.
Then we played a house show in Murfreesboro, TN with Suzi Trash, who have played in Fayetteville a few times, and some other local bands. That was pretty wild. People were moshing during Suzi Trash’s set.
Then we took a day off and played in Philly with True Gold, Swimmers Ear and Bill Ridenour. Phonographic Arts, which is run by Clifton Shumaker and Pat from the band Creepoid, have been booking some sweet shows at Little Bar lately. We had an awesome time there, and had some badass philly cheesesteaks.
Then we played three shows in NYC. We played at a really sick DIY venue called Shea Stadium in Brooklyn with GDFX, Dubknowdub, C. Spencer Yeh, and PC Worship. Then we played at a basement venue called Rad Town with Äss, Family Trsrs, Lame Drivers, Circuit Des Yeux, Rhyton, and R. Stevie Moore got on the bill at the last minute. Our final show was at Death by Audio, another sweet DIY venue in Brooklyn, with Eraas, ATM, and Alan Watts. The best part was getting to see so many amazing bands.
FF:You have a ton of recorded material available for such a young (in terms of how long you’ve been playing together) band. How do you stay so prolific?
AD: I guess we just get sick of playing the same songs after wearing them out for a couple months. But some of the songs we have on our Bandcamp page are just bedroom recordings that we never play live.
We all love to explore new sounds and come up with new material all the time. We’ll be jamming on a riff at practice for like twenty minutes and be like, “We should totally turn that into a song.” Not all of our songs are written that way but a lot of them are.
FF:Some bands like recording. Some bands enjoy playing live. Do you guys prefer one over the other? Both?
AD: Both.
FF:There’s been a bit of a shake up in the Fayetteville scene recently. Are there any new local projects we should check out?
AD: Thunderlizards, Brothel Sprouts, Potions, and Kale’s (Ogle) new project, Moon Ruin, are all killing it. Some friends of ours down in Little Rock have a new band called The Evelyns, and they rule. Jimmy Spice, who used to play drums for us, recently let me listen to a few of his new recordings for his recent project Liquid Skulls and they were mindblowingly good. There are so many good new bands right now.
FF:What’s next for you guys? Working on anything new?
AD: Yes. We have some new material we are working on. Also we will be debuting some cassette releases on our new label, Hella Mystic, in the near future. Our latest album Freak Cave and some really sick Niall recordings will be the first releases. More info on that later.
