Josh Raven and his band, The Faim, have traveled from Perth, Austrailia all the way to a global stage with their one of a kind sound. Their rise to the top has been meteoric and indicates strong potential for the young group. Currently, on their first American tour, Raven sat down with us before his show in Baltimore to talk about his music, what being on tour is like and what is next for the Faim:
What got you interested in music?
“Honestly, I think it was just really seeing how it made people feel, and how it made myself feel kind of made me get into music a lot. I was just obsessed with the idea that you could create something out of thin air and it could affect someone you’ve never met or someone that you’re closest to in so many different ways. And to me that’s something really powerful. You know, music is a universal language that can speak to many people. And obviously it’s a way to express yourself and to me that was something that I struggled to do for a long time and being able to have music really helped me through that. So yeah, there’s a variety of reasons why I love music, but that’s the big reason why I got into it.”
You say it helps you express yourself. Is there a message you try to put it in your lyrics at all?
“I think it depends on the overall concept of the song, but most of the time, every lyric, every melody, every whatever that we brought together, it all kind of stems from something very raw, something very real we’re at, whether it’s something that’s happened to me personally or something that’s happened to someone that I care about or a story or something that I’ve read about or seen or felt, that tends to be the overall thing. But the biggest message I try and tell people overall, whether it’s through music or just in general, is to be a self and not afraid of being able to be yourself. And I feel like through that you can find your own dream, your passion and your place in life.”
Is there anyone who influences you as far as artists go?
“I have a variety of influences, man, like from Tupac to Frank Sinatra to Slipknot to Led Zepplin and like Panic at the Disco. It definitely influences of mine, but I have a wide variety of them. I think that’s important too. Especially in music today. Genres are amalgamating. There’s no one set way. They really run music, so it’s exciting to be able to utilize every influence that I have and put that into my music.”
When you say, like, Tupac or Frank Sinatra influences you, is it more lyric wise or how so?
“Man, like the power of voice, the tone of voice, the lyric, the instrumentation or the rhythm. I feel like if you look at every song hot enough, especially with the magnifying glass, doesn’t matter if it’s your jaunt or if it’s the top of music that you liked, you can find something that you can relate to it, you can find something that’s powerful within that song.”
Is your music received as well in Australia as it is here? Because you definitely seem to have a following here.
“There’s definitely a, we have a fan base in Australia of course, but you know, Australia takes a while to catch on with a lot of things. Especially that’s why we spent so much time in the UK and Europe. Especially from a touring perspective. It’s hard to tour Australia from the ground up because you have to fly everywhere and there’s quite a lot of distances and stuff as well and UK and Europe and the US, you can just drive to a lot of different countries and a lot of different places. But our aim is the world man. That’s the world. You want to be able to travel everywhere and basically create relationships with people all over the world.”
What are your goals for 2019?
“Man. Honestly, like, we have lots of little goals, you know, like playing certain shows or playing certain festivals and, you know, all that sort of started having an x amount of songs. But you know, our main goal is to really just be, stay on stage, keep playing music, you know, for us it doesn’t matter who we are, where we are, what we’ve done or how it got there, you know, like being able to play music to however many people are willing to listen is what’s important for us because being onstage is like, it’s like a therapy, you know, like I need, I need to be performing, I need to be writing music on. It’s a, it’s a lifestyle for me and I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, be able to change it if I tried.”
