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Pretty Sick Finds Their Sweet Spot

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Porches— What’s up Sab? 

 

Sabrina Fuentes— Hi, how you doing?

 

I'm good. You're in London right now?

 

Yeah, I'm in London right now. I'm at a recording studio with my friend Jacob Budge doing a session and hanging out, and I'm going to go out to carnival parties tonight. What are you doing?

 

That sounds banging. I'm just home doing this call with you and then I'm going to go to the studio and work on some stuff today. How long have you been in London?

 

Been in London for about a week now, but I was in Berlin right before. I was staying with my friend, I'd never been there.

 

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That's cool. I was thinking about the last time I saw you, you came by the studio and you had just been in Mikey’s studio and wrote 50 songs or something like that, right?

 

Yeah, I was at Mikey’s and wrote like 35 songs.

 

And then we made some songs. How many songs do you have now?

 

Yeah, I have no idea how many songs I have at this point. Not all that I've ever done. There's a lot of sketches that aren't quite finished, but definitely more than 35 at this point. I think probably closer to 40-50.

 

Are you working on anything specific, like the next record or just making a bunch of stuff right now?

 

Yeah, I'm working on the next record and also just collaborating with friends, seeing where everything takes us. I'm letting it figure itself out. We're just trying every creative avenue that we want to explore more, did some heavier rock stuff, some emo stuff, some indie stuff, some electronic stuff. We're trying to figure out what works for the next full length album, exploring all the ideas that we’ve been sitting on for a while.

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I've been listening to the last EP a bunch, even more just before our chat and it's super sick. I like it more each time. It's kind of hard for artists to shift genres sometimes because it can sometimes feel like putting on a tacky outfit. There's this really strong throughline in your lyrics and in your voice that sort of stands up to a drastically different production style from the other Pretty Sick sick stuff. It got me excited to hear what you've been working on. 

 

I feel like when you complete something, it's the most exciting time to work on new stuff because you're not stuck in one world and you can just throw a bunch of shit at the wall and just wait until something starts to feel right.

 

Yeah, that's exactly where we're at right now. It's nice that after releasing something, you feel like you can let that idea go and move on to exploring new things. I feel like I can put down the world that the last EP was inhabiting and see what else we can do, like you said, throwing stuff on the wall and seeing what sticks.

 

Did you work on music with Woesum in person or was it all virtual?

 

It was all in person.

 

In New York or somewhere else?

 

Here in London in a small studio with a bunch of synths and a booth where we could play any instruments we wanted to track in. We figured that we would start with the strongest ones and put that foot forward and then see what else we wanted to explore. We made those songs as soon as I finished Make Me Sick Makes Me Smile

 

We were going in and out of the studio every couple of months, and it was a lot of fun since we got along really well. We did some sessions where we were bouncing off the walls full of ideas, writing four or five songs a day. It's a way of writing that I never really got to explore that much before. I would write with a band, coming up with ideas with other musicians in the room or, more often than not, write the whole thing on bass with lyrics, melody, some vague guitar and drum parts then bring it to the band to record.  

 

It was cool working with a producer who mostly worked with rappers who show up with nothing prepared and just play off of the beats that he makes. I feel like his production style inspires so much verbally and melodically and it's such a cool way to explore songwriting. It was more fun to write songs and also a faster way for me to write songs than anything I’ve tried before. Arthur's a really sweet and nurturing producer as well, which is always great.

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Do you feel like that’s why you're doing more sessions with producers now and what not? Did it unlock some kind of collaboration thing in you?

 

Yeah, definitely. I mean, we've been doing sessions a couple different ways, meeting with a bunch of different producers. I think some producers really bring a lot to the table and others just bring more of you out of you. Then there's shady producers that wait for you to come up with ideas and then try to take credit for them. Up until meeting Arthur, when I would write in the room with people, that's what would end up happening more often than not and I would leave frustrated because I just did all this work not feeling like it brought out anything that I couldn't have just done on my own computer. 

 

Working with different producers has been about seeing if there’s anybody we really click with. We’ve been doing a few sessions of the band as the band — me, Ben and Ava with no production. Now I think we’re going back to some old friends we've worked with before.

 

We had the guys from Nation come by and we invited Cat Power to sing on something too, bringing in people who might add a different vibe in the studio. I’ve also been in sessions with producers like Jacob, who I’m with today, that are just one-on-one. I’m also figuring out which songs from all these different sessions fit in one semi-unified world.

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Yeah, I feel like the one thing about making music with a bunch of different people and in different scenarios is that it does take a long time for the general vibe to make itself known. At first, it doesn't sound like you're setting out to achieve this thing you're imagining and then you get there. I saw you at Nublu when you played solo. What do you like about playing solo versus playing with a band? 

 

Well it wasn’t properly solo because Ben was playing bass, but it’s definitely a new experience. I've never really played without a band before. I never even do solo acoustic shit because I don't play guitar, I play bass. I do like not having to play bass on stage, I think it’s fucking annoying and I'd rather just sing so that was really exciting and fun for me. It’s like karaoke and I can put a lot more towards performing and singing. But yeah, that was the second time we'd ever done something like that and afterwards, we missed Ava immediately. After we played we told her she needed to figure out how to play some electronic drum pages so that we could have her on stage. It’s a lot more fun when it’s all of us.

 

Although, it’s nice to have the option to play a full set with just backing tracks and a bass. It gives us more opportunity to play in venues that are not compatible with full bands all the time. You know what I mean? Small spaces definitely. The first time we played the set was at a show at the restaurant underneath Search and Destroy, Kenka, and it was awesome; really, really chill. It makes it so much easier to do fun, intimate gigs like that when you don't have to bring in a whole drum kit and a whole bunch of amps and a crazy system. There's a lot of freedom as to where and when we can play, on the drop of a dime. 

 

I know the live drums not being there is sort of tragic sometimes. It sounded sick and it definitely is kind of miraculous to not have to have a guitar on your shoulder and worry about playing the right parts. I remember how I felt the first time I did it, super awkward like I was at a high school dance or something. I didn't know what to do with my body or my arms or whatever. And then I feel like slowly I started to really enjoy it more than being strapped to a guitar these days.

 

Every once in a while there's a song that always feels good to play on your instrument while singing it, but for the most part I would rather have more space with my body and voice to give the best performance. I think that I can definitely sing better when I don't have a big heavy instrument pushing on my diaphragm. I can project and strain a lot less. I do a lot of karaoke in my free time, so I'm very comfortable with just the microphone.

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You looked like a natural there for sure. Do you have any shows coming up on the books right now or are you just grinding in the studio?

 

Not so many shows right now, just trying to write as much as possible, taking a breather as well, just because it's been a long year. I just moved back to New York after living in London for five years, so relocating was a lot. Dealing with personal, emotional stuff and then just having released the EP, I think it's just a well-deserved break for me. Sessions like these are relaxing and I love going on tour, but it's physically draining for obvious reasons and I think for now I'm just slowing my pace a little bit. I'm from New York, where you're always trying to get things done as fast as possible, and I don't feel like doing that anymore. I want the next release to be fully thought out and complete. Not that everything else we’ve put out hasn't been. I’m not usually a perfectionist — I normally leave space for human error in projects in that way — but now I want to take my time and revisit the work until it’s exactly what I want.

 

What’s the song you’re writing right now? 

 

I’m working on two. The first one is just kind of a snarky and fun song. “I know what boys like” type of thing. It’s about balling out and how it must suck to watch me ball out all the time if you're not in my life anymore. Then this next one is probably going to be a bit rockier and grunge because that seems like the direction we're headed in. So some more melancholic lyrics on that one probably, but it's going pretty good.

 

That's sick. It seems like you. I’m excited to hear it all. It was fun hearing, seeing you write lyrics and work. Whenever you're back, we should hit it again.

 

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Cool, cool. Does that feel like a conversation to you?

 

That felt conversational to me.

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