Last night, The King’s Head in Dalston was home to a great performance by Fé. The band is made up of duo Ben and Leo, who started their music career busking on carriages on the London Underground. It’s no surprise then that they count the TFL as one of their influences.
Their live performances include band members Joss and Luca and it’s clear to see they have been playing together for a while, as you would never have known they weren’t all permanent members of Fé. Their style of music is easy to listen to with their indie-pop tones and the vocals of both Ben and Leo are atmospheric and really adds a chilled quality to their set.
It’s understandable why Radio 6 DJ Lauren Laverne, after playing their track, called it “a cracking debut” as well as Radio 6’s Tom Robinson describing them as having an “extraordinary quality”. After having recently been featured on Radio 1 recently, it seems it won’t take long till we see and hear a lot more of their work.
Speaking to them after the show we learn a bit more behind the busking days of Fé and what plans they have for the future.
What kind of reception were you getting from busking?
Everything! Largely really generous and really responsive, but some people would walk off the carriage cos they didn’t like the song, some people would attack us cos they didn’t like the song, or call the guard, pulling the alarm, but usually really generous. Every time you feel you’ve come away with something positive, we’ve had some kind of communal experience where everyone has just let go.
So was that the idea behind why you started?
Yeah, It didn’t start off as a pure money thing, it just started off as us wanted to play these songs in an intense environment.
Weirdest moment?
They’ve been a lot of weird moments. Alistair McGowan giving us a tenner was a pretty weird moment, he didn’t do any impersonations.
I understand the bands name is after Leo’s Grandmother was there any reasoning behind picking the name.
No, not really, we like it, its simple, there’s two members, there’s two letters.
You feature a couple of your songs on SoundCloud, a few songs tonight we haven’t heard before, and after being featured on Alice Levine and Phil Taggart’s show on Radio 1, what’s your future plans?
We just want to keep on recording, we are really happy with the band members that we’ve been playing with all summer to get it all right, just really happy with getting the live band playing, just really want to get deep in that, just playing the songs to as many people as we can. We just love playing these songs live, that’s what we are about.
With only a couple of tracks on their SoundCloud, it really is worth checking them out live to be able to see their full musical potential. Songs such as 50/50 and Make Me Better, really stand out and show the hard work and passion Fé have and how far they have come from their busking days.
There is a repeat performance on the 30th October at The King’s Head Dalston. The gig is free but is on a guest list basis only. Just need to email fe@bad-life.com to confirm your entry.
Check Fé out on SoundCloud.
For more information on the band follow them on the links below.
https://www.facebook.com/FEology
