Your New Favourite Band: NRVS LVRS

We first introduced you lovely lot to the equally lovely sounds of NRVS LVRS, care of their debut single ‘City Lights’, back in a recent edition of PULSE – specifically, THIS ONE. However, there’s a lot more beneath the surface with this San Franciscan six-piece; the breadth and width of their own musical landscape is far more far reaching than even their majestic debut single, soon to be revealed via their debut album; the depth to their creativity and ambitions beyond their music.

I recently caught up with Andrew Gomez and Bevin Fernandez from the band and got to discussing their home city, the troubles facing everyday life in the modern age, their views on where they want to go with their music, what got them here, their creative processes, and that’s just the start. It’s a great interview, so get to reading, and get to knowing NRVS LVRS ahead of their making a serious mark on music this year. Yours and everyone else’s new favourite band.

Hello there, how are you, and who are you?

AG: Hey, we’re Andrew Gomez & Bevin Fernandez of NRVS LVRS.

I talked about yourselves in a recent edition of our music feature Pulse, but for the uninitiated, how would you describe your music?

AG: The elevator pitch for our band is we’re glitchy electronic rock combining elements of darkwave, shoegaze, new wave, & noise.

In a lot of the coverage regarding yourselves, there have been a lot of references to Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, and Tears For Fears. Would you consider these influences? I get the impression that your musical influences, like those bands themselves, go much further afield. That more on the money?

AG: The three bands you mentioned are certainly admired amongst the individual band members in the group. We’re flattered by the comparisons, and we can see why people make them. We like to layer vocals much like Arcade Fire, we love dense arrangements à la Broken Social scene, and we’re certainly reaching for those catchy hooks like Tears For Fears. But, you’re right. Our influences are broader than that. Bevin & I live together, and we listen to all sorts of things: The Misfits, Terry Riley, Orange Juice, Italian erotica film score compilations like Beat at Cinecittá…  we could go on. Like any music fans, we have voracious appetites for a variety of styles &  artists.

Even artists we don’t particularly enjoy influence us by helping us steer away from sounds & approaches we don’t want in our music. But, in terms of writing, it’s not as if we sit around saying, “OK, guys, let’s write a song that sounds like The Knife meets My Bloody Valentine.” I don’t think any of us would even know how to go about doing that.

BF: Influence is a hard thing to pinpoint, right? I could go on and on about all the different music that I find inspiring and moving.  Mostly, I feel like the greatest influence other musicians have over me is that of authenticity, and creating something that pushes boundaries in one way or another.  From Daniel Johnston to Kate Bush to Guided By Voices, my favorite artists create something so authentically ‘them’, and I admire how they ignore the status quo.  

Another thing that gets mentioned in regards to yourselves is that NRVS LVRS initially began life as musical experimentation, but sort of evolved beyond that into what has become NRVS LVRS. What was the initial intention in regards to the making of music, and what triggered it to become what it is today?

AG: The original intention was to just release a few songs that we had that didn’t fit into our other musical projects, which were more guitar-driven acts.  Most were written on a collection of circuit bent instruments & old toy keyboards as sonic collages over the course of a few years. Bevin & I felt they were good enough & cohesive enough to release as a side project, so we enlisted some friends & family to play on the songs to take them to a different place. Then, Wendy showed us City Lights, and we had to work on that, too. As we were finalizing the tracks at Different Fur Studios, it became apparent that we were going to have to hang onto this special team of musicians & perform the music live

Your lyrical themes don’t shy away from big topics, particularly relating to your home of San Francisco, the technology boom, the economic fallout, and the effects of these on arts and culture. Are these things that have always driven you ideologically, and was it only natural to come out in your lyrics, or is it you more consciously using this platform to bring these topics to people’s attention?

AG: Most of the band lives in the same Upper Haight neighborhood of San Francisco, so we get a front row seat to the rapidly changing landscape & values. This colors more daily interactions than you’d think, and there’s always something new to churn our stomachs. For example, there was a really bad fire at a building on Mission St. & 22nd a couple days ago, & reports came out that while  a boy & his dog were trapped on a fire escape, people below were taking videos & Snapchatting pics. This is an ugly look, but it’s also part of the madness of crowds. Luckily, he survived after jumping with the help of one good soul, but naturally, the next day opportunistic buyers were crawling around the burned out building hoping to score a good deal, and that is just so New San Francisco, or as our producer Patrick Brown has quipped: It’s “Sad Francisco”.

This isn’t unique to this city, and with these kinds of displays of selfishness and greed on display 24/7, how can it not make us angry? These issues are on our minds, so they leaked into the music. Once we recognized that, we decided to embrace it. If someone becomes more aware of these issues from one of our songs, then that’s a fantastic byproduct. But, we weren’t sure if anyone would ever hear these songs, so the intent behind them was creative expression, first & foremost. How the songs are received is out of our hands, and we don’t have an agenda or anything.

You of course recently released ‘City Lights’, the first single and taster of your album, Golden West. How has the reaction been so far? Are you eager to get the album out into the world now?

AG: We thought the song was special, but the reaction thus far was not expected at all. We’re getting nice feedback from the one single we’ve released, and this is really making us excited to get the album out there.  Having complete strangers connect to our music is humbling & reinforces the unique ability of music to transcend geography & language.

Aside from the album release, is there any other exciting news for NRVS LVRS on the horizon? Tours? Festivals?

AG: We have had a lot of support & enthusiasm from different directors, so it appears we’re going to have videos for 5 out of our 7 songs from  the album, starting with one for ‘City Lights’. I might even throw together some found footage for the other two songs just so people have interesting visuals to pair with the entire record if they want that. We are planning to tour in the US in  spring & summer, and we’ll be in LA quite a bit, starting March 20th.

Are there any other bands up and coming from San Francisco, or who you’ve got to know from elsewhere that you’d recommend we give a listen?

AG: There’s some great acts here in SF: Life Stinks, The Younger Lovers, CCR Headcleaner, Sporting Life, The Postmen, Swiftumz, Somehow At Sea, The Spyrals, and that’s just off the top of my head.

Lastly, and most importantly, we here at Cultured Vultures have our very own cultured vulture called Voltaire. If you knew a vulture of especial culture, what would you call it?

AG: Cormac, a brilliant, reclusive vulture with a straight-forward speaking style, an appreciation for violent nihilists, & a dark, pessimistic view of America.