Interview Faux Real: “There are some shows where we’ve felt a hostile reaction and it’s exciting, it really is”
Straddling the line between serious and surreal, brothers Elliott and Virgile Arndt are creating a new strain of performance-art-pop-rock in their own mirror image.
What exactly is Faux Real? Live, it’s a spectacle - an all-singing, all-dancing party of synchronised choreography and in-your-face audience interaction. On this month’s debut album ‘Faux Ever’, it’s a sparkling trip through ‘80s synths via hyperpop, Eurodance and the sort of effects you might find soundtracking a particularly tense game of Mario Kart. Conceptually, it’s a reaction to both the traditional alt-rock scene and the industry game as a whole. What Faux Real isn’t, according to brothers Elliott and Virgile Arndt however, is a band. “We jokingly call it a ‘band’ with the air quotation marks,” Virgile chuckles as Elliott nods: “We just use the term ‘duo’ because it means nothing apart from the fact there’s two of us, which is a mathematical certainty.”
The Los Angeles-based brothers have been building their own insular world since they were kids. Prone to playing make believe and inventing their own fun, Virgile recalls a friend recently distilling their childhood vibe as not-too-dissimilar from their status as music-making adults. “I asked them what our reputation was as brothers in school and she was like, ‘You guys were just the weird kids who were off to the side doing weird shit that nobody really understood’,” he notes.
“Over the years we’ve evolved to be versions of ourselves that, personally, I feel are more true than we were even before the project.” — Elliott Arndt
These days, the pair’s particular niche of ‘weird shit’ is polarising audiences in all the right ways. Having both played in more traditional indie outfits, their coming together as Faux Real marked a commitment to doing things entirely differently. They would have no musicians on stage. They would dress purposefully as a symbiotic unit (today, the brothers are sporting matching wide-shouldered leather biker gilets). They would play with the “used car salesman persona” they felt was a byproduct of the “hustler mentality” new artists were forced to adopt to make themselves known. Some people loved it; some people were baffled; all of these responses were embraced.
“We’ve noticed the three stages of reactions at Faux Real shows. A lot of people are straight-up offended. Second stage it turns into curiosity and bewilderment, and then the third stage is people understanding that it’s serious but there is humour [involved too] and it’s meant to be high energy and fun,” suggests Elliott. “But there are some shows where we’ve felt a hostile reaction and it’s exciting, it really is,” says Virgile. His brother agrees: “Feeling confused and upset is also valid. I know I get a lot from those emotions. I like to watch shit films for that reason because creatively it’s important to know where you stand.”
On ‘Faux Ever’, the duo might be presenting a project that’s determinedly left-of-centre, that’s like filtering Confidence Man’s knowing kitsch through an uncanny John Waters lens, but it’s also, says Elliott, the most authentic they’ve ever been. “Over the years we’ve evolved to be versions of ourselves that, personally, I feel are more true than we were even before the project,” he explains. “I feel so much more ‘me’ now. I was searching and, in a way, it took this stance of being extravagant and doing exactly what I wanted to do to shed the layers I was putting on.”
Increasingly then, the Arndt siblings are prioritising the Real as much as the Faux - just in their own unique way. As Virgile notes, “A friend of ours, Kirin J Callinan, said something once that really stuck with us: ‘I’m not being serious, I’m not being funny, I’m being a secret third thing…’”
‘Faux Ever’ is out now via City Slang.
Faux Real are currently on tour in the UK with Los Bitchos - find out where they’re playing and get tickets here.
Records, etc at
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