Fencer, the Los Angeles-based rock trio, who have just released their latest single “Sanitarium”. You may recognize Field Cate (lead vocals) as Young Ned from the well-loved series Pushing Daisies, or even as the voice of Buddha from the infamous Air Bud films. Since then, he’s moved on from his child acting career to focus entirely on music and other adventures.
The Vinyl: To those who may not be familiar with you, mind introducing yourself and sharing a fun fact no one may know about you?
Field Cate: Hey! My name’s Field Cate. I’m the lead singer and guitarist of Fencer. We’re an LA based rock trio. Hmmm fun fact, I only have one and a half lungs!
TV: Your band, Fencer, just released a new single, Sanitarium, what is /is there a particular message behind that song?
FC: Definitely. It’s a song about feeling incredibly lost, lonely, depressed, and searching for something to fill these voids. Ultimately doing so by throwing all of yourself into a relationship with another person. And how that’s not a particularly healthy decision, making somebody else your everything. It’s about how that can fix a lot of these feelings in the short term. The song and upbeat and positive outlook on something that ultimately is negative. But how it feels good to make that decision in the moment even though it will eventually tear you down when it ends.
TV: So from what I’ve read, this song was written during the height of the pandemic, how has the pandemic effect you all as a band? Did that shut down period give you all either inspiration or time to reflect?
FC: It was tough, as I’m sure it was for everyone. It was hard for us to stay motivated and active throughout the lockdown. We luckily have a studio that allowed us to consistently get together and try to continue writing, playing, recording, etc. We learned how to self produce ourselves during 2020 and that was when we recorded Sanitarium, Sleepcount, Buena, Fishfriend, and all the other new music we have coming soon. Made us a lot stronger as a band.
TV: When in the creative process, what usually comes first the lyrics or the music? What does the normal creative process look for you all as a band?
FC: Almost always the music comes first. Music inspires the lyrics for me. I’ll write a lot of vocal melodies without lyrics. The vibe of those melodies help me figure out the lyrics and what I feel the song is supposed to be about. Usually Cameron or I will bring in some kind of riff or progression and we’ll flesh it out together between the 3 of us at our studio. We do it all live, just plug in and set up in a circle. We’ll try different things and then just yell ideas out at each other and see what works, haha.
TV: On this single you got to work with Henry Lunetta and Zach Fisher, they both have worked with so many different notable artists, what was it like working with them?
FC: We’ve been doing all our new releases with them. They’re super talented guys and really understand exactly what makes us us. And since we’ve been producing ourselves, they’ve really been able to help us pull our vision out of what we’ve been giving them to work with. It’s been a great little team.
TV: What/who inspires you when you’re in the writing process of creating your music? What are some ways to get your creative juices flowing when trying to write a song?
FC: It’s weird. Sometimes I’ll have weeks, even months, where I’m feeling unbelievably creative and just constantly coming up with new ideas. Then sometimes I feel incredible unmotivated. I try to push myself through that and force myself to write. That often works and when it does it creates a totally unique vibe, but I’m not always able to do that. Some songs we’re working on for months, some are done in 10 minutes. Hard to pinpoint why exactly. We also really like unique song titles and sometimes certain strange words or word combinations will inspire a song.
TV: You’ve gotten to open up for some notable acts like Badflower, The Wrecks & Dead Poet Society, what was a memorable moment for you all getting to perform and see the reactions from fans?
FC: We played in Grand Rapids during 2019 and it was one of the biggest shows we’ve ever played. It was our last date on our tour with Badflower so there ended up being a bunch of end of tour pranks. I think they started coming out and disassembling our drum kit during our set and we ran up with a banner in our underwear and crowdsurfed during their set. Pretty fun stuff.
TV: If there could be anyone in the music industry you could work with who would you pick and why?
FC: There’s always some producer out there that seems like they’d be fun to work with, get some new kind of sound out of us. But honestly anybody who is able to get excited about what we’re doing and who feels as though they can contribute to our vision is enough for us. Right now we’d just like to get into Zach Fisher’s studio (Big Bad Sound LA) and have him produce some stuff for us!
TV: Now I’m sure you get asked this a lot but before breaking into the music scene you were an actor, what made you decide music was the path you wanted to pursue?
FC: I was a child actor for over a decade. I started when I was 6. I loved acting but when I was in high school I just started to get a bit burnt out. I had gone on something crazy like over 800 auditions. I was so young and obviously as you age your interests change and you start to learn yourself a bit more. Music was always something I was super into and I’ve been singing/writing songs my whole life. Way before I started to learn an actual instrument. I guess I just did what all burnt out child actors in LA do. Became a musician and started a band. It was the right move.
TV: As we conclude this interview, anything you would like to say to the fans/followers?
FC: Just wanna thank everybody for the overwhelmingly positive response to Sanitarium. We were so excited to get it out in the world and it’s been great now that it is. We’ve got a lot more coming very soon, so stay tuned for more music on the horizon! And thanks to The Vinyl for having me 🙂