Fun Van on Fire

Much is made about the fact that Fiver hails from Modesto. SF Weekly went as far as calling Modesto the proverbial "next Seattle." But while the town may certainly have had an effect on the band as people, Fiver's music isn't restricted to some regional sound; it's otherworldly. David Woody's androgynous voice weaves through the lush keyboard and fuzzed out guitars that fill Fiver's sound. The band's first two albums, Eventually Something Cool Will Happen and Strings For Satellites set a high mark to strive for and their latest, Here It Comes, manages to surpass it.
Recorded over the course of 2001 at Woody's home, with his roommate producing, Here It Comes finds Fiver further exploring the rich textures that made their first two albums worthy of repeated listens. While the first two albums were each recorded over a couple of weekends, recording at home gave the band the opportunity to take their time, which had both pros and cons as Woody says, "The only thing bad about it was maybe having too much time to do it and maybe not capturing the quickness of when a song first gets there. When we recorded our first couple of records we had to play the songs live so we would be ready to record them, so we wouldn't waste our time. This time we actually wrote them before we played them live. We sort of wrote them in the studio. I actually kind of liked that because in one way you have the recorded versions, which I like and I think they came out really well, and then when we play them live we sort of find little places where we can do stuff and we get more comfortable with it as we play more shows with the record."
Here it Comes was released on Devil in the Woods, a small label that has received much attention due to the high quality of the albums that they release, such as the first two Fiver records. The band has had an excellent relationship with the label, and the perks they receive seem to make it all worth it for Woody, "Mike, the label manager, he actually lives in Modesto and works at this bar and so our conferences that we have are usually over free drinks, so that's pretty sweet. You can't ask for anything more. He's been really cool as far as letting us grow and mature into our own thing, which probably wouldn't have happened if we were anywhere larger, like a big label. We haven't exactly been selling out arenas, so if we would have been on a big label who knows if they would have kept us for this long."
And though the label has helped them gain recognition across the country, Fiver hasn't blown up in their own hometown. "We still don't really play here ever, mainly because there's really no place to play," says Woody. "We play more around the country and in San Francisco than we do in our hometown. It's like being unknown in your own backyard, but people in Washington D.C. know who you are and come to your shows. It's really pretty strange."
Fiver manages to balance their day jobs with being in a band, and finding time to tour has become easier for the group over the years. "This time around all of our employers are really super cool with it and are actually being really supportive of it, which is nice," says Woody. "We've been going out now for a few years, so all the employers are kind of expecting it to come. They're like, 'Oh, when are you guys going out on tour again?'"
And the boys will be headed out in a new van this time around due to a minor incident on the way back from South By Southwest in Austin.
"We had a really good show and everything went really great and we were sort of reveling in that and taking a leisurely drive home on a Friday," says Woody. "We were playing car games to pass the time and the driver, Andrew, the bass player, was looking back and laughing and seeing what we were doing and then he looked out the back window and saw some smoke and he was like, 'Oh, that's weird. We must be smoking; that's strange.' So he pulled over to see what was wrong and we looked under the van and oil that was on fire was just dripping down from the engine and it started to catch the grass on fire. We tried to put it out with some fire extinguishers from some truckers, but it wouldn't go out and then it basically just blew up."
This gave them the opportunity to explore a side of Texas they didn't think they'd see when they departed Austin.
"It was really horrible at the time and we had to spend two nights in this super seedy motel in this town with like 30 people in it in the middle of Texas. It was super great 'cause everyone there, just for fun, has like CBs and they all listen to police scanners, so they all knew who we were. So we'd go into the gas station or the grocery store, which actually were the same place and then we went to this super good Mexican restaurant and everyone knew who we were. They were like, 'Oh, you guys are that band whose van blew up. Are you guys gonna play here while you're stranded?' We were just sitting in the town being semi-famous for a couple of days out in the middle of nowhere. It was great. Their main drag strip where they go cruising is like two blocks long. There was like five or six cars that were all pimped out and they'd drive two blocks and make a U-turn and drive two blocks and park in a parking lot and then go do it again. It was hilarious."

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