Photo by Isabella Le
Although the coastal culture of La Jolla is far from the familiar urban atmosphere of New York City and London, Pretty Sick lead vocalist and bassist Sabrina Fuentes understands that the shared passion for music and its communities is borderless.
Ahead of their co-headlining performance at KSDT Radio’s annual Spring Concert, I had the opportunity to sit down with Pretty Sick members Sabrina Fuentes and drummer Eva Kaufman to explore what music represents for the band beyond just songs and performing. Whether it be community building, visual storytelling, or engaging with other creative outlets, these different dimensions of musicianship are imperative to shaping the artistry and drive behind Pretty Sick.
KSDT: First and foremost, welcome to San Diego and UCSD! Have you guys been around the area before?
Sabrina: No, this is our first time in San Diego ever!
KSDT: Wow, that's crazy! What are some of the places you've been around and explored?
Sabrina: I was in La Jolla for the past three days. I love it here. I saw the sea lions, I watched people surfing. They were really good at it! I had tacos at The Taco Stand. They were really good. I got coffee from Blue Whale.
KSDT: Yes, all the local spots!
Sabrina: I went to a pilates class that was too hard for me. It was only old women, and I was the only person who couldn't do any of the stuff that they were doing. They were all in their 70s and jacked, it was amazing.
KSDT: That's so La Jolla.
Sabrina: I had a lot of fun! I’m like, should I move here?
KSDT: That’s awesome, I’m glad you’ve been enjoying it. Although speaking of moving, I know you've moved around a bit in the past. You also just had a few shows around California, but you’re from New York and also lived in London. How do you think those cities continue to inspire you, even when you're not necessarily always there? And how do you think being based in all those different music hubs helped to shape your style and sound?
Sabrina: I think that growing up in New York, you're around so many different kinds of music and so many people playing music. In my community that I was in, I was one of the younger musicians of my friends, and they were all super encouraging, and all from different backgrounds, like jazz, rap, and electronic. I have friends who were DJs, and they showed me how to book my own shows and negotiate with people who want you to perform for their parties. Everybody really took care of me and gave me good advice. And then, when I moved to London, I was around so many different kinds of music. So much more rock than when I was growing up, so much more electronic. And everybody I was friends with there has gone on to do cool, impressive stuff, and I think they are just constantly raising the bar for where they can take their creativity and bend genres. And I'm still close with everybody from both cities. I've had a bunch of friends from London coming to visit us this month, and I see all of the people I grew up playing music with around the neighborhood, constantly. Those communities are such a big part of my life, and they're always influencing what we do.
KSDT: Maybe La Jolla’s the next city, who knows!
Sabrina: That’s the next stop, the La Jolla community! We're gonna build it, we're tapping in.
KSDT: Yeah, we've got some cool things happening here.
Sabrina: Yes! We're excited to see the opener tonight. They sound really cool.
KSDT: For sure! Now, just looking back at your latest release Sreetwise, how do you think that EP shows your evolution as an artist from your first album, Deep Divine, and what has the creative journey looked like for those projects? How have they differed as you've grown and matured as a person and as a band?
Sabrina: I think being able to experiment and having the freedom to try new things is something that we're always going to exercise our right to do as artists, and being able to change on a whim and just say what's on your mind or what's been in your head is a really fun thing to do. Especially because you never know how people are gonna react, and it's such a pleasant surprise that it did resonate with people. I think when you're an artist and you put stuff out, you kind of have to do it for yourself all the time, and you can't worry too much about what the outcome is going to be, or the reception is going to be. But for an EP that was so different from what we normally do, it's been really cool to see that our fan base resonates with it, and that those worlds can coexist as completely different genres. I think that our voice, the message, and the stories we tell carry through all these different sonic worlds. It's really fun to play sets with a lot of different vibes, and it's a fun challenge to figure out how to bridge these things sonically on stage.
KSDT: I think doing so also opens up your songs to different types of listeners. I discovered your music through Streetwise, actually, because “Headliner” was suggested to me. So it's great for the artists and also the listeners.
Sabrina: I’m so happy to hear! It's stuff that you wouldn't expect to be the outcome. As an artist, you worry that changing what you do would maybe alienate your listeners, but then you get pleasantly surprised by stories like that, and hearing firsthand from people who hear about it is really cool.
KSDT: And then continuing on the topic of Streetwise, a big part of what I saw in that EP and your artistry in general is visual storytelling. How important is it for you to have those visuals that are representative of not only you, but also the songs you create?
Sabrina: It's super important. I think with all of our visuals, we go into it wanting to have as much fun as possible. I have so many friends who are visual artists, I'd say a vast majority of my close friends, besides Ben and Eva and everybody else who's played in Pretty Sick, are all visual artists. And then I have my wider friend circle of musicians, but being able to collaborate with people I consider family is such a special thing and so much fun, and it's cool that our friends help us tell these stories about these songs and build out these worlds. It's also just fun from a production side! Being in New York, running around with a camera with your friends all day, or on a set and taking pictures, it's such a fun level to music. Music is so four-dimensional. As a lifestyle that's such a big part of what we do, but so is writing, and so is recording – which feels completely different to writing to me – and so does performing, which is its own ballgame. So it just feels like these are all kinds of different facets of the same job and life purpose I've chosen, and they're all equally as important. Different limbs of the same body. And it's super fun, we love doing it.
KSDT: It’s great to hear artists considering that visual element. World building and storytelling extend beyond the music and songs, and that appreciation shows to listeners and fans. But also on the topic of visuals, I know fashion is another big area of your work because you have your own fashion brand! Straying a bit away from music, what inspired you to take on this clothing side, along with music? Have you always been interested in both industries, or did one come first?
Sabrina: I've worked in both fashion and music, kind of my whole life. As long as we've been in the band, I also was interning at a bunch of different places on the side, and getting experience in fashion stuff, just because it was a good way to get out of the house as a kid. I hated school when I was younger, and I wanted to be around adults and get life experience. We were playing gigs already, and in any free time when we weren't practicing or gigging, I was working in fashion. Then I modeled when I was in high school and a little older, and then I was designing all our merch for every tour. But it became something I would do for fun at home, like on the computer while I'm watching a movie, I’d be designing t-shirt graphics. And then I had so many more graphics than we had tours, so I wished we were releasing merch more often than when we were traveling. That's kind of how it started, and it's really fun. It's just another limb on the body of what we do. A monster! A horrifying monster! But that's our life!
KSDT: Yeah, and it's turning out great. Do you think it's also cool to have a different creative outlet outside of music, like another separate limb on that body? One you can use to detach and say, “I need a break!”
Sabrina: Yeah, absolutely. Videos and photos when we're doing press, doing creative stuff privately that I don't even release – like writing in a journal, doing collages, or drawing in my house – and doing the brand and all these different things, make it a lot easier to be a full-time musician. I think that if I didn't do anything but music, I would hit so much writer's block and get so much burnout from performing. I need to use the other parts of my brain, otherwise, the music part would atrophy. I'm glad that we get to do all of it. We're really lucky and blessed.
KSDT: And you've mentioned previously that you enjoy playing live and how it brings people together. Here at the radio station, we also value community and the shared love of music. What is it about live shows that connects people? As the artist performing on stage, how inspiring is it to look out and see a crowd and a community come together over this shared appreciation of your own music and creations?
Sabrina: I think it's so important with every demographic. But for me, it's most exciting when the crowds are young, because I feel like when you're a tween or a teen and you don't get to have much autonomy over your life – you have to go to school, you have to go home – you have these things that are expected of you and pressures and experiences you're going through that everybody else is going through but you feel alone in. For me, going to shows and meeting other people, or bringing my friends to shows and showing them that there's a world out there that's worth being interested in, was what stopped me from being super depressed and apathetic when I was a kid. So when we do shows that are for young crowds, it's my favorite because I love being able to see people talking in the crowd and meeting each other, exchanging numbers, making friends for the first time, and having these new experiences. It's so important. And these days it's so easy to stay inside and be on your phone or the internet or something, or even watching TV all the time, so it's really cool to see the younger crowds come out of their shells so much. Also, every time we come back to cities, seeing the same faces growing up, how the crowds get more confident and even moshing, bringing back merch from the last shows, all of that's so cool and exciting. And we love that.
Eva: I like that it's an event for them. They get dressed up, and they're in the comments saying, “I'm so excited to see you in two months!” It's a cute little community thing. They bring their friends, and have the merch, it's just cute. I remember growing up and going to shows thinking, “nobody else likes this band other than me,” and I go, and there are hundreds of people that like this band. It's just a cool, “oh, I'm not alone in liking this!” It's not weird, but you think it's weird, and then you go, and everyone loves it. It's cool to be up there, and you're making that experience for them.
KSDT: And you guys did that today! You brought all these people out.
Sabrina: La Jollaaaa!!! Let’s go! La Jolla is up next, we're moving to La Jolla!
Eva: Residencyyy!!!
KSDT: To close, it's been about a year since you released Streetwise, so what's next for you? What direction do you think you're looking to explore in the future?
Sabrina: We're exploring lots of different stuff. We're kind of trying to have as much fun with it as we can. For me, I want to bend genres and mix a bunch of different stuff and experiment more. Be even less straightforward.
Eva: We've just been writing non-stop in the studio, which is fun because you can really fuck around with whatever. We'll write something, and then we'll edit it down and try to make it sound like a cohesive thing, but I don't know it's really fun. It's less straightforward,
Sabrina: A lot less straightforward than what we've done before
Eva: It sounds like a good blend of the two.
Sabrina: We're still writing. We'll see how it turns out.
KSDT: I'm sure it'll be great! But for now, that is all from me. Thank you for letting me chat with you all!
Sabrina: Awesome, thank you so much for having us!