Talk about a power couple! Meet Fab The Duo! This interracial power couple based in LA serves Rock music with a side of Philanthropy. Their spunky yet glamorous aesthetic is worthy of admiration this Valentine’s Day! Both Greg Driscoll and Brendan Eprile are outspoken body positivity, LGBTQ+, and gender expression advocates, and they make that prominent in their musical abilities and fundraising work. Fab The Duo recently released a song called “Weird Year” with artist Lucy and La Mer, which accurately depicts the mood of 2021. “Weird Year” is a flawless send-off for 2021, and we are here for it! Jejune is delighted to share this interview! If you are interested in Fab the Duo’s music, their support for LGBTQ+ organizations, or just sheer curiosity about how they can be so amazing, please continue reading below!

Where are you based?
We’re based in LA!

When did you first discover your musical talents? Was music something always in the cards?
We’ve both been doing music from a young age. Greg was an all-star tuba player and Brendan was in choir and in rock bands in high school.

What made you two decide to team up, both romantically and musically?
So we met on Tinder and instantly hit it off! We were dating for a year when we decided to do a cabaret together for fun. Things just took off from there, and we’ve been in a band together the past three years!

Is alt-rock your favorite genre? What other sounds do you experiment with?
Definitely love alt-rock! So hard to say if it’s our favorite genre though. We also play around with pop-punk, indie, and commercial pop sounds.

Your music screams unapologetic authenticity; how does your relationship or identity impact your music? What are you trying to convey?
Our whole message is “Be You, Be Proud, and Be Loud.” We just want everyone listening to have permission to be their fabulous selves. We wished we saw more queer role models in the alt music world when we were growing up.

Your EP “Toxic Air & Attitudes” is deemed revolutionary. What was the collaborative process, and how do you meld two creative brains to make such a perfect sound?
We come from very different musical backgrounds so we each bring something unique when it comes to collaborating. This last EP was really excited because it was truly a collaboration, and we wrote everything together. We wish we had a magic formula for writing songs, but unfortunately it’s trial by error, and sometimes something amazing comes from it and sometimes we get nothing.

Can you tell us a little bit about the song “Somewhere in Delaware”? What inspired this song?
The song was actually inspired by a trip we had to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware over the summer of 2020. We both had such wildly different experiences on that trip and the duality of the song was inspired by that (as well as hearing the huge change in Billie Eillish’s hit “Happier Than Ever”, which we’re obsessed with.)

You sent off the year with a bang with your collaboration with queer indie songwriter Lucy & La Mer called “Weird Year,” can you tell us a bit of what the song is about?
We can all agree that 2021 was a strange year and the 2020s so far has not been what anyone has hoped for. That being said, having people in our lives that we love and care for makes everything worth it. We’ve loved Lucy’s music and activism for a long time, so when she reached out to us and asked us to be on the song, it was a no-brainer!

You both are genuinely icons! How has the music industry changed throughout the years? Do you find it more open and accepting of what you have to offer?
We definitely think overall the music community is a lot more accepting than it used to be. On the ground level, when it comes to fans and an audience’s relationship with an artist, we find people to be very open and supportive. However, the music industry at the top still has a long way to go to make being an artist accessible for everyone, and if they only are focused on what will “sell” at the time, there will never be the representation we need.

What was it like headlining Pride Festivals and being featured on Billboard and Huffington Post? Did you feel like the grind has truly paid off?
Those were definitely huge rewarding moments. Especially when we were asked to be the headliners for a festival, we were like, “who, us?!” There’s so many highs and lows in this industry and it never really feels like the grind stops, but we’re definitely grateful for what we’ve been able to accomplish.

How has your last year been weird? Any humorous tales to tell?
Well, we started the year off packing everything up and moving out to LA in our little Kia with our dog, and starting a whole new life. 2021 as a whole, with the vaccine breakthroughs but on-and-off case surges and restrictions generally just felt weird. At the beginning of the pandemic, we thought there would be a point in time where everyone gets a vaccine and things are back to “normal”. As we’ve found, that hasn’t been the case, and we’re still trying to navigate this time in the safest way possible to while striving for our dreams and playing the shows we want to do.

How have you been affected by the pandemic specifically? Have things come back to normal? How do you cope?
Love music is everything to us, so the pandemic hit us really hard. The free time gave us some spurts of creativity, but most of the time we were just really bored (which inspired our song “ISFB”). The pandemic definitely forced us to take a step back and re-evaluate what we want to do. And while things aren’t fully “normal”, we finally feel like we can tour, perform, and do what we love.

Advocacy is a medium that is much needed in present times! Especially with social media, change can occur with just the right amount of people. Please share some LGBTQ+ organizations you want our readers to know about. When were you introduced, and what is their mission?
There’s so many LGBTQ+ organizations doing incredibly important work, both on a local and National basis. We love the GLAAD foundation, especially as it advocates and highlights the LGBT community in the media. We’ve actually been featured on GLAAD’s blog and hope to one day to attend the GLAAD awards, where LGBT artists are recognized for sharing their stories and raising awareness for the community. The Trevor Project is another super important organization specifically focusing on suicide prevention and mental health resources for LGBT youth. Having grown up LGBT and gone through mental health issues, we know how important an organization like The Trevor Project is. We also think it’s important to get involved with local Pride foundations; when we lived in Brooklyn we were heavily involved with Brooklyn’s local Pride chapter and attended multiple community events.

Where do you see your music career in the next couple of years?
We hope that in the next year or two we can make a sustainable career from just our music. In the long term, we want to be everywhere. We are making history as the first gay couple to break into mainstream music and we know our message will resonate with many.

What is hope you have for humanity? How can we make those improvements?
We hope humanity will stop being less greedy and look at the greater good. Too many times the needs of an elite few are prioritized over the needs of the many. Corporate greed and an insatiable hunger for profits are what’s driving the climate crisis, economic inequality, and our healthcare crisis in this country. We even see this on a music level, with the CEO of Spotify being worth over 2 billion dollars, but paying out artists pennies for streams. We’re ready for a world that benefits everyone, not just the rich and powerful.

What is your life motto?
As long as you’re not hurting yourself and others, just be you and be proud. We try to live our lives as authentically as possible, and think a lot of people would be way happier if they did the same and stopped trying to “fit in”.

Lucy & La Mer is very involved in LGBTQ+ activism and has supported organizations like Locks Of Love and The LA LGBT Center. Do you plan to partner with any of these non-profits in the future?
We’d love to! Having moved to LA fairly recently, we’re still getting acquainted with the LGBT community in Los Angeles. However, we’ve been lucky enough to partner with some great organizations, like DTLA Proud, where we got to perform at their official Pride festival. They did a wonderful job highlighting LGBT vendors from a variety of local businesses and they partnered with some incredible organizations like AIDS Healthcare Foundation, LA Care, and Park Proud LA.

To learn more about Fab The Duo, please follow them via the links below:
www.fabtheduo.com
Spotify: Fab The Duo
Instagram: @fabtheduo

Photography by Justin Santos.

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