The Dish: Fake Dad
The indie pop duo on their romantic and creative partnership, fun little drinks, and the Mark Zuckerberg of the music industry
This is The Dish, a Q&A segment with some of our favorite indie music artists. Hungry for more? Support the newsletter by becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Over the summer, Fake Dad posted a tiktok of lead vocalist Andrea de Varona standing in front of those meme-worthy pink and black houses in Santa Monica. Over the pink house, she points to the words “the music,” and over the black house, “the lyrics.” The tiktok was meant to promote their single “How Do I Cry?” but it acts as a great visual for the evolution of Fake Dad’s sound as a whole: upbeat music and bright production alongside darker, often melancholy lyrics.
Fake Dad is Andrea de Varona and Josh Ford. Their unique brand of indie pop is adjacent to sad boi music that makes you want to dance. Since the release of their first song, “Indigo,” in 2019, they’ve been putting out a steady stream of cool, groovy singles that showcase their versatility as artists and producers. They’ve released one EP, 2021’s Old Baby, a banger of a mini-record that includes the track “Breakfast in New York,” which has one of my favorite music videos of all time (if you’ve ever wanted to see someone using egg yolks as nipple pasties, now’s your chance!). Their latest single, “New Machines,” came out last week. Read our review of the track here.
Below, we get the dish on how Andrea and Josh balance being romantic and creative partners, the time Josh genuinely thought he was part of the cast of Stranger Things, who they dub “the Mark Zuckerberg of the music industry,” and so much more. We hope you enjoy!
Bread and Butter: You’ve described your single “Painkiller” as a song that speaks to the core of what Fake Dad is all about. Can you say more about that? What went into making this track?
Andrea and Josh: “Painkiller” is ultimately about wanting to believe you’ll make it through, wishing you could tell yourself with confidence that you’re strong enough, but admitting that you’re honestly not sure that you are. That dichotomy has been present in a lot of our music from the beginning – we write songs that we wish we could hear, with messages that we wish someone would tell us. Messages we needed growing up, like “you’re not alone” and “you’re okay how you are” and “bad feelings die a natural death.” The majority of our songs sound sad if you listen to the lyrics, but they have a happy, hopeful outer shell, because there can be something comforting about a sad feeling when you know you’re sharing it with someone else. A big part of the human experience, at least through our eyes, is never feeling like you’re fully where you want to be, but working every day to get a little further along, and trying to find the moments of joy and satisfaction within that.
“There can be something comforting about a sad feeling when you know you’re sharing it with someone else.”
B&B: Some readers might not know that you Fake Dads are in real love! Tell us your origin story as romantic and creative partners — which came first? Does one ever complicate the other?
A&J: We met as undergrads at NYU! We share a mutual friend (who Josh knows from high school and Andrea knew since freshman year) who invited Josh to Andrea’s apartment-warming party in the east village. We both really liked each other right away, and we started seeing each other all the time — sharing music recs with each other was like a love language. Both of us had been making music separately when we met, and even though neither of us really liked collaborating with other people, working together just felt natural.
We weren’t together more than like, 5 months before we started collaborating all the time. One of us would show a work in progress to the other, and there was just so much sonic common ground in what we liked and what we wanted. Still, our tastes were different enough that we definitely made each other’s respective sounds cooler and fuller. Working together and being in a relationship can be complicated sometimes, but I think it causes both of us to respect the other more deeply in each of those spaces! It’s taught us both how important it is to listen to and validate one another’s feelings and ideas, whether that’s as collaborators or life partners.
B&B: Everybody enjoys a fun little drink. What’s your favorite fun little drink?
Josh: Topo Chico. There are so many sparkling waters, but nothing compares. The little glass bottle, the subtle flavors, the effervescent, bubbly mouthfeel — Topo Chico is undefeated. I am personally sponsored by Topo Chico.
Andrea: Oh man, this is a tough one because I LOVE me a fun little drink. Like honestly this is my life, so it’s very hard to choose just one, so I’m going to have to give you my current faves:
Iced Oat Pumpkin Latte from Blank Street Coffee
Vanilla Oat Draft Latte from La Colombe — honestly a good iced vanilla oat latte from anywhere will do though. I have that shit almost every day, it can’t be good for my health and it’s certainly not good for my bank account
Limoncello La Croix and Limoncello La Croix ONLY. It is the best and the only La Croix flavor as far as I’m concerned. There is something so creamy and just unreal about it, I seriously don’t know how they do it. Must be witchcraft or something
Hot lemon ginger honey tea (my go-to before shows or any time I’m gonna record vocals)
B&B: F/M/K: Let Go by Avril Lavigne; Metamorphosis by Hilary Duff; Christina Aguilera by Christina Aguilera
A&J: We’re going to have to say:
Fuck - Metamorphosis by Hilary Duff
Marry - Let Go by Avril Lavigne
Kill - Christina Aguilera by Christina Aguilera
“Sharing music recs with each other was like a love language.”
B&B: Something that made you laugh recently:
Andrea: Was just thinking about the time that Josh was simultaneously sleeptalking and walking (he sleeptalks exactly how he talks when he’s awake) and was fully convinced that he was with the Stranger Things cast and had to “meet Dustin to go to an alternate reality.” Those were quite literally his words. And then he proceeded to try to go outside in his pajamas and I had to stop him. I couldn’t let it go for like two hours after it happened.
Josh: Also, our tiny black cat Eillie. She makes us laugh really hard like every day, she’s our best bud.
B&B: What do you admire the most about each other, as musicians or in general?
Josh: What I admire most about Andrea is how unique her voice is. Like, as in her literal voice, but also her creative voice. I always think of everything I do as in the context of something another musician has done first, but Andrea pulls things from this truly one-of-a-kind creative place inside her that depends on nothing, and is in the context of nothing but her own artistic instinct — and she does it effortlessly. Sometimes I’ll bring her the beginnings of an idea, and she will take it in a direction I could never have imagined in a million years. But it’s so obvious to her, as if there was no other way for that song to be. It’s really amazing to watch.
Andrea: What I admire the most about Josh is honestly the way his mind works as a whole — it’s so QUICK and his ideas are so vast. The things he comes up with as a musician and producer (and just in like everyday interactions) never cease to amaze me. A day with Josh is never dull, he truly has a one-of-a-kind approach to nearly everything he does, but especially the way he produces and arranges a track. For instance, I’ll have the seed of an idea for a song, like a bassline/chord progression or beat I made on Logic, and I’ll play it and sing a topline over it and Josh will be like “I LOVE that!! I hear exactly what you are going for. Like I can hear the whole song you hear.” And I’m always like really?! well what do you hear? And he’ll describe it to me and it’s usually pretty darn close to exactly what I was going for, and then he’ll add everything he just described to the track in a matter of like 30 minutes, and then we end up having a full song.
“Andrea pulls things from this truly one-of-a-kind creative place inside her that depends on nothing, and is in the context of nothing but her own artistic instinct”
B&B: What do you do when you’re feeling stuck creatively?
Andrea: I try to take a little space from whatever it is I’m working on at that very moment and not be too hard on myself about it, which can definitely be hard to do sometimes. But most of the time when something is too close or I’ve spent just a little too much time with it, all it really takes is a bit of a reset, whether that be going for a walk or run, playing with Ellie, or maybe going to a yoga class.
Sometimes it also helps to work on something else creative or exercise a different part of the brain that still relates to what I’m doing. For example, if I’m working on a particular track that’s already been in progress for a bit sometimes I’ll just free-write or journal, just stream-of-conscious/whatever thoughts come to me, for like 20 min or so. Making a fresh cup of coffee or reading a book also helps — highly recommend Witches of Peculiar by Luna Graves :)
Josh: I Ask Andrea!
B&B: What part of New York is the most New-Yorky to you? What part makes you stop and go ~ahh, NEw York CiTy~
Josh: Honestly, It’s still Washington Square Park. I know that’s a criminally basic answer, but the NYU dorms were the first place I felt like I was truly set free in New York. Every time I go there now and see all the chaos and performative weirdness, it reminds me of that feeling.
Andrea: I second Washington Square Park, but I also want to add the East Village and the Lower East Side as a whole. There is just so much cultural history there, it was one of the very first neighborhoods in Manhattan ever, and it has been through so much change over the decades. Y’know, it wasn’t always the safest but it was the hub of all the great music and art of the 60s and 70s (and even after that), and throughout the 2000s it became this more mainstream, gentrified place. But honestly, very recently (post pandemic) it feels like there are parts of it that are kind of going back to that artistic bedrock, counter-culture-y type of place, which is so fascinating to me. There’s just something about it that feels deeply nostalgic yet very exciting and fresh.
Also, the very first place I lived off campus (which was also the same apartment Josh and I first met and later lived in together) was on St. Marks and Avenue A. That area specifically will always represent growing up and transitioning into young adulthood. I had just turned 20 and it was literally the first time I wasn’t a teen living in a dorm.
B&B: A hill you will die on:
A&J: Hot Take, but Taylor Swift is the Mark Zuckerberg of the Music Industry. She has definitely made a HUGE cultural impact in her time, but now she’s this overexposed, out-of-touch capitalist, obsessed with endless growth and consumption (did we all forget the private jet controversy?). Just like all those crazy Silicon Valley dudes, she operates like she’s still the underdog, even though she’s one of the most powerful musicians in the world. The worst part is, we actually love a lot of her music! But her impact on the music world right now is a little frustrating.
TO BE CLEAR: This is anti-Taylor Swift as a brand, not anti-Taylor Swift as a musician. Please don’t come for us on her behalf — would you do the same for Elon Musk?
B&B: What is something you made that you’re really proud of (music or otherwise)?
A&J: Lately, we’ve scored a handful of indie films for people we know, and it’s been a really enjoyable and rewarding process for us from start to finish. It’s a very different muscle to flex and it’s forced us to think a lot about the emotional arc of the music we make. It feels like a bit of a break from the everpresent pressure of maintaining an “artist image”, which of course is our favorite thing to do, but it can be nice to still get to express ourselves and create kind of separate from that. It almost feels like taking a hot bath for like the first time in months, you still love and use your shower every day but sometimes it’s nice to just sit and take a moment to experience something that feels different.