Artists Off Stage - Fatty Cakes and the Puff Pastries

by LEXI MCCOY

Amber of Fatty Cakes and the Puff Pastries is spending time at home building an abundant home garden, turning her house into a living art piece - and keeping up with an awesome band-collaborative live streaming schedule.

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Hello Queen Fatty Cakes!! If you had to pick a fictional character to describe your current mood, who would it be and why?

Hello Lexi! I love this question. I feel like Serena aka Usagi aka Sailor Moon is my forever mood. We both cry a lot, eat a lot, have feline companions, and live and fight for love. Whether that’s romantic love or platonic love for your best friends, it’s all about love!

Without being able play shows, we're asking artists how they've been spending their time during quarantine. What have you been doing to stay sane and busy?

Gardening and working on my house have been my two main stays. I made a lot of changes in my life right before this happened. I broke up with my long term partner, battled to keep my house (and won!), and quit my full time job, all to pour myself into the band. It was supposed to be a year of tours! So with everything being cancelled, openly this has been a really hard shift for me mentally. But before all this happened, I did a lot of candle work and visualization on keeping my house and turning it into a living art piece while growing an abundant garden. I’m trying to be grateful and accept this time as a gift I can use to take those visualizations to the fullest extent. My current focus right now of all my house is my bedroom so I can have a safe space for meditation and song writing. 

Photo by Anthony Bibian

I've been loving your live streams from all your different band mates! I think Vishinna's ASMR live stream was my favorite. Can you tell us a little about them and how your band mates got the ideas for them?

Thank you Lexi! I loved having you on the first Fatty Cakes and Friends stream, by the way. If I remember correctly (sorry Puffs if I’m wrong!), but I believe it was Audrey’s idea to start up a live stream schedule. Basically, we would put out a schedule for the week of different streams done by different band members on our Instagram live. Every single one has been unique, with ideas that we either collaborated on, created ourselves or pulled from pop culture! I love that it allowed space for other members to create their own art on the account as well. Seeing my friends shine has been a delight. On my end, however, I got a little stream burnt with performing solo streams at other places. I ended up missing the Puff Pastries and live shows even more than ever. So I’ve been taking breaks from streaming and social media. I’m back at it again with some streams on other accounts in the upcoming weeks, but hopefully we will get back to the scheduled streams on our account soon! Seriously, Vishinna needs an ASMR Only Fans account ASAP.

What have you been doing for self care during quarantine/any self care tips?

Being a body at rest has been a huge piece of work for me. I have severe anxiety, and I put a lot of that energy into creating. Plus, after working over 40 hours a week and performing in a band full time, I feel guilty when I’m not working. But I started to realize that speedily creating during this time was my form of running away from my problems. On top of the fact that being a body at work at all times is, I think, a capitalistic brain washing. So I’m trying to undo that thinking and be okay with being at rest. What validates a human’s existence? It’s not the job they have, or the place they live, or the art they make. It’s that they EXIST. So I’m trying to be present in that. 

What are a few songs (2-5) you've been currently listening to?

With the quarantine, I’ve been super nostalgic. I’m really drawn to music I listened to, or my grandma played, when I was a child. Folk and guitar heavy 70’s rock also seems to be tapping into my nostalgia right now.

Malvina Reynolds - “Love is Something (Magic Penny)”

Daniel Johnston - “Speeding Motorcycle”

Marvin Gaye - “What’s Going On”

The Kossoy Sisters - “In the Pines”

The Kinks - “This Time Tomorrow”

Destiny’s Child - “Survivor”

Television - “Venus”

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This interview is part of Artists Off Stage - a series of snapshot style interviews and photo-stories highlighting how musicians are spending their time during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

All interviews are done remotely as we continue to practice social distancing. For resources and information regarding COVID-19, click here.

Keep up with Fatty Cakes and the Puff Pastries + follow us on Instagram for more Artists Off Stage

Interview by Lexi McCoy