DeKALB — Chicago pop band Fairview is hitting DeKalb in just one stop of their country-wide tour as the opening act for Vinyl Theatre.
The show begins 8 p.m. May 2 at The House, 263 E. Lincoln Highway, and tickets can be purchased on the House website for $12.
The band draws influence from artists like Lady Antebellum, Taylor Swift and the Plain White T’s. Vocalist and keyboardist Lizzy Zyburt said she describes their sound as acoustic pop.
“We tend to really gravitate towards those more acoustic songs and we’ve always written songs like that, with really simple instrumentation,” Zyburt said. “The structure of our songs is very much pop. We have a lot of harmonies, and we kinda go for a pop, Lady Antebellum feel.”
Their latest single, “Our Little Secret,” acts as an enticing preview for their upcoming self-titled E.P. set to be released in May.
Vocalist and lead guitarist Matt Richardson and Zyburt have been playing music together since they were schoolmates in Addison.
“Lizzy and I grew up together,” Richardson said. “We went to grade school together actually, and we’ve been in bands just playing in people’s basements and jamming to stuff. We grew up together playing music, and then we started this band.”
The band has gone through several different iterations, but currently stands with Zyburt and Richardson joined by guitarist and violinist Becca Stott and guitarist Sean Rieke.
The connection the four share is palpable when sharing stories of the music they would play together as teenagers. Richardson said one of his biggest dreams is to revisit one of the venues he played when he was younger.
“When we were growing up, we played at this movie theatre in our town every weekend,” said Richardson. “Just in the lobby, playing acoustic sets [for] tips. My big goal would be to go back there and do a show there and sell out the entire theatre.”
The band already achieved a major goal they set for themselves years ago, as they said they were signed as one of the first bands to Plain White T’s frontman Tom Higgonson’s record label, Humans Were Here, in 2009. The band said they most remember a show they attended at the House of Blues in Chicago.
“We opened for the Plain White T’s there, and we had gone to a ton of shows there growing up in high school as teenagers and stuff, and it was kind of like a dream to play there,” Richardson said.
Richardson said the band attended a House of Blues show several years prior, leading them to set a goal to one day play the venue themselves. Zyburt said the idea of playing at the House of Blues was inspired by the Plain White T’s performance.
“We actually had gone to a Plain White T’s show there three years previous to that,” Zyburt said. “We all made this pact where we said, ‘The next time the Plain White T’s play here, we should open for them,’ and then it happened.”
The band said they love touring live and is excited to see what the future holds for them as a group. Zyburt said among the best parts of playing before a live audience is the response they get to their songs.
“You never know the response you’re going to get to songs, and we’ve had songs where we’re like, ‘Oh, it’s not the best on the album,’ but we play it anyway and it ends up being someone’s favorite song,” Zyburt said. “So it’s definitely rewarding, for sure.”
