If you liked Melvista, Wesley Fuller’s singalong, clap along indie rock belter, then it’s not going to take much for you to fall for follow up Runaway Renee, taken from his forthcoming debut EP, due out on the 1965 imprint. Fuller himself explains the ideas behind the song as “The song came about one hot, sleepless summers night whilst messing around with a drum machine & a 12 string in my sharehouse. I’d been trying for weeks to write a song about a girl who’d hooked up with my housemate. I didn’t know a single thing about her so I had no idea what to write about but I had the melody for what would become Runaway Renee. The story I borrowed and poetically adapted from a group of friends in a band who often toured down the east coast. They always travelled with their girlfriends and lovers, one of whom happened to be an absolute stunner. She wore a dress that looked like it was made out of the cover of The West Coast Pop Art Experimental band’s debut album cover. The song definitely has a West Coast, summer of love, sunshine pop kinda vibe as I was listening to a lot of Mamas & Papas and Nuggets at the time. I wanted the drums to sound like they were recorded in a psychedelic vacuum so I solo’d the under snare mic and ran it through some obscene compressors which in a way gives it a shitty lo-fi vibe, but hey, at least I tried!”
It still has that sort of Summery Beach Boys feel about the melody, but it goes off at a slightly more psychedelic tangent than even Brian Wilson managed in his prime. What it does do though it focus on its laid back vibe and killer chorus’s and melodies, and Fuller knows all the tricks to bring you under his spell.
Check out the accomapnying video that see’s Fuller performing the song in and out of the concert hall.
