Interview with The Effens: ‘You can have 10 different ideas and one will shine through, it’s about following your intuition’

Toronto glam grunge band The Effens released the lead single, ‘Pavement Age’, from their upcoming EP last month, knocking us sideways with its blasting bass line and screeching riffs, with a plan to release another five singles this year.

The Effens are Austin Fannin (vocalist and guitarist), Paul Ciurea (guitar and synth/samples), Hannah Edgerton (bass and vocals) and Fabian Kearns (drums). By his own admission, Kearns started out as a fill-in for someone else but ended up staying. Edgerton was performing in a Pixies cover set and shared their rehearsal space. They’ve been described as ‘hyper-strange post-grunge and glam pop four piece who seem to take in all the vagaries of the internet age and recycle them into something unique and fantastic’, which is a great description.

Take ‘Pavement Age’, which features vocals by Fannin that build in intensity, followed by a frenetic and scattered riff with a sample of an internet dial-up tone that younger listeners won’t be familiar with. It also features samples of filter effects. ‘You can’t tell it’s there until you take it out,’ Fannin said. ‘The drum is pitched up and looped.’ He wrote ‘Pavement Age’ and describes it as ‘being about realising that there’s so much I don’t have to worry about being born of a certain time’: ‘I realise how brutal history can be,’ he said. ‘The song always starts off trying not to think about it, putting a drum beat down or putting a riff on a loop, making up some words. You can have 10 different ideas and one will shine through, it’s about following your intuition.’

As the song kicks off: ‘Well if you still can’t stand and you still can’t talk and you still don’t care or feel good enough, well, I believe in the cause of a different force. Well, it’s a lot like religion but it could be worse.’

Interestingly, Fannin wrote the lyrics to ‘Pavement Age’ several years ago when he was just 19: ‘It’s also about going from being a kid to an adult, when you’re not quite all there but you’re certainly not a kid anymore. It’s the feeling of how do I retain the positive aspects of childhood without feeling stunted?’

‘There’s a mystery about what’s being played at what time’

Their EP will come out in July and includes their next two singles, ‘Things You Can’t Take Back’ and ‘Eventually’, which will also contain surprises, according to Kearns: ‘There’s a lot of playing around with sound and distorting audio, similar to the solo in ‘Pavement Age’,’ he said. ‘Things You Can’t Take Back’ is coming out on 25 February and Fannin describes it as being ‘more guitar driven, a little more straightforward’. Kearns says of it somewhat cryptically: ‘There’s a mystery about what’s being played at what time’, which I don’t fully understand until they send me the track later that day. It’s a frenetic mash-up of grungy riffs with sampling in the background that blend into one. ‘It’s as far as we go with riffs,’ Fannin laughed. ‘Our version of a riff would not be impressive but emotive.’

‘Things You Can’t Take Back’ is a very personal song for Fannin and he describes it as sounding like ‘a warped mix of guitar and the human voice, something like a digital choir operating on a dying battery’: ‘It’s about having arguments with people close to me, that turning point in the argument when there’s no undoing the things you’ve said to each other,’ he explained. ‘It’s about trying to retain my love for them, even though what they said has changed my relationship of trust with them in the future. But it’s also about positive experiences, saying something loving and getting to know someone because you also can’t undo the things that have made you close.’

Kearns says that ‘Eventually’, which also features samples, is one of his favourite of their tracks because it’s ‘so fun to play on the drums’. He also sings in local post punk band Laurie, who released a single, ‘Another Animal’, last month. They’re both big fans of local psychedelic rock band, Vypers, and emo band, Feels Fine, as well as the brilliantly named punk band, Martian Crisis Unit, who Fannin describes as a spacey B-52s. They also cite their friends in ‘chaos’ band, Burner: ‘They have a crazy live show,’ Fannin said. ‘We saw their last show the day before the pandemic started,’ he said. ‘They were as wild at they could be! We also really like The O.B.G.Ms (which stands for ‘Oh baby, give me more’) and Packs.’

Fannin jokes that he likes to pick tracks ‘the Bruce Springsteen way’: ‘When you can pick songs you wrote a month ago or years ago to put on an album.’ He channels Springsteen in more ways than one: ‘It’s almost as if the music sounds one way, I try to guide the lyrics another way, it’s a Springsteen way to go, like on ‘Hungry Heart’, it’s such a sad song.’ Interestingly, though, he didn’t get into Springsteen until his 20s, although his father always listened to him. ‘I listened to Pixies, Nirvana a lot as a kid, as well as Smash Mouth (a Californian rock band). They opened my eyes to not being judgemental,’ he said. Kearns adds: ‘Nirvana were the jumping off plane for me as a kid. In my late teens, I got into post punk like New Waves, Joy Division and New Order.’

‘That song would be on the soundtrack to my life somewhere’

Another great who has made an impact on Fannin is Elvis, he’s even wearing an Elvis t-shirt in the photo he sends me to run with this story. ‘I have great experiences of Elvis’ song, ‘If I Can Dream’. I heard the song and it stuck with me. That song blew my mind when I heard it and it helped me through some difficult times as a teenager. I learned it on the guitar. It’s so funny to be talking about this but someone I know was having a very difficult time and I started playing it on the guitar for them and I sung it as a pick-me-up. That song would be on the soundtrack to my life somewhere. I love Elvis from how he has been referenced in David Lynch’s film Wild at Heart. Fabian and I are big David Lynch fans.’

Throughout 2018 and 2019,The Effens opened for notable acts such as Charly Bliss, Starcrawler, The Lonely Parade, Naked Giants, Twen, Dude York and Lisa Prank. They were also listed as one of the top 50 best Toronto Indie Bands of 2019, according to Trumpet Smash.

Fannin cites Selena Gomez as his guilty pleasure and recounts a funny story: ‘A bunch of friends and me were all bleaching our hair at the same time and we were looking for a song about being blonde and we listened to her song ‘As A Blonde’. It’s like a Courtney Love pop song!’ Kearns says he doesn’t really have a guilty pleasure song: ‘I listen to a lot of singles by bands that I wouldn’t normally listen to and there are bands that I used to listen to that I don’t listen to much now, like Red Hot Chili Peppers.’

Understandably, they can’t wait to get back to playing live: ‘When we’re playing live, when we get to ‘Burn Blush’ in the set, I’m calibrated and ready to go after that!,’ Fannin laughed.

(Photo from left to right: Paul, Hannah, Austin and Fabian)

<iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/6kdsbZeLpY6HmOWg4Cv3Q4" width="300" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe>