Victoria and Vancouver Island have a lot of musical talent, and Victoria Buzz wants to highlight some of the best and brightest local artists and bands.
Every Monday, there will be a fresh ‘New Music Monday’ article to help people find and support local artists and bands that are up-and-coming, well established or hidden gems!
For this endeavour, Victoria Buzz has partnered with our good friends at CFUV 101.9 FM, UVic’s campus radio station, to find and select the musicians and bands for this regular column.
This week, Earth Freaks are the New Music Monday highlight!
Recently, Earth Freaks booked the Victoria’s Capital Ballroom for the release of their sophomore record, Learn to Enjoy Losing, and ended up selling around 300 tickets to the show, just under the venue’s capacity.
“The release was a success,” guitarist Riley Stewart told Victoria Buzz.
“I was a little uncertain on how we were going to do on a Thursday night with local acts, but everything worked out perfect.”
They got their start in the Kootenays and Nelson, but due to their geography, they sought out Victoria as a new home base.
Earth Freaks say the decision to come to Victoria was made due to the reputation of the music scene and the fact that they’d be a little closer to urban centres, making touring a bit easier.
The psych-rock outfit is comprised of Stewart and Zyan Fukushima-Rael on guitar and vocals, Evans Daybell-Chambers on bass and vocals as well as Max Spielman on the drums.
Their first record was recorded with haste as the four-piece moved into a house together when they got into town, but could only stay there for a short while.
So, they set up a makeshift studio, recorded and released a fast-paced garage-psych record that really captured their first endeavour at recording as a band.
With this next record, they wanted to go in a different direction, while still holding true to their psych roots.
“This album was a project inspired heavily by the concept albums of the late 60s and early 70s,” said Fukushima-Rael.
“I didn’t really know what the theme of the album was going to be when I was writing it but it knew I had a few songs that felt like a cohesive project.”
He added that he began writing these songs back in 2022, but since then they have taken many forms as the band took their favourite bits and pieces, kept those and reworked the songs to be more united.
“[The songs] ‘Sometimes’ and ‘Relief’ specifically had been rewritten about four to five times and at certain points in the writing process they all included parts of the other songs,” Fukushima-Rael continued.
“Lyrically it all started to come together when I was messing around on a piano and I wrote ‘Learn to Enjoy Losing.’”
He added that the lyrics and chords all just came out of thin air for that track and he realized a lot of the themes worked well with the other batch of songs he had. So, the band began to rework and rewrite some of the songs to make them work with one another.
When it comes to his lyrical content, Fukushima-Rael says that he doesn’t try to approach songwriting thinking about something specific, but instead tries to write about feelings and emotions that arise throughout life.
“I’ve never really approached my songs with the mentality of, ‘this song is about this girl or boy,’ or whatever specific thing—more I’ve tried to capture are the feelings that were caused by these experiences,” explained Fukushima-Rael.
“Whether it be more about one feeling than another, it’s all a weird mix of different sometimes conflicting emotions. Maybe people will feel the way I did when I wrote it, maybe not. I just hope that it made you feel something—disgust, love, comfort, pain or whatever it is.”
Though he feels like he got a lot out of this style of writing, Fukushima-Rael says he probably won’t revisit this particular method.
“It came at a time where I was struggling mentally and learning to let go, while at the same I was being so inspired by the new stuff I was learning in school and the people I was around,” he continued.
“It sounds a little cliche but I felt like I really did have to learn to enjoy losing to make this project.”
Check out Earth Freaks new record, Learn to Enjoy Losing, below:
Listen to Earth Freaks new album in its entirety and check out the rest of their catalogue on their Bandcamp, Spotify and Apple Music pages.
Following the release of their second album, Earth Freaks are wasting no time getting back to business.
They have a show coming up on Saturday, June 14th at Victoria’s newest venue, The Coda. They will be joined by Steel Cut Oats for that one.
Then, they are hitting the ground running and touring across Canada, all the way out to Toronto with their pals, and fellow Victoria psych group, Standard Issue Pleasure Model from the end of July to mid-August.
Follow Earth Freaks on Instagram to stay up-to-date with future shows and releases.
Related:
- New Music Monday: Frances Hope uses music to navigate trauma in new single ‘After’
- New Music Monday: Elbow Kiss revitalizes the harp in new single and music video
- New Music Monday: Sofia Miller embraces non-perfectionism on heartfelt instrumental album
CFUV is a non-profit campus and community radio station that plays a ton of local music of all kinds across Vancouver Island. If you like to support local music they are an amazing resource with a plethora of new local tunes in their arsenal.
“Since we first got here, CFUV has been among the first to help us and support us,” said Stewart.
“Our music scene is really lucky to have a station dedicated to promoting a healthy, active, live, accessible and diverse community.”
Tune into CFUV 101.9 FM on air or online!
Let us know what you think of Earth Freaks in the comments below!
