Music

Hooded Fang: "Each of us live seven lives"

by Jessica Lewis

Sometimes we have to remember one thing about bands: they’re full of people. People who have lives outside of the band, separate interests and usually separate tempers. So when everyone can come together and make music that’s crystal clear and unified, it’s pretty impressive. Such is the case for seven-piece Toronto indie pop band Hooded Fang.

The group released cleverly titled Album this year, two years after the equally cleverly titled EP. Part of the reason it simply took that long is because finding time to rope in seven people on one focus can be challenging.

“Things take time,” says guitarist Lane Halley. “We were busy with life. Each of us live seven lives, not seven of us leading one life.”

What makes Hooded Fang’s multi-tasking so impressive is that what each one of them is doing is just as creative as the next, and everything all seems to come together. Vocalist/guitarist Daniel Lee comes from a hip-hop producing background, has two other bands and runs all-ages afternoon shows with bandmate April Aliermo under the Daps Infinity moniker. Halley and Julia Barnes are finishing their masters degrees. Nicholas Hune-Brown and Lorna Wright write fringe musicals, and Hune-Brown is also a freelance journalist.

Getting everyone together and on the Hooded Fang track takes strength. “We’re living life and doing all of these projects between and finally it was like, alright, we’ve got to put this out, we have all the songs here, let’s just polish them off and get them out and that’s what we did,” says bassist Aliermo.

But everything with this band just seems so simple. When putting together EP and Album, it became clear. “We’re not too into frills, you know?” says Aliermo. “Straight-up this is what it is. This is a Hooded Fang EP, and this is a Hooded Fang album.”

“What’s next, who knows? Album 2. Return of the Album,” jokes Halley.

The band has found an incredible amount of local support from Toronto – besides Album’s artwork done by artist Dougie Kerr, who does the art for the landmark Honest Ed’s super-store made famous this year in the background of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World – and are ready to take the party onward. The seven band members will tour Eastern Canada come March and soon after Western Canada.