Bands! They’re made of up real live people. We learn a bit more about each band member and how they function inside the group and out in Getting to Know.

L-R: Lane Halley, Daniel Lee, Nicholas Hune-Brown, Lorna Wright, D. Alex Meeks, April Aliermo. Photo by Riley Taylor/AUX.

Who: Hooded Fang
Where: Toronto, ON
Why: Hooded Fang just released their sophomore album, Tosta Mista.

April Aliermo: Bass, Lyrics Other bands: surf-punk band Tonka Puma with Daniel; Phedre with Daniel (and Airik Woodhead of Doldrums) One half of all-ages, DIY show promoters Daps Duo, with Daniel Co-runs Daps Records with Daniel to release music from Hooded Fang, Tonka Puma, Odonis Odonis, Doldrums, Phedre, Moonking, Hut Runs Bellwoods Playschool, a “creative-based, socially, culturally and environmentally conscious” daycare. Daniel and Lorna teach music and drama at the school.

Daniel Lee: Lead Vocals, Guitar, Lyrics Other bands: surf-punk band Tonka Puma with April; Phedre with April (and Airik Woodhead of Doldrums) One half of all-ages, DIY show promoters Daps Duo, with April. “We’ve always liked weird venues and accessibility for everybody of all ages or different types of music. We decided to throw these afternoon all-ages shows, which we’ve done about six of so far. Everyone’s been really into it and supportive.” Co-runs Daps Records with April Teaches music at Bellwoods Playschool, the daycare run by April

Lane Halley: Lead Guitar, Trumpet “According to some radio host (Jian Gomeshi), I’m the pride of PEI.” Moved to Toronto in 2004 to attend York University Met D. Alex and the two played in Full Speed Velocipede Currently completing his Masters, though it’s going “sluggishly slow”

Lorna Wright: Vocals, Glockenspiel, Baby Accordian, Guitar Actor Teaches drama at Bellwoods Playschool, the daycare run by April Director; co-runs a production company with Nick, through which they’ve staged successful Toronto Fringe shows Co-writing her second Ross Petty pantomime with Nick; their first was last year’s adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, starring Scott Thompson. “I think being in Toronto, if you want to do anything creative you sort of have to dip your fingers into everything.”

Nicholas Hune-Brown: Keyboard Journalist; writes for Toronto Life, The Walrus, Reader’s Digest Received the silver medal at this year’s National Magazine Awards for his Toronto Life feature on the Don Jail Playwright; co-runs a production company with Lorna, through which they’ve staged successful Toronto Fringe shows Co-writing his second Ross Petty pantomime with Nick; their first was last year’s adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, starring Scott Thompson

D. Alex Meeks: Drums Watchmaker with Hungarian master watchmaker Tibor Finesz Originally from South Carolina, where he grew up on a zoo Moved to Toronto in 2004 to study music at York Set to release a record as Holiday Rambler. “There’s this fellow called Holiday Rambler, who I sing the songs of. It’s simple songs, old songs. It’s not really me. But it is.”

The news that Hooded Fang were set to release their sophomore full-length less than a year after their debut came as a bit of a surprise earlier this year.

Surprising not just because the album, titled, well, Album, caused a bigger stir in the Canadian music scene than they’d anticipated—the band immediately amassed a dedicated following and became critics’ darlings, even ending up on the Polaris long list—but because it had taken them years of toiling to perfection before being satisfied enough to release it. But spend any time with the now-streamlined six (sometimes seven)-piece and their restless creative energy makes the urgency a little less surprising.

“Daniel works really fast,” says bassist April Aliermo under an overcast sky from the backyard of their summer practice space near Toronto’s Chinatown. “He wrote the new record in like, less than a month. I went away to the Philippines and he was all done for the most part.”

Daniel Lee, the primary songwriter for the band and also the singer and guitarist, isn’t the only one impressing with his output: the other band members have multiple bands, education, a record label, a production company, businesses, and a journalism award among them (see above for the full-member breakdown). Lee, though, says the album process needed to change this time around.

“A lot of those songs [from Album] were in the works for a while, and having it as the first album, and no real deadline, it was easy to take as long as we want and be really finicky,” says Lee. “It was a long process. For this one, we didn’t want to get pigeonholed, and also, just [wanted to] put something out really fast that wasn’t really mulled over for a long time.”

The new album Tosta Mista is a departure in sound, too—gone are the subtle, elaborate orch-pop arrangements, and in their place, fast, sunny, garage-y pop tunes. Much like on Album, though, the songs run deeper and darker than they appear on their surface. Some truly excellent, sometimes gifted pop songwriting is at play, and Lee says the songs are only now being fully fleshed out as the band—rounded out by Lane Halley on guitar/trumpet, Lorna Wright on vocals, glockenspiel, and accordion, Nicholas Hune-Brown on keyboard, and D. Alex Meeks on drums—works them out on stage.

“We’re not pledging allegiance to any one thing,” says Lee. “As far as the music that we listen to and play in other bands, we definitely were leaning toward, at this point, fast, rawer stuff. It was kind of melding different stuff and moving in a different direction.”

At one point a ten-piece, the core of the group has been playing together for four years after all meeting through school in Toronto and Montreal, mutual friends, or siblings. Converging in Toronto, half of the band moved into a house together on Lisgar Street in Toronto’s west end.

“That’s where we started the band,” says Aliermo. “Daniel had all these songs and we thought we’d play them and try it out. The first song was called ‘Mountain Top,’ written by Daniel’s brother, and it was a kid’s song, but when we played it, it ended up sounding like a Christian song. I was playing the cowbell in that song.”

“I was playing the ukulele,” Wright laughs. “I don’t know how to play the ukulele.”

They played their first show in February of 2008 at the Imperial Pub near Toronto’s famed Yonge and Dundas intersection, and released their first EP (called, yep, EP) in September 2008 in order to have something to hock at an upcoming Wavelength show, a long-running live independent music series in Toronto.

Since the beginning, the band has been a DIY operation, handling their own recording (bedrooms, basements, attics), output, and press, and now with the new label Daps Records, co-run by Daniel and April, are venturing into legit record label territory, with albums not only from their other projects, but other acts such as Doldrums and Odonis Odonis set for release.

Hooded Fang is set to drive their minivan across Canada for the second time this year on a fall tour. The band lets out a slight collective groan over the impending second round in the van (“We drove across the U. S. for three days without getting out of it,” deadpans Meeks), but admit it’s also the best part of being in a band. When asked if the past year of success helps to make the grind of it any less grueling, they don’t hesitate.

“When we were putting out the first full-length, we were like ‘okay let’s do this proper,’ says Aliermo. “We did it all at Lisgar, and really did the whole thing ourselves. It was just like, wow, you actually can do this all yourselves. It validated the work you put into doing an album. Like, ‘oh, we are a real band now.’”

Individual portraits courtesy of Hooded Fang
(Not pictured: Julia Barnes, trombone, vocals. She’s the designated “hometown member” of the group whose full-time work commitments keep her from touring, but who plays local shows with the band.)