Toronto area pop rock band the Elwins wok as hard as they play and have a lot of fun doing it.
They return to Lethbridge, Sept. 30 to play Studio with long time friends The Tokyo Police Club and Born Ruffians.
“ I think you can count on one hand the number of times we’ve played with them, (Tokyo Police Club) but we‘ve been friends for a long time. We went to the same high school and grew up in the same town. So it’s going to be exciting,” said Elwins frontman Matthew Sweeney. Drummer Travis Stokl, guitarist / keyboardist Feurd and bassist Frankie Figliomeni complete the Keswick, Ontario based band’s lineup.
The Elwin are starting to get a little success of their own with their most recent CD “Play For Keeps.”
“We’re starting to get radio play which is good for us as we’ve been able to play lots of summer festivals this year. We also toured in Japan and Europe. So it’s been great. We’ve been having fun,” he said, adding they are also working on new music.
“It’s been fun. We’re collaborating more than ever. It will be different,” he said adding they hope to release the new CD next year, though they aren’t playing any of the new music live.
“We want to make sure we’re comfortable with it, but we are playing new music from ‘Play for Keeps,’ And we’ve got some new covers. It will be a new show,” he continued.
They enjoy reworking pop covers of the likes of Adele and Beyonce for a four man rock band. They released a cover of Adele’s hit “Hello.”
“Jamming is very likely. In somebody‘s encore, we may all be on stage in some format together,” he said.
They enjoy reworking pop songs.
“We consider ourselves to be a pop band. We like music that is catchy and infectious. With the be Beyonce song, there’s drum lines and horns. So we enjoy the challenge of reworking pop songs for a four man band,” he said.
He has some fond memories of the band’s last Lethbridge show at the Slice last year.
“Frankie’s glasses may have fallen off his face last time and they may have broken. This time Frankie and Feurd are prepared. They have little things called keepers for them. I remember everybody being really nice to us,” he said.
In between work, they are working on strengthening their personal friendships with each other.
We spend so much time working and touring, we decided to do a band outing once a month.
the first one we went to Medieval Times. We were yelling at the Yellow Knight. We made a nickname for home . We were yelling out ‘ Sweet Corn.” He definitely heard us and afterwards we were talking to him and we were so nervous,” he said.
“ We work hard and we play hard too,” he said.
“ We’ve been friends for so long, we like to just do things as friends,” he continued..
They are getting more comfortable being on stage.
“ We’ve toured so much. But before I would get so nervous, I’d psyche myself out. But now, I’m so insecure. We’re more confident,” he said.
