A band called Jenny

Finding music in numbers and friends

Riad Kadri | rkadri@cjournal.ca

On a cold Friday night, a group of friends gather in a small basement in southwest Calgary.

 These friends are Sean Hamilton (lead vocals, guitar), Jarrett Brandt (lead guitar, vocals), Rich MacFarlane (guitar, vocals), Eric Svilpis (Bass) and Spencer Kathrens (drums, vocals).

 Individually they are single musicians, but when they come together they form a band called Jenny.

 Sean Hamilton, front man for the band, says he has been playing music for roughly five years, individually and with some of his band mates.

Two years ago, they all gathered to form a five-piece band called jenny.

 The band had started out utilizing folk elements, but as each member got involved, their influences changed the band’s sound, launching it into something they had all loved in their teenage years, that sound was punk rock.

 “That’s where we all started too, we all started listening to punk rock or metal. Like loud aggressive shit in high school, so I think its just natural that we would cycle back,” Spencer Kathrens said.

 Bassist Eric Svilpis feels that Jenny’s sound came from each member adding their own touches to the music.

We mean what we say and it’s weird, as we get older, we’re rocking out harder,
— Sean Hamilton

 “I love that progression of gathering instruments and gathering sounds as opposed to a conscious effort to make it louder,” Rich MacFarlane said.

 As everything comes together, Jenny is finally beginning to find it own sound.

 “I think as we’re getting older (the music) is getting heavier,” Hamilton said. “It started as folk-punk and we found that was a really polarizing genre.”

 Hamilton said listeners who like punk would call it folk-punk but those who liked folk felt their music was too loud.   

 “It was confusing,” Hamilton said.

“We’ve definitely evolved into some realm of alternative rock and punk rock.”

“We mean what we say and it's weird, as we get older, we’re rocking out harder,” Hamilton said.

 Hamilton says his band mates are his best friends and it makes him want to get “stoked”.

“It’s like we’re on a hockey team or playing sports, you just want to go all out,” he said.

 The band feels that they are beginning to make an impact on Calgary’s music scene, where before, the audience at their live shows consisted of friends, it has now grown into something larger and their music more recognizable.

 “There’s definitely people that we don’t know coming to shows where it used to just be fiends now people will just come up to us being like ‘oh we heard about you’,” Jarrett Brandt said.

 Jenny is set to release an album this fall, which is to feature influences from all five-band members. It will be their first studio album doing so.