Thursday, June 13, 2013

Effinays Interview 6/8/13


Saturday night, June the 8th, The Effinays opened for Spoonfed Tribe at Trees in Deep Ellum. While not the headliner of the night, the DFW based Funky Reggae band drew quite a crowd. During their high energy set, the crowd was dancing, and grooving to the sweet tunage that The Effinays have become known for. Saturday was their last show before they left on their first ever tour!

After their set, I got a candid couple of minutes with the guys, and got to ask them a little more about the force in live music they had become. It all started with Jeremy "Pan Blanco" Piering on Bass Guitar. The rest of the current lineup is not original band members. So when I asked what made this particular group of musicians the best iteration of the band, Piering responded “You know, we are just more genuine with these guys. No drama, just having fun and making music. We support each other, and don’t shoot anything down; every idea is a good one”. 

When asked to describe their sound “We’re genre-bending, we have influence from anything and everything; No limits.” That being said,  there is an obvious influence from Reggae, Funk, Reggaton, Hip Hop, and Jazz.

So what kind of time do you have outside of the band? Peiring said “We all hang out together, its family man!”  Marquise Jones, on Tenor Sax chimes in “I’ve only been here 8 months, and even though we do holidays and birthdays together, they joke and say I’m still on probation…”

About to embark on your first tour, what are the Effinays excited for? Peiring speaks first “Playing music all over the country,” except this first tour is mostly along the west coast. “Yeah we are going to try for all the way up to Washington.” Marquise says “I’m excited because I’m sheltered and I want to travel” His ambitions were a little higher claiming he wants to “Share their music with the world”. Jon “Big Spook” Martinez felt differently. “It’s a Catch 22, having to leave the family for 4 month”. 

I mention Joe’s tattoo. “Oh yeah, it says Musica es Mi Passion, I got it when the band started getting really serious”. I ask when, he says “Right before Wakarusa” so sometime in May. It definitely gives not just Joe, but the whole band a cool vibe. 

I wanted to hear from some of the other guys so I asked Valenti "Funk" on Drums/Keys, how he got his start playing both at the same time. “I played Piano first, and then when I picked up drums, I just replaced the left hand with a drum stick… It just works”. And work it does, well that is, the piano & drum boogie works well.

On to Jason "Shaggy" Kerr on Guitar; Shaggy is it intentional that your Guitar and Jeremy’s Bass match? “You know, this is actually my back up. It’s the same model as my main Guitar, but when I saw some guy selling it in that color, I had to go for it and get it to match.”

Julian, tell me about the Effinays involvement in NORML and winning Activist of the year from High Times magazine. Julian "King" Ayacannoo, the other Sax player started to reminisce. “Yeah, the tour is actually being sponsored by NORML, its pretty cool. As for the High Times, we were nominated for three awards: Activist of the year, which we won, best local act, and best underground act.” People getting to share great music and a great cause, at least for the Marijuana activists. “When we received our award, we met George Clinton, who was the Activist of the Year, the year before. It was really cool when we spoke to him, and he wanted to take a picture with us!”

George Clinton had the right idea. These guys are one of the coolest, chilliest, and funkiest bands in North Texas, so I’d recommend you go check them out. They were even so cool as to give me some signed posters, and Big Spook even gave us a shout out here at Live Music DFW (even though he reversed our name)

Hope ya’ll enjoyed, I’m hoping to do more of these candid interviews, so I’ll keep you up to date. Thanks for reading and keep jammin’ my friends!

The Effinays band consists of:

Joe "Big Spook" Martinez - Lead Vocals
Julian "King" Ayacannoo - Sax
Jeremy "Pan Blanco" Piering - Bass Guitar
Valenti "Funk" - Drums/Keys
Jason "Shaggy" Kerr - Guitar
Marquise "Kool-Aide"Jones - Sax 



No comments:

Post a Comment