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The Varsity - Arts & Culture
Issue: 02/11/02


Get yer ya-yas out
By The Chung, Varsity Staff

Sometimes talking about a band's "sound" can become a little tiresome. You want to get behind the typical shit and see what really makes 'em tick. Thankfully, every once in a while a band actually likes to flex their brain, which is so anti-rock and roll, it's totally rock and roll. And when you chance upon these individuals, it's always entertaining to see that their desire to have a "blast" runs across the gamut of their musical efforts but also in their personalities. So the ballots are in, and it seems as if the rockin' trio of lads known as the Phonies know what end is up!
Evolving from their Newmarket origins after a couple of name changes and the loss of a previous member, the Phonies are here to promote their latest self-titled EP. It's a three-song album featuring U of T student Jeffers Lennox (drummer), OCAD man Brandon Anderson (bassist) and Windsor University's Daniel Morgan (guitarist/vocals). In an effort to cultivate that mystique all truly notorious rockers must have, I asked the lads what would happen if they found themselves as actors in the reality-based The Fifth Wheel. Says Lennox confidently, "Dan would probably just threaten to quit the band if he didn't get one of the girls, so we'd say, 'OK, you can have one.' Having established that, Dan would then proceed to threaten departure yet again if he didn't get both girls." Brandon half-jokes that "singers are such glory hogs."

And they look like such fine, upstanding young men, too.

I ventured yet further, asking them to explain their style. Some interesting answers prevailed: "Picture that one guy at the concert who's wearing the shirt of the band he's paid to see. Well, behind him there are three guys pointing and laughing, all of whom are wearing much cooler shirts than that
one guy. But what's even worse, is that the band on stage is snickering at the guy with the shirt. That's our band. Only, those t-shirts make us money, so we'd try not to let that guy see we're laughing at him. And our laughter sounds like this: ching-ching. (Note: T-shirts for sale on our website.)," offers Lennox. Still, one can't help but prefer the Zen-like honesty of Anderson's response: "Yeah, you know rock 'n' roll does incorporate style. I think that we need to talk that one over. We have absolutely no style, or maybe that is a style."

But beyond who's the bigger mack or who's got the rokken threads, the only thing left to really know is…why? Other than the throngs of women, the truckload of money to be made and the potential to cultivate a very nice substance addiction, what really embedded in their genes the desire to be a rock phenomenon? "All I know is that I get insanely jealous of those fluffy white towels that rock drummers get on their risers. Those towels and my desire to have them drove me to be a rock star." Ahhh, those Phony kids.