Toronto-based surf punks Knifey released their debut album ‘beached’ on September 29 and to help get you acquainted with it, guitarist/vocalist Max Trinz talks us through each track. Hit play on the album stream below and read on to find out more about the meaning behind each song.
Beach Lightning
I came up with this title ‘Beach Lightning’ one day and thought it was really funny and cool. I ended up writing the instrumental to this song around the idea of that title. It actually took me a really long time to nail down lyrics for this one. I think when Phil and I demoed it we ordered Chinese food.
Rio
Phil came to me with the instrumental to this song fully written. We basically changed nothing. When I wrote the lyrics I had in mind those moments you had as a senior in school, cruising around in the summer and feeling like you ran your hometown. Phil used Adam’s ‘spicy spring’ pedal to record the leads and we thought the name was hilarious.
Sophie
This is the first song Phil and I wrote together. He came to my apartment with the instrumental basically finished, apart from some very small tweaks in the pre-chorus, and I added the vocals. Sophie was the name of my lizard at the time… so when we say it’s about a lizard we’re not lying. When we put it all together, we didn’t have a bassist or a drummer, and I don’t think either of us thought we’d ever really get this thing off the ground.
Serf
I wrote the chord progression for this song while washing dishes at 1AM. I went to my room and wrote the song in a couple of minutes, recording it on my phone. Lyrics came very naturally and were done by the next day. This one, to me, was by far the easiest one to write. It came together really naturally in the studio as well.
Weekend
Phil had the whole instrumental finished for this song and came to practice with it, but we kept putting it off because we were working on other songs. Kyle, who had just started a 9-5, wrote some lyrics to the demo, and threw them on top… or at least that’s how I remember it. Back when we put this one together we didn’t have a drummer, and ‘band practice’ was more commonly known as ‘drinking practice’.
Tanlines
This song came from a lead riff I wrote and sent to Phil. He liked it and wrote the chord progressions that form the full song. Along with ‘Long Lost Dreams’, this is the song where we collaborated most instrumentally. The lyrics are about long, drunken trips I took on the streetcar to an ex’s house on the other side of town.
Summer Girls
I was sick while recording this song and was super afraid I wouldn’t be able to hit the high notes. Another song where Phil wrote nearly all of the instrumental and I added lyrics/melody. I had thoughts of short, passionate summer love affairs in the suburbs in my mind when writing lyrics, and came up with the ‘ooo’ melodies during recording.
Long Lost Dreams
Phil had written this song originally with his girlfriend in, what I can only assume, was a drunken stupor. It was originally about Batman. When he finally brought it to practice, I wrote the lead riffs, and added some lyrics about a relationship I wanted out of, to go along with the title he had come up with. When his girlfriend heard it she thought the vocals sounded ‘weird’ 😊
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