Meet Evil Felipe, a surf rock act with a vision for its future
Evil Felipe poses for a photo
Evil Felipe played their first show in roughly three months to an audience of two cameramen in the Five By Two recording studio back in June.
It was an unexpected return to the stage for the surf rock trio after the unprecedented upheaval of COVID-19.
And, from the perspective of lead singer Emma Bain, it didn’t go well.
“How did you guys do?” Circus Trees drummer Five By Two lighting designer Giuliana McCarthy asked Bain after the set.
“It wasn’t our best,” Bain mumbled.
Her bandmates agreed.
Months later, though, the trio look back laughing. Nothing actually went wrong. It just felt bizarre to be on stage again.
“For me, taking such a long break, I got really nervous,” Bain said. “It was almost like playing our first show ever all again.”
As strange as it was, though, it was that show, later broadcast as part of Five By Two’s live session programming, that has marked a turning point for Evil Felipe that the band now hopes will vault them to new heights and fresh success.
“There really aren’t a lot of other bands like us”
Evil Felipe’s Emma Bain sings at a Five By Two live session recording. (Photo by Samuel Bendix)
Evil Felipe is the collective creation of sisters Ella and Maya Staltare and friend Emma Bain. Ella plays bass. Maya plays drums. And Emma rounds it all out, also playing guitar as she sings.
The group dropped an EP in October, 2019 and, now, has signed to Five By Two Records for their second release, which drops soon.
All this started in 2016 when the trio followed the inspiration of their fathers, who play in their own punk band, to start jamming at cookouts and odd gigs.
“At first we didn’t really think we would keep it going,” Ella said. “But we liked it, and it just sort of happened.”
For Bain, who handles much of the band’s songwriting duties, Evil Felipe has suddenly become therapeutic.
“I really liked playing guitar because it was an outlet for me,” she said. “Playing music with other people made me happy.”
Formed as a hobby, Evil Felipe exists outside of common understandings of genre, members agree.
Maya and Ella grew up particularly steeped in the sounds of Rancid, the Ramones, and Green Day.
All three members love a brand of surf rock that often feels more at home in Southern California than in the suburbs of Greater Boston and Central Massachusetts.
They’re also making music with pop characteristics as well, however.
“There really aren’t a lot of other bands like us,” Ella notes. “So we really find ourselves playing shows that we don’t really fit into.”
Ella, Emma and Maya agree that this creates hard situations, sometimes. Yet especially now, as they join a Five By Two family dominated by post rock and psychedelic acts, they also say their anachronism and artistic defiance has its silver linings.
“It lets us fit into a lot of different genres,” Bain said.
“More polished than any previous recording”
Five By Two’s Aaron Garcia sits on the ground during Evil Felipe’s live session recording in June. (Photo by Samuel Bendix)
Though their new EP doesn't yet have an exact release date, Five By Two Records and Evil Felipe expect it to hit streaming services next month.
Band members say that, while the sound won’t mark any major divergence from their established brand, it will be more polished than any previous recording.
This record came together, after all, over four marathon recording sessions with Five By Two’s resident producer Aaron Garcia.
It’s going to be the third full release to credit Garcia as a producer, following previous EPs from the Light Inside Me Is Dead and Geskle.
And it comes just before Garcia plans to drop his own debut full length album as Pillbook.
“Being able to relate to other people that have the same interest as you, that helps a lot,” Bain said of the experience recording with Five By Two. “...It’s been very helpful for us. If we didn’t have that, we wouldn’t know where to go.”
Recalling days spent plowing through drum tracking, vocals and guitar, Ella, Maya and Emma say they’ve never made music like this before.
They’ve never worked with this kind of efficiency.
What’s more, they’ve rarely spent such large swaths of time on their sound.
This is great news, they say. It’s a step forward.
“A lot more young kids our age will like it”
A potential yellow brick road to Evil Felipe’s future in music, this EP owes its existence, in many ways to that aforementioned live session in the Five By Two studio.
As Bain and others felt sizzling anxiety about playing live after COVID-19 quarantine, Garcia loved what he saw through a camera lens and immediately invited the trio upstairs to his souped-up bedroom recording space.
He showed the band demos of past recordings. He offered to create a similar product for Evil Felipe.
“I remember, on the car ride home, we were immediately thinking ‘We want to record with him,’” Maya said.
The rest is history...at least that’s what Evil Felipe hopes.
This band wants to get big. They’re singing about joy, anger, childhood and adulthood all at the same time.
They’ve watched other bands in punk’s long history ride similar themes and mindsets to glory and big stages.
Evil Felipe sees lights and wants them pointed in their faces.
So far, band members agree live shows, however, have exposed the obstacles they face as such a unique act.
Their following has long consisted of family connections and older people who connect with 80s and 90s nostalgia rock.
“It always been lots of our dads’ friends and our close friends,” Bain said.
With this new EP, fusing Garcia’s subtle producing flares with core guitar riffs and catchy hooks, though, Evil Felipe sees a chance to change that fan identity by opening the proverbial door and inviting new followers into the mix.
“With our new sound, I think a lot more young kids our age will like it,” Bain said.
Things are, indeed, changing fast for Evil Felipe.
The Evil Felipe EP drops soon. Check back on this website to ensure you catch it when it finally does go live…