Q&A: fanclubwallet Fulfills Lifelong Dream by Releasing an EP About Being in a Band
FANCLUBWALLET IS BREAKING THE RULES - and transforming from a solo project to a full-out band. Previously a moniker of Hannah Judge, fanclubwallet is launching an experimental phase with the release of a new EP, Our Bodies Paint Traffic Lines. The project, which came together after Judge pulled friends, Nat Reid, Eric Graham, and Michael Watson, into a writing session for “Band Like That,” is a lively and playful manifestation of Judge’s dream of creating music about being in a band. It’s cheeky in its self-referential moments and ultimately, self-fulfilling. By creating the project, Judge is in the cool band she writes about in “Band Like That.”
The Ottawa music scene is Judge’s playground; she’s the bassist for a few different bands and jokes that every Ottawa band is an amalgamation of another band in the scene. It is through the Ottawa scene that she found Reid, Graham, and Watson and entrusted them as her touring band. While she loves collaborating, Judge previously used fanclubwallet as a space for her DIY, bedroom-based creations. By cracking open the bedroom door to collaboration, Judge has discovered a new side of fanclubwallet.
The project is partially inspired by the Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series that Judge grew up obsessing over. As a multi-talented artist, she is releasing a cartoon-based zine as an extension of the EP. It’s meant to signify this moment in fanclubwallet history and live as a physical representation of the project. She’s hoping to make it a collectible moment, and it may even inspire later creation.
Still very much a project fronted by Judge, there’s a refreshing lightness to the new music. We’re at an exciting crossroads for fanclubwallet. Judge ensures there will always be room for more songs like “Car Crash in G Major,” which acted as the accelerant that set fanclubwallet on fire. Regardless of the future of fanclubwallet, whether it’ll continue as a band or return to Judge’s sole discretion, it’s clear how distinct this EP is in the larger discography.
Read Hannah Judge explain more about the EP below.
LUNA: What was the process of making this EP and what sort of themes are you exploring on it?
JUDGE: I've had writer’s block for a long time then I started writing this song, “Band Like That,” about like wishing I was in a really good bad. I couldn't figure out a chorus for it. Then I was like, oh, hold on, Nat, Eric, and Michael are in the other room. Let's just get them in here. The whole thing came together like super easily. I was like, okay, the band is like right in front of me. I was like, let's do a whole EP of full band songs. We've never done this before. And I really wanted it to be kind of like a collectible moment in the fanclubwallet history. So I'm making a little zine to go along with it. We went to a cottage to write the rest of it after we got back from this tour. Then we finished recording it at Port William Sound which is close to us in Ottawa. It's just kind of in the middle of nowhere and really awesome.
LUNA: It’s cool how much of a serendipitous quality this story has. From you being like “wow, it'd be really cool if I just like be in this awesome band,” to then realizing, “wait, I'm surrounded by talented people already.” And your bandmates had previously toured with you. This was the first time you had collaborated officially?
JUDGE: I'd always done stuff with Michael. Michael has a lot of parts on some of the older music. I don't know why I never thought to all do something. They were all in a band together before. I guess in like my brain, I was like, oh, that exists separately. But I collaborate with them in other ways all the time. It had never come together in this way.
LUNA: What are the different feelings that come up for you being a solo artist versus collaborating in a more formal way with them on this EP?
JUDGE: I think doing a lot of the solo stuff before was a little bit depressing. It's a lot of me in my room writing sad ass music. This one was a lot more fun because I was like, let's make an EP about being in a band. I just got to write stories and make stuff up or be a little more silly. I got to pull inspiration from other bands. It's just been a lot more chill than putting the deepest darkest parts of your depressed mind to music.
LUNA: Yeah, it's the whole inside you there to wolves thing and you get to unleash the fun wolf on this one.
JUDGE:Yeah, and I love when other bands write songs about being in a band. I had always wanted to write a cool song about being in a band. So this was a fun fulfillment for me.
LUNA: This EP makes my heart race a bit. There's just so much energy to it and it feels fun. When you were working on it, if you were to say “I want it to sound [blank].” What would be in the blank?
JUDGE: That's a good question. I think the whole thing is a little cartoony. The whole EP is kind of like a road trip. I wanted things to sound like natural and just easy. It has been a lot of fun. When we were making it we were taking breaks to go play basketball in the yard. We watched Mrs. Doubtfire. It was just watching movies and playing b-ball and going on walks then writing songs in between that. That's so much more fun than being locked in your bedroom. For a couple of the songs, the lyrics were written while we were on tour. So I think a cool, fun road trip with your friends, who you’re also in a band with, is kind of the vibe, and all the songs are about being in a band.
LUNA: Right. It's like a loving parody of what being in a band is. It feels like it pokes fun at all the tropes in a loving way.
JUDGE:: Yeah, like one of the songs is just about weird photographers. Yeah it was fun to write lyrics like that.
LUNA: What was it like making the music video for “Band Like That?”
JUDGE: When I wrote that song I immediately knew what I wanted the music video to be. Sorry Snowman, the band that's in that music video, was the actual inspiration for the song. When I was writing it I was thinging that's such a good band. I wish I was in that band. So it was fun getting them in the music video.
LUNA: That feels quite meta. Is that music video a good representation of what the scene is like in Ottawa?
JUDGE: Yeah, I think so. It's a lot of fun. Everyone's really uplifting and super nice but it's definitely meta. Everyone is in everyone's band. If there's one band of four guys, there's probably like, actually six bands compromised of like those same guys. It’s awesome.
LUNA: Like, if you have a bill of bands, it's like actually all the same band just mingled in different ways with different songs?
JUDGE: Yeah, this just happened to me. We played the Dragon Boat Festival in Ottawa. It was me and Chemical Club. We opened for Chris Murphy from Sloan, which was really cool. But Chemical Club is Michael and Eric. It's their band. And then I played bass. And then we got our friend Shawn to play guitar, but it's like, that's the same band. We showed up and people were like, okay, fanclubwallet is here. Here’s your greenroom and your rider. We're just waiting for Chemical Clubs to show up. I was like, actually, sorry, were that too. It's still us.
LUNA: What is it about being in a band that you envy when you were working alone? I know you said it’s less depressing. Is there anything else to it?
JUDGE: Yeah, for sure. Before fanclubwallet I was in a band called Gullet. I loved being that. I'm still in Gullet but we don't really write as much anymore. We play house shows, which is a lot of fun. That being my first band, it was so fun. You know, having sleepovers and writing lyrics together and really being able to bounce ideas off of each other. Listening to other bands and seeing, for example, Run For Cover Records doing interviews with full bands, there’s such great chemistry. I feel like you can really hear that chemistry when a band does a whole band record. We were just talking about this. Beach Fossils, their first couple of records were not a whole band, and then they did Somersault, and that was a full band and you can really tell. I wanted to have this explosion of sound.
LUNA: Is this something that you think you'll keep exploring? Could this be an extension of fanclubwallet?
JUDGE: Yeah, I think so. For sure. I think some of my songs have to be me being gloomy. But I think too, I'm not going to get stuck on a baseline as often because I'll just call Nat and get them on. Or get Eric to add a guitar part because I'm not a guitarist. I think there will definitely still be collaboration in the future. I think it'll just be a cool balance.
LUNA: It’ll be like a cool trick you can pull out of your sleeve. When you were collaborating on this, did it feel like it was a group effort in a full way or was it still like you maintained control?
JUDGE: I think the music really felt like a group effort, some of the songs I didn't write. “Picture of Her,” I didn't write any of the guitar parts. So that was cool. The more creative part is more my own. I will send the band the album art and be like, which one do we like? So it's still collaborative, but I definitely kind of drove the creative theme. That's kind of my thing.
LUNA: Because you're also a cartoonist. You’ve created a zine for the EP as well, right?
JUDGE: Yes! It's like an eight-page zine and it's got some chords so you can play along like you're in the band. There are a couple funny drawings and cartoons about being in a band. It was cool because I've always wanted to make a zine, but there’s always been a mental block for some reason. This actually forced me to get something done for the first time.
LUNA: What was the inspiration for the zine?
JUDGE: A lot of graphic novels that I really enjoy are about bands, like Scott Pilgrim, obviously. My favorite kind of media to pick up is stuff about being in a band. I like songs about being in a band. I like art about being in a band. I loved the movie Frank, when I was like 14. I remember watching the Scott Pilgrim movie for the first time and being like, this is the best thing in the whole entire world.
LUNA: What developed first your musical skills or your cartoonist skills?
JUDGE: Cartooning, for sure. Before that I wanted to be an actor. I'm not any good at acting, but I went to an arts high school so I was doing art pretty seriously all throughout high school and then I went to college for like a year and a half for art, but I dropped out. I've always been such an avid music listener. It's always been so important to me. I would meet people in high school and make them a mix CD based on one song they told me they liked. I dropped out of college because I was spending more time taking photos at a music venue than I was spending going to painting class. I can't draw anything unless I'm listening to music, so they definitely go hand in hand. I'd say I didn't get good at music until post-college but I definitely have been extremely passionate about it.
LUNA: That kind of easily ties into the writing of the song “Easy.” Can you talk more about the concept around the song? I know it's about wondering if you're younger self would think this you is cool and good. Is that something that you think about often?
JUDGE: Um, I think so. I had gone through my old hard drive and I was looking at all these folders. I used to make fan music videos to like Katy Perry songs. I was making these jumpcut music videos on pop songs on YouTube. I was just looking at all these old videos of myself. I used to be really shy, like, so, so shy. The idea of getting up on stage would have been super mortifying to me. Even to this day, when people are asking me questions about music, it feels almost a little weird, because in my brain, I'm a cartoonist. I'm a quiet shy cartoonist. When did I hit my head and become a musician? I think about that a lot. If you had even talked to me six years ago, I feel like I would have been like, what the hell are you talking about? I think 12 year old me would be really stoked about this whole thing. I just got pushed off the deep end. If it hadn’t happened this way, I don’t know if I could have done it. I think I would have been too shy to jump out of my shell. But I'm glad it happened.
LUNA: I guess you kind of got to do it in a recluse way at the beginning. Weren’t you making music from your bedroom?
JUDGE: Yeah, exactly. I was making songs just for fun. It would be like oh, the songs don't fit for Gullet, so I'm going to make a new thing and it'll be called fanclubwallet. Then the pandemic hit. “Car Crash in G Major” came out. I was sick, in the hospital. I woke up one day, and I had like a million emails. It had a bunch of streams. I was like, “Oh my god, what the hell's going on?” There were all these comments on the YouTube video. People were DMing me on Instagram. Then all of a sudden, it's like we need you to do all these live streams on Twitch. That was kind of a push off the deep end, but I'm so glad it happened because I had the space to really figure it. I mean, like everyone was recluse at that time because of the pandemic.
LUNA: There was a physical barrier, for sure. You can still shut your laptop and be alone. That seems like the best possible scenario for someone that’s shy. Any dreams or manifestations for the future of fanclubwallet?
JUDGE: I would love to tour more. I want to go to Europe or Japan. I think that's my goal. For this year, I want to try to get some more touring done. It's my favorite thing to do. Also, put out another album, for sure. Keep on truckin or whatever.
LUNA: Are you doing anything fun for the release?
JUDGE: I'm actually playing a show for Nat's project. I'm playing bass in a Neurotypes show, so that'll be fun.
LUNA: Being part of another cool band, how fitting!
