Reid plays guitar in Night Idea. He also used to be in Eli York-Brown’s stepdad’s band, fixed Eli’s guitar for free once at his shop, gave Gaffer one of their first real venue shows at The Camel, and the time Eli went over to borrow some monitors, ended up just handing him a PA he’d picked up off Facebook Marketplace. “Coolest guy ever,” is how Gaffer put it. He’s also a quiet part of the reason a band like Gaffer exists at all.
Eli is 15. Drummer Henry Massa is 16, as are bassist Jo Vrbicek and guitarist William Cline. They’re signed to Ephyra, where they landed after Eli spent most of his school days inside Gmail. “I had been emailing around all day while I was at school, trying to get a response from any label, blog, or venue. Ephyra had posted that they were taking submissions and I thought it’d be worth a shot to send over some demos. We really liked a lot of the bands on their label, so we were really excited when they responded.”
Gaffer have been a band for about two years. Before Ephyra, before any of this, they were playing restaurants and backyards. The first show that felt like it mattered was a demo release at Greenfield Rec Center, their third show as a band and the first one they actually promoted.
Around a hundred kids showed up, and most of them already knew the words. Two other young Richmond bands, Helios and Horses to The Slaughter, were on the bill.
That demo was tracked at Moonwalker Studios with Russell Lacy for a few hundred bucks, on Pro Tools with the final mix run through tape.
The tape part wasn’t a budget decision. Eli is obsessed with the format. He wanted to track the whole thing to tape from the start. The compromise was the final master. It’s the kind of small detail that tells you whose record this actually is.
Wyświetl ten post na Instagramie
Slint, Title Fight, and the Richmond band Tarantula are the records that sat on top of the pile while the EP was coming together.
Further back, American Football, Cap’n Jazz, Thursday, and Embrace are the ones that shaped what emo meant to them in the first place.
The bands that made them want to be in a band, though, are a slightly different list. Modern Baseball, Marietta, and Cuni, a DC band Gaffer caught at Black Iris on August 16th. Eli’s mom drove them. They were actually there for Knope and didn’t know who Cuni was when they walked in. “They were really really good,” Eli says.
Wyświetl ten post na Instagramie
“Money” is out June 19th via Ephyra.
The song was written in one sitting, angry. “Money is really about selfish people, who prioritize things over your friendship,” Eli says. “In the song it’s money that they prioritize, but really it could be about anything.”
The band ran it at practice a few days later. The lyrics circle back to a particular kind of disappointment, the friends who turn out to be using you. “Losing friends sucks, and especially when you realize they are just using you, or don’t care about you.”
Richmond’s the kind of city where this band makes sense without much explanation. Eli’s uncles were all in Richmond bands. Henry’s dad was in tons of them. The four of them grew up around instruments and shows.
Most of Gaffer’s gigs they book themselves, the way Eli booked Ephyra, sending emails all day from school to spots like The Camel and Gallery5, usually splitting bills with other high school bands.
The crowd used to be mostly teenagers. It’s not anymore. “There are people from ages ten all the way up to people in their sixties,” Eli says.
Wyświetl ten post na Instagramie
When the band lists Richmond acts outsiders should be checking, the list opens with Tarantula, the rock band with Vlad and Harry that Gaffer describe as “sort of Foo Fighters-y, but way better than the Foo Fighters.” Then Action Patrol, the older punk band. Night Idea, Reid’s band, who play math rock. Knope makes the list too, the band Gaffer were at Black Iris to see the night Cuni took them by surprise.
Selling shirts at a show on a Saturday and seeing them in the hallway on Monday is one of the parts of being in Gaffer that keeps coming back up. “When we sold shirts at our last show, we went to school the next day and saw so many Gaffer shirts,” Eli says. “It was a really awesome feeling.”
“Money” is out June 19th via Ephyra.
🔔 IDIOTEQ is ad-free, independent, and runs on one person’s time. If you want it to stay that way: DONATE via PayPal 𝗈𝗋 SUPPORT via Patreon.
Stay connected via Newsletter · Instagram · Facebook · X (Twitter) · Threads · Bluesky · Messenger · WhatsApp.
