Last Updated on June 3, 2022 by Samantha Dalcourt
(Kingston, ON) – As summer ends, local rock duo “Enrights” set out to release their sophomore album, “As Long as it Makes Sense To You”. The goofy, old souled, two-man rock band comprised of Jack McAvoy and Andrew Wright discovered their unique sound amidst the pandemic. Having taken two years to record all 10 songs, the band originally hoped for a sound reminiscent of the 60’s and 70’s, but opted for a 90’s flair resembling Californian 90’s rock band, Blink 182!
“Take Off Your Pants and Jacket” is our favourite record of theirs. They have an undeniable energy, and even though our lyrics aren’t quite as goofy as Blink, we take queues from them by not taking ourselves too seriously!” McAvoy admitted in an interview with a YGK News Staff.
Despite bringing listeners back to adolescent years of car cruising, melody belting, and shenanigans, their songs heavily reflect that of a Canadian, which has been growing musical appreciation since the revival of inspirational North American musicians like Gord Downie, The late lead singer of The Tragically Hip.
When asked about their musical influences in an interview Jack and Andrew expressed, “our musical influences range from Sloan, to Blue Rodeo, to The Dirty Nil and many more. We love Canadian music for sure and tend to listen to a lot of Canadian rock bands. We have an appreciation for music both old and new and hopefully that is reflected in our songs.”
Sophomore Album Cover Art and Track List
The band promises “plenty of references to Canadian landmarks, as well as Canadian bands on the full length. One of the songs digs into some Arkell’s deep cuts.” Said the Jack and Andrew in an interview with a YGK News Staff.
Tracks from previous records like ‘Johnson St’ speak about loss attributed to relational heartbreak, and the track itself is titled a popular student residential street close to Queen’s, Kingston’s main post-secondary institution. “This is about getting broken up with and drowning your sorrows at the local burger joint.” Said the duo in an interview with a YGK News Staff.
“Two Birds,” the band’s first single, and second track on the album makes reference to Canadian television classic, “Trailer Park Boys.” Lyrics such as, “two birds stoned a once,” is a point to one of the many misinformed analogies the lead character, “Ricky” makes throughout the series, also known as “Rickyisms.”
When asked about the meaning behind the track McAvoy and Wright noted that, “The Two Birds title was inspired by an old friend of mine (Andrew), whose parents had a sign out front of their house that read “Two old birds live here.” Two Birds stoned at once could mean that these two people in a relationship are drained and tired (or look stoned). The song was heavily inspired by one of our friend’s break ups two years ago with the lyrics workshopped.”
“Two Birds” Music Video
It doesn’t stop there, a reference to Mac DeMarco’s ‘Salad Days’ record is in the second verse. Demarco is another beloved long-standing Canadian-singer songwriter and rocker. “Just like Still Worth Talking About, (track we wanted this song to sound like it could be about a romantic relationship or our band).” Said the band in an interview with a YGK News Staff.
“The first album was very hopeful, full of excitement and the want to push through things. In this album, we wanted to turn the perspective to dealing with relationships falling apart and the feeling of becoming numb to the world. Lots of our friends were going through breakups in 2019 when we started writing this record and we were experiencing a lot of changes in our lives before the pandemic hit. We channeled a lot of frustrations that were going on around us whether it be with friends or work into this record.” Said the band in an interview with a YGK news staff member.
Track three, “The Witch of Skeleton Park,” references Kingston, Ontario’s, “Skeleton Park”. It depicts the emotional turmoil and tribulation associated with mental health and in the case of the Witch, depression and anxiety. The protagonist of the song is likened to a Witch of a haunted park in Kingston, which happens to be a metaphor for the stigma surrounding mental health, and people combatting mental illness.
‘The Witch of Skeleton Park’s’ cover was drawn by close friend “Lauren Spelmer, a consistent graphic artist for Enright releases. Spelmer is a graduate of the fine arts program at Queen’s University. “We feel the lyrics in The Witch of Skeleton Park are great at painting a picture and really wanted to express that, hence the struggling student and room in disarray.” Said the band in an interview with a YGK news staff.
How It Started
Previously released Ep, “Six Pack” is titled to represent how the band originated, “We like to say that a six pack of beer brought us together, the beer was a gateway to opening up about our feelings so we could make some honest music together.” said the band in an interview with a YGK news staff.
By the end of 2016, Jack and Andrew, having known each other since high school (In Belleville), began discussing the possibility of recording music together for the first time. Both being Queen’s alumni, reading week came along and they had access to a studio at the institution for the week.
“Since we had never written together before and hadn’t spent all that much time together,” the band said.
“‘Six Pack is a collection of songs we recorded in 2017 that included two songs from our first EP as well as four new ones. At the time, we had just gotten selected to open for The Trews at the Alehouse in Kingston and we wanted to have some new material out to promote.” Six pack was the resulting EP.
“We still play the song Johnson St from this batch of songs regularly, which is about getting broken up with and drowning your sorrows at the local burger joint.” Said the duo in an interview.
The Past; Meet the Present
Jack and Andrew bring the past and present together seamlessly. The “Still Worth Talking About” music video takes footage from silent films of the early 20th century, and cleverly aligns the song, the track’s title, in juxtaposition with these images. “The Witch of Skeleton Park” takes listeners and watchers back to the early 2000’s, and the video for, “Two Birds” is set similar to a late 80’s-early 90’s infomercial. Although aesthetically vintage, they touch on very modern topics such as mental health.
An Interview With The Band
[Photographed by] Trevor Black.” Wrote the band in a Facebook post.
- Q: How did you come up with the name of the band?
A: We hate coming up with band names, it’s always something that we struggle with. Enright’s was our favourite name that we came up with that we weren’t embarrassed to say out loud. - Q: What roles do you play as a team and individually?
A: We have had a slew of different musicians play with us live over the years, however in the studio we record as a two piece. Generally we (Jack and Andrew) bring demos to each other of songs we are working on and once the other gives approval of a demo we will begin workshopping it by changing lyrics and music and writing a rhythm section for it. From there Andrew will record drums and bass, then both of us will record guitar and vocals for the rest of the song! - Q: If you were to describe your band in three words, what would they be?
A: To describe our sound in three words I would say honest, fun, and loud. Our songs are always about personal experiences whether they happened directly to us or our friends/people we know. We hope that when digging through our catalog, listeners can find a song they can connect with, whether it’s the personal lyrics or high energy music. - Q: I noticed your creative pull toward artwork, and then sometimes photography for single releases. How do you decide which single gets an image vs. an emblem or graphic? The artwork for “Two Birds” drastically differs from the graphic for “The Witch At Skeleton Park.” How much thought goes into deciding a singles ‘look’?
A: We are huge fans of albums with photography of the band on the cover (Rolling Stones, Arkells, Sloan, etc.) and will generally use these if we don’t have any great ideas for art. We feel the lyrics in The Witch of Skeleton Park are great at painting a picture and really wanted to express that, hence the struggling student and room in disarray. Our good friend Lauren Spelmer has been doing art for our releases since The Witch of Skeleton Park, she is a graduate of the fine arts program at Queens University. The art for Two Birds is meant to be a relatively simple design in contrast to the full vividness of Witch of Skeleton, we took some influence from a Vance Joy album cover, and used colours from a tattoo of birds that our guitar player Andrew has.
- Q: What have been some of your most memorable moments while performing?
A: We always have a blast at The Mansion in Kingston, we have never had a bad time there. Opening up for The Trews at the Ale House was an absolute highlight, as well as opening for Sam Roberts Band at Queens Homecoming in 2018. Both of them have been huge influences for us since we were kids. As far as a memorable moment – when opening for Theory of a Deadman at the Ale House, Jack’s amp gave out during our first song, which caused a silent mini panic within the band onstage but we pushed through without reacting to it and it miraculously came back on during the second song.
- Q: Tell me a bit about track 1, “So Often” and the line, “I lose a piece of myself when I give in to you.”
A: Still Worth Talking About was written in the summer of 2019. It’s about those friends of yours who should probably break up but never do. We don’t have many one line choruses and this song is the first one we did. It’s super simple and straight to the point and the lyrics paint a picture of a couple who is trying to one up the other one by testing each other’s limits more and more. This song was inspired by 90s rock bands for sure musically and by personal experiences lyrically.
So Often is about losing touch with a good friend and accumulating anxiety and doubt about your relationship when there’s probably nothing actually wrong. This is something I know a lot of people have gone through with this pandemic over the last year and a half. There are a lot of lines about doubting your relationship “you’ve changed maybe you’ve grown up man” and going back again to feeling like you’re in the loop and understand them “but I know you”.
The line “I lose a piece of myself when I give it to you” refers to losing touch with a friend and feeling like you’ve lost a part of yourself when they are gone.
- Q: You mentioned tracks 1, 2, 5, and 6 being your favourite tracks on the record. Why so?
A: So Often, Two Birds, Motivated, and Still Worth Talking About have the most energy as well as vivid lyrics. They also don’t sound like anything else we’ve done before! If we had to chop this album down to a 4 track EP these would probably be the ones.
- Q:What is the meaning behind your title, “Zaddies”? You mention your followers as, “kiddies” or your children. How did these titles for both yourself and your fans come about? Why dads/parents?
A: Hahahahahaha. When we started Enrights, the two of us had never written music together and found it kind of awkward for the first little bit. We decided to buy some beers to get over our jitters, specifically light beer which we refer to as ‘dad beer’. Our original merch had the line ‘Enrights – the dad beers band’ on it. Anything beyond that is just a devolution of our poor choice of words that have stuck with us over the years.
- Q: Can you tell me a bit about making the record?
A: We started writing for our second album in spring of 2019, at this time we were planning on an album heavily influenced by 60s and 70s rock however we had a hard time writing lyrics to the music and tossed out most of the songs. In the late summer of 2019 we wrote most of the songs that are on the album with a bit more 90s and current rock music tinges to it and we feel like we have come into our own sound on this record. We recorded most of the music throughout 2020 sporadically when the lockdown restrictions were lifted. It’s taken us about two years to do this album from start to finish!`
- Q: Finally, if you were to pair your music with a food or beverage, what would it be?
A: Lil Caesar’s pizza and so many friends IPA from prince eddy’s
According to their Facebook page, these “twenty-something-year-olds” can be found amping up 507 Princess Street, a Kingston City Parking Lot. Enright’s also enjoy hanging out with friends, and “watching garbage Netflix reality shows”. “Too hot to handle,” is a favourite for these talented musicians.
Listeners can connect with the band “by reaching out to [them] on social media! We are on Facebook and Instagram and are avid emailers. If you have a question or inquiry we would love to hear it.”
If you’re hooked like we are, more information on the duo is available, here. Don’t forget to pre-order/download, “As Long as it Makes Sense to You” on Spotify and Itunes on August 27th, 2021.
Photographs by Trevor Black.
