History

HEFE is the most current incarnation of Rock that I first started around four years ago. I had just gotten my first real job after my Masters and decided to put together a rock band. I recruited Simon Warby on drums and Ed Chan on guitar from the lab that I was working in. For a short time my friend Steven Flynn was also in our motley crew playing bass. Our first practises were in the auditorium at the CMMT, the research centre that I worked in. Simon was the only one that had played in a rock band, but he had never played drums before.

Steven soon got wrapped up in his new business and dropped out of the band a couple months later before it really got anywhere. Andy Shin, who was a friend of Simons, was then recruited for guitar and Ed switched over to bass. Once Andy came in, everyone in the band was a scientist, which amazed some of the rockers we ran into. Down at First Wave Music, the rehearsal space we adopted, we became known as the scientist band by some of the regulars.

So we jammed over at First Wave Music for awhile, got some songs together, then I started talking about doing a show. Not everyone was keen on the idea, but I’m all about the show, so i finally bullied them into acceptance. But before we could do a show we had to come up with a name. Coming up with a band name is a pain in the posterior. We threw out names to each other for months while we rocked out and drank beers. We were all about ready to give up when Simon came up with the name “1000 problems of style”, which happened to be the title of a chapter in one of those “how to write” books. We actually did our first public performance under that name for The Carl Fatman show. Which was a little show and party that Super (aka Carl Fatman) put on. That’s actually where I ran into Cameron Dilworth and it was the first time I saw the Neins (first incarnation of Neins Circa). Cameron and I soon became best buds after that and he introduced me to alot of cool people in the city.

Soon after the Carl Fatman appearance we did our first major show at the Marine Club with Roadbed and Virgin in Hollywood (Adrian was in this band at the time and i have to find the exact date). It was also a send off for Ed since he was leaving for a post-doc in England soon after. As a tribute I ripped off my shirt and underneath was a white T with “I (drawn heart) Ed” in crayola marker. It was a fun night.

Jan was in the audience that night, and he soon came in on bass to fill the void that Ed left; of course no one could replace Ed, he was just too cool. Jan proved to be a good fit and a good trash talker, so we kept rockin’ at First Wave until our next show at Pat’s Pub on April 9, 2004. That show was a big headache for me. To make a long story short, we got ripped off by the pubs promoter.

After the show things quieted down for a bit. Jan getting into a car accident and being out of commission for a couple months didn't help either. In March 2005 Simon hung up his sticks (see salute here). It was sad to see him go, he was a big part of the band and a big influence on the music, i always counted on him to keep me from getting too “out there”. Once Simon left we were scrambling for a new drummer. I posted an ad in the Georgia Straight and we lucked out in getting Rich. Rich has a lot of musical experience and played in Hissy Fit and Wretched Ethyl and I think some other bands as well. But he's a family man now, so no more tour vans, and that's fine by me.

With Rich on board the band took a new direction. We re-vamped some of the old standards and started getting excited about performing. So we decided on a name change to go with the change in feel everyone felt. I was kinda dreading the months of throwing out name ideas, but HEFE kinda just got in rather painlessly after a regular trash-talking session during practise.

Then we rocked well, until Andy, one of the founding rockers, went to do a post-doc in a far away land.
it was very sad. he is missed...

but we got Steve now so we're good to go!

So that pretty much brings us up to date...
Just for the record, we prefer the Spanish interpretation of HEFE, which means “boss” (i know it's actually spelt jefe in Spanish). However, the German interpretation that means “with yeast” is probably also somewhat appropriate.

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