In the practical sense, this means that the latest sophomore release under Edkins’ solo project, Weird Nightmare, is peppered with well-read nods toward British invasion, first-wave punk, 70s fuzz-pop, and late-90s low-fi recording. This isn’t an overly surprising effort— from his early days working as a record store clerk while attending university in Ottawa, to the twelve years he spent as the kinetic frontman of noise-punk tooth-gnashers METZ, grinding ceaselessly across the globe from DIY Toronto basement gigs to packed-out festival stages, Edkins is savvy.
This is all to say that yes, Weird Nightmare’s Hoopla is as studied as one would expect from someone with Edkins’ background. During his METZ period, before the band’s amicable dissolution in 2024, Edkins dealt in sonic onslaughts, climbing on stage every night to orchestrate a total cacophony of shell-shocking right-fucking-now urgency that left no room for looking back. Now, Hoopla’s more forgiving edges evoke a sense of nostalgic archeology. Carefully handled by Edkins and co-producer Jim Eno of Spoon— It’s faded Polaroid music, ripped-speaker college radio station airwaves warming the memory of a summer evening in the back of your mind. The result is mature, optimistic, but reflective, as if Edkins is live-processing memories that were too fugitive in their arrival to parcel out while inside the insane machinery that is spending most of your adult life in a hardcore band.
The Westerberg-ian comparisons come easily; sincere-with-an-edge frontmen from up North who both parted ways with their hard-rocking former projects in order to pursue the perfect pop-rock hook. The difference is that Edkins, while speaking over the phone just before leaving for a short stint of shows across the US, is actually pleasant to talk to when he calls from his hometown of Ottawa, where he recently moved back after spending twenty years in Toronto.
Northern Transmissions: Coming from a punk background, there’s an immediate community behind you that gets what you’re doing, and you know how that world operates. When you started Weird Nightmare, what was it like making records that no longer aligned with that world? Was there a feeling of starting over?
Edkins: It is easier to feel more distance nowadays, and maybe that’s just coming from experience and my age. I still have an amazing community and social scene of musicians and friends who have been with me from the beginning. Through all the touring with METZ, that family has just grown and grown over the years. When I think of Weird Nightmare, it’s an extension of me, but it’s an extension of METZ too, that family, and that punk world that I’ve always sort of been a member of.
Northern Transmissions: Can you elaborate a little more on what you mean by “distance?”
Edkins: Distance probably isn’t the right word. That first record came from necessity, and necessity is more the term I would use for how I work in general. I felt compelled to create even though I felt, in a way, that I was being told not to. It’s just what I needed to do to feel normal. This is what I’ve been doing since my early twenties, it’s my therapy, it’s my rock, it’s my love. It felt really liberating to do something new and something that I hadn’t tried before. It came from this newfound confidence I had built as a songwriter.
I was really proud of that. I had enough confidence at that point in my life and in my career that I could dare to do something really uncomfortable, which is to just put your neck out and try something on your own. Ultimately, this record and the first record were just this wonderful feeling of not overthinking or asking anyone what they think; it’s a full-on expression of where I am as a person and as a musician at this moment in time.
Northern Transmissions: There aren’t a lot of records coming out recently that feel particularly hopeful, but Hoopla is this really bright, energetic, universal music. Was putting out an album this joyful a conscious choice?
Edkins: It (Hoopla) absolutely came from a place of joy. I’m an optimistic guy; a lot of people wouldn’t think so if they’d been listening to METZ records, maybe, but the world is frustrating, and METZ was a beautiful outlet for that frustration. However, I think of that punk idea of revolt as sort of joyously positive, and it’s a really healthy thing. On Hoopla, you can hear the joy in the chord progressions; it’s supposed to put a smile on your face, and I really hope it does that. I think it is a bit rare to hear a record right now that isn’t morose. I think I needed it, and so I made it. These songs are deadly serious, but they’re not pessimistic; they come from a place of hope.
Northern Transmissions: There’s a more personal atmosphere that’s come out in your songwriting with Weird Nightmare. Was that something you had to teach yourself to become comfortable with?
Edkins: I don’t expect anyone to hear this, but I think my writing was going in this direction slowly, over the years. On each METZ record, there are songs that are more melody-based than riff-based, and that was just something that was happening to me and my taste throughout my life. Now that I’ve been sort of free to do what I please, I was able to dive straight into that and explore what makes me happy and what is thrilling to me.
Hoopla wasn’t a laborious recording at all, but it was done while METZ was still a functioning band on tour. We were doing our last tour, and I had already finished this album. So it’s in no way a reaction to any of that stuff; the songs were all finished before then, but it’s very much tied in with trying to find a balance in life, and I was definitely not ready to go back on tour for a while, so it made the most sense to push back the release date until the sun came out, and I was ready to get back out there.
I am trying to stay in love with it and stay challenged, because being in a band for as long as I had been, I’m super proud of what we did and it blows my mind to think of what we accomplished while making pretty out-there music together, but in life you just cannot stay in the same lane forever and feel like you are fulfilled, and this is such a fulfilling record for me, I’m just deeply proud of it.
Northern Transmissions: At this point in your writing, is it more important to create friction or to be universal?
Edkins: I haven’t ever given too much thought to what other people might like, but I also think that musicians who say they don’t give it any thought at all are lying to you. That being said, I really do try to please myself first; that was always the case with METZ, and that’s what’s cool, ultimately, about being in a band is that you’re in a gang together and you have this consensus and shared vision, that’s a nice feeling to have. Going it alone is very different, and sometimes you do have moments of doubt. The key, for me, was just to work as fast as possible and not look back, to follow my instincts and my gut and not to think about the outside world too much. It also helped a lot to work with friends of mine who are so deeply talented; they helped bring a lot to the recording of the record.
Northern Transmissions: Being in a band can become this kind of marathon race you can’t see outside of when you’re in it, but now that you’ve had to step away and come back during COVID, and you’ve got a family now, how has it changed your relationship with touring?
Edkins: There’s always gonna be a pre- and post-COVID thing for musicians. It was shocking to everyone’s system. It was frightening that this thing that you thought was a constant could just disappear, and it was also eye-opening to my nervous system to realize how dependent I was on the high I got from performing, and that feeling of community that those shows brought. That being said, I don’t think anything has really impacted me as much as having a son and becoming a father; that’s the big one for me, that kind of flipped my whole brain around.
Being on the road now is much, much harder for so many reasons, even if we just talk about recent politics and the price of gas, just to be able to go do it feels almost luxuriant. It’s a privilege to get to go do it, and it gets harder and harder every time. The key to feeling present while I’m doing it is to know how lucky I am to go play shows for people. There’s a lot in it for me personally, just to feel the high of it.
The last song on the record, for example, is about this time when I was on tour with METZ in the UK, and I was missing home so much, thinking, what on earth am I doing here? And really feeling as if I must have made a bunch of bad decisions that led me there. It’s this constant push and pull, being a musician, for me, it always has been, and it’s becoming more so as I get older and my responsibilities change.
Northern Transmissions: Do you feel, ultimately, that you made the right decision?
Edkins: I never know! I think so— but all I can say is this: I am going on tour tomorrow. I have clearly come to some sort of internal balance, even if it’s a bit fragile; it’s there. I have the support of my wife and son; they get it. It’s not to say that I won’t have my doubts when I’m out there, but I’m super stoked to still be in a situation where playing shows is a possibility at all. At the end of the day, there’s always the awareness that this is a pretty weird thing to do with your time.
Order Hoopla by Weird Nightmare HERE