Alex Edkins Dreams Up New Melodies As Weird Nightmare
The ex-METZ songwriter gets hooked on hooks without losing his edge on Hoopla.
By Neil Jefferies
Photos by Colin Medley
- Published on
Transport back to the early 2000s and Edkins was a record store employee in Ottawa, endlessly spinning rock and pop hits from the ’60s through the ’90s, confirming that much of what he found in his parents’ record collection growing up still had the juice. “My first love in music was like super sugary melodies and pop sensibilities,” Edkins tells RANGE.
Edkins found solace in guitar pop and to-the-point songwriting. “Like the old Tom Petty line, ‘Don’t bore us, get to the chorus,’” he says, referencing the late songwriter’s motto during his era with the Heartbreakers — an ethos Petty largely lived up to. And like Edkins’ own songwriting, past and present, there was always a restlessness beneath the surface.
As Weird Nightmare, Edkins embraces his inclination toward warmth rather than darkness. “With dissonant, aggressive music, the vibe of the music often dictates what the subject matter is going to be. That’s just the way it is,” he says. “The lyrics have to jive with the sound.”
Edkins has a long history of writing music that is vexed and frenzied, and while he’s more than capable of that mode, it isn’t representative of his instinctive state. “It feels more natural to be making this music than it is to make hyper aggressive music like I was.”
The move away from abrasion feels seamless. As Edkins settles back into life in Ottawa after 20 years in Toronto, Weird Nightmare signals a kind of earned maturity, shifting away from youthful anger toward a refined joie de vivre. “I fell in love with punk rock and hardcore. Now I get so much out of this style of writing.”
It’s a style Edkins has been sharpening for some time. Over the years, the angrier edges of early METZ releases began to give way to more polished lyrics, focused on reflection rather than heat-of-the-moment intensity. “That was becoming difficult for me because it was something that just didn’t feel as natural.” As the METZ discography expanded, signs of that shift were already emerging. “On Strange Peace with Metz I started writing completely different lyrics. They were like love songs if you will.”
The result is a record that walks with intention and ease. Hoopla is a collection of lo-fi power-pop jangles that intersect the timelines of The Replacements and modern indie pop acts like Alvvays. These songs are littered with earworms, hooks, and an infectious sense of optimism.
“The essence of this record in general is just, it feels good. It felt good to make, to write, to record. I wanted it to put a smile on people’s face,” he says.
Edkins’ music has always been optimistic. The shift with Weird Nightmare lies more in how that optimism is expressed. “I’ve always thought of punk rock and heavy music as deeply optimistic and positive. I thought of Metz shows as a beautiful thing where everyone in the crowd was smiling. Punk math is saying no a thousand times equals a huge yes.”
Conversely, Weird Nightmare’s optimism is rooted in discovery. Guiding listeners from local watering holes to busy Toronto streets to an ever-changing sense of “home,” Edkins reveals a curiosity about everyday life, embracing the dousing, the soaking, the burn. The product is an album that carries honesty and vulnerability as effortlessly as it follows a melody.
“Every record I make I feel more comfortable with being really truthful and don’t feel the need to hide behind flowery language. I’ve written enough songs that were opaque and tough to get through. That was probably me being a little shy, so the more you do this, the more you start to realize that the types of songs that resonate are the songs that can hit a nerve. It’s not that I’m attempting to write to a wider audience or write something that’s more universal, I just think that happens more naturally as you get better at writing.”
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