Audio By Carbonatix
From neck to crown, Jeph, Tom, and Hannah
Thorslund are just a little too attractive to pass the Pretty Faces
moniker off without explanation. Adorable married couple Jeph and
Hannah add to the “Hey, look at us — we’re pretty!” quotient by wearing
snug-fitting trousers and attention-grabbing accessories such as scarves
and sailor hats. Is it vanity or hopefully something more clever?
“Our fashion is a little gratuitous,” 22-year-old bassist Hannah
admits, “and our name weeds out a lot of people. But people who know
punk automatically get it.”
Yes, there is a touch of deliberate vanity, according to guitarist
Jeph, 26, but it’s more about projecting glam-rock audacity than rubbing
in their good looks. “People either think that I’m fruity,” he adds,
“or that I’m Iggy Pop.”
Jeph and his 22-year-old brother, Tom, the band’s drummer, chose the
name long before petite frontwoman Hannah’s widely acknowledged hotness
ever made it redundant. In fact, the brothers, who relocated from Canada
to Coral
Springs with their family in 2003, recorded an album called Lipstick
Kiss under the name as teenagers. A few years later, Hannah, who
was playing solo acoustic gigs in Waterloo,
Ontario,
since she was 16, came down to cement her budding long-distance romance
with Jeph and joined the band.
In actuality, the name Pretty Faces originates from “Your Pretty Face
Is Going to Hell” by influential protopunks the Stooges.
“It’s really about a combination of blood, violence, and vanity,” Jeph
explains.
Before Jeph exposed her to the sounds of punk’s ’60s origins, Hannah
was not quite the tigress that she is today. “Jeph brought it out in
me,” she says. “I don’t feel like I’ve changed. I was always bored by
long intros and wanted to change the notes faster and faster. Now I ask
Jeph, ‘Why can’t you scream like Frank
Black?’ “
Until last December, the Pretty Faces performed on local stages month
in and month out. In November, they released their second album, Another
Sound, at Propaganda and then went on a ten-date tour that took
them to New York, Boston, and Toronto. A long and much-needed break
followed.
“By the time Another Sound came out,” Tom says, “we were so
sick of these songs, and they were at least 2 years old.”
Another Sound is for the most part softer than the influences
that the Pretty Faces claim. Tracks like “Right on the Money” and “Sweet
Sixteen” are straightforward love songs with catchy lyrics and pop
appeal, but the last two tracks, “Pistolera” and “Sinking Ship,” strike a
much harder chord.
Hannah describes the songs that they’re now writing as “more
picturesque and a little angrier” than their previous sound, and at
least a couple should figure into what could be the last local
performance for a while.
The Pretty Faces plan to move to San Francisco at the end of the
summer, but don’t worry: They promise to come back to visit. As Jeph
puts it: “We’ve put a lot of blood down here, and we still have family
here.”
— Courtney Hambright
The Pretty Faces, with Blond Fuzz (formerly Stonefox) and the
Clementines. 8 p.m. Friday, July 16, at Propaganda, 6 S. J St., Lake
Worth. Tickets cost $5. Call 561-547-7273, or click here.
