Nymph-o-manic

>>The Nymphets pop their punk in record time

When people ask us what kind of music we play, I just say, ‘Punk rock,’” offers Johanna Heldebro, drummer of Montreal’s the Nymphets. “We don’t really think about what kind of band we want to be too much. We just want to write fun pop songs.

True, the words “fun” and “pop,” especially deployed together, may well bring bile to the back of the throat, but the Nymphets take influences from an era when “pop punk” wasn’t such a dirty word. Having evidently learned well from the Undertones and Buzzcocks while taking a page out of the Ramones rulebook, the Nymphets’ songs barely scale the two-minute mark and prove to be catchy as hell. The stacked metallic guitars are forgone for downstroked twang, while their threechord blasts are rife with a naiveté that would make even Jonathan Richman and his Modern Lovers blush crimson.

“I guess we’re too aggressive for a lot of the indie-rock kind of audiences, and we’re not aggressive enough for a lot of the punk rock audiences. I think that has kind of worked out for us, though. There is room for all kinds of bands in Montreal, and people are really into supporting bands that aren’t easy to pigeonhole here.”

The Nymphets started innocently enough three years ago, when Heldebro decided to take up drums after seeing a particularly stirring performance by Sweden’s Sahara Hotnights. Having been friends before they started the band, Heldebro joined forces with Jared Leon, who had previously played guitar but, like Heldebro, had never been in a band before. After a short spell in the rehearsal space and Jared’s brother Ben added on bass, the Nymphets quickly booked themselves at the Barfly. “We only had two weeks to get a set together for that show, so that really made us work hard. I can guarantee you, we were probably not very good, but I remember that people like Ted [Minette, Jerk Appeal singer] were there, and he was really encouraging, so that really helped a lot.”

With the Nymphets definitely paying their dues, playing the local watering holes since their Barfly debut, they managed to skip a couple of rungs on the local-band ladder this past summer when they packed up and toured Europe, playing 20 shows in 25 days. Not really too shocking these days, when you think about how hard crossing the hermetically-sealed U.S. border is, with increasingly stringent immigration laws and work visas like the P2 priced out of reach. At home in Canada, things are only marginally better for a young band without an established fan base and little money to pour into the gas tanks to support the long drives. Many European cities, on the other hand, boast far more enthusiastic audiences, shorter drives and government-funded arts programs that pay and feed touring bands.

“Touring Europe was just so much fun. It was hard in the U.K., but most other places they would make sure you are fed and just treat you really well. That really makes a big difference for a band like us.”.