Canadian rock duo The Manic Boys and Girls Club consists of co-fronts and siblings Bela and Fernando Ferreira, whose haunting music is a mix of her vocals and his harmony blended with synth, guitar, and undertones of rock and pop. Their personal, introspective lyrics are informed by the pair’s upbringing as strict Catholics in rural Portugal. “The Manic Boys and Girls Club is more than a band,” they explain. “It is an escape from the submissive existence that was reality, an escape from the disposable music packaged for the masses, and an escape for any misfit looking to join the club.”
“We’ll Be Fine” the latest single from their acclaimed self-titled EP, the collection of five songs recounts the two loners’ experiences touring in a van, as well as interpersonal relationships. “Every song starts with a lyric and a melody,” they say. “No matter how it is produced, every one of our songs can be a lullaby.”
But they did lose some sleep perfecting “We’ll Be Fine.” There are songs that “come together super-fast and you know exactly what you hear in your head; this was not the case for ‘We’ll Be Fine.’ I think,” offers Fernando, “because it has always been a pretty important song to us, since the first demos or voice memo versions of its existence. So… we explored and spent many hours messing around with guitar tones and ambient soundscapes, we rearranged and made rewrite after rewrite a lot before mixing. Bela wanted to go back into the studio and re-do some vocals. Gavin Brown (who was producing and mixing) was very much against the idea. So, we did the obvious appropriate thing: We waited till he was away for a weekend, booked the studio and engineer, and, on our own, did it anyway!”
Forget about the life we left behind
Forget about the drugs that kept us high
We were born for so much more
Our time is now
Forget about the books we never read
Forget about the words we could have said
We were born for so much more
Our time is now
The inspiration behind the song is just personal experience, says Fernando. “I don’t think either of us is really able to give life advice to anyone… but the idea is to have hope in the future. It’s like, ‘Yeah, we’ve made mistakes,’ but all we can do is live in the present, look forward, and not have our future affected by whatever regret, or past, is weighing us down.”
