NEFFEX

PHOTOS BY MARLOWE TEICHMAN AND WORDS BY ADDIE WHELAN

When you meet at fifteen years old, there’s going to be an undeniable connection in your future. For NEFFEX (Bryce Savage and Cameron Wales), the gateway to music was creating a pop-punk band.

In an interview with Beyond The Stage, Savage shared, “I had two friends that were in the band. Cameron was in the band as well and that’s kind of how I got invited to come participate. When I came into the band, we kind of just hit it off as friends. After that, the band kind of broke up and we ended up just splitting off and doing our own thing.”

Influenced by 90s music, Savage and Wales created NEFFEX, a duo who defies genres and creates music how they want, instead of how they’re perceived. In just a one-year period, NEFFEX released 100 tracks over 100 weeks, all of which are available on streaming services.

“A lot of [releasing those 100 songs] was emphasizing our grind. I think a lot of it was kind of us fighting for getting the opportunity to do what we do now, so it was a lot more of fighting through our day jobs and just kind of motivating ourselves to just keep going even though things felt like they couldn’t. I’d say that was a big kicker in a lot of our stuff. And in all honesty, there are always a few girls we dated and that’s where a lot of inspiration came from,” said Wales.

Expanding on that idea, Savage shared, “You’ll hear it a lot of our earlier 100 songs in 100 weeks, like [Wales] said, we were grinding, we were in that apartment, so it’s very motivational. Once we kind of started graduating from that, we started songwriting more about what he said: girls we’ve dated or stories we’ve heard from friends, because it’s not always about us. Sometimes, especially with a hundred songs, you run out of things to write about and so you listen to other people, you watch a movie or something and it makes you feel some type of way and then you start writing about that-- it’s just a bunch of different influences.”

With that exploration, NEFFEX settled on a sound, which defies genres and has landed them mentions from major music publications like Billboard along with more than two million monthly listeners on Spotify.

“If you go through the hundred songs it bounces from pop to hip-hop to rock to punk to EDM. So we kind of describe it like Linkin Park; it’s like our own thing where it’s really hard to be like, ‘Oh like what was their genre?’ and [Linkin Park] said new metal and all sorts of things, but it was ‘They just kind of sound like them.’ That’s kind of what we’re going for and kind of what we like to do,” Savage shared.

Influenced by music from the 90s, NEFFEX claims their sound is influenced by Nirvana, Third Eye Blind, Blink-182, Good Charlotte and more, which has ultimately built into their latest release, an EP titled, Q203.

“[The recording process] was actually a lot. We honed in on a lot more because coming out of our apartment with those hundred songs, we used to record everything in there. Now with the EP, we took so much more time and I think we took about two or three months of writing, mixing and mastering instead of the one week. So, we honed in on the quality of it and getting it to where we really wanted and had time to work on it. It’s kind of the difference of probably just time. Just having more time to work on it was a big difference for us in quality,” Wales said.

He continued, “As an artist when you’re doing it all yourself as one sole person, it’s really hard because you can’t really escape from it too much. It was really nice having the process that we did where a lot of the producing and writing was on [Savage’s] side and I’d take care of the engineering. That way, [Savage] got a break for his ear and then he can freshly hear it and then we kind of improve upon the song which was nice instead of it being like, ‘I don’t even know if it sounds like a good song anymore.’ It was nice being able to pass it along and have refreshers and breaks. As we’re growing now, it’s nice that we’re working with other engineers. It makes us feel more creative and has us spending less time worrying about every little step of it.”

After days in the studio and building Q203, NEFFEX has ventured out into the world performing on a European tour earlier this year which has built a strong connection with their fans.

“We’re always trying to connect to our fans in any way possible. Texting, Instagram for sure and just anyone who’s willing to converse with us. We’re happy to hear their stories. Some people bring us letters. We love talking to people in person. A lot of times that’s such a better way for us to connect. We just try our best. On our tour we did like a two-hour meet-and-greet after every single show and met every single person that was willing to stay because that’s what it’s all about,” Savage said.

Wales added, “We get messages from fans all the time, which is such a good feeling. Especially things that we’ve helped get them through, things they’re grinding through, goals that they have and things that they’re trying to get out of.”

Before seeing NEFFEX live, Savage and Wales shared that fans can expect tons of energy at their shows, screaming lyrics and that if fans are excited, they’ll be excited in return. Now that their European tour is complete, with more shows on the horizon, NEFFEX shared with Beyond The Stage plans for a United States tour, along with a festival in Germany. And if you thought their plans for releasing more music were on hold, NEFFEX has an album coming out later this year.

In closing, Wales said, “Work hard, play hard, that’s an overall emphasis of everything we do.” And we can’t wait to see what they work towards next.