"We're not going to be a press band," Fcukers bassist-keyboardist-producer Jackson Walker Lewis tells me over Zoom.
The NYC trio of Lewis, singer Shanny Wise and drummer Ben Scharf have exploded since their formation in 2022 — but they've remained relatively private for a band who have been getting so much hype.
"If a band's omnipresent online or you know too much about them, it makes the music less exciting and a live show less exciting when you see it. [We want to] keep some of that mystique going." Scharf says. Sure, you can rinse their songs on your headphones — according to Apple Music, I have listened to "Mothers" 82 times in April alone — but nothing beats the live shows, where the band replicate the volatile, crackling energy of a house party. That's the main draw of the band, appealing to people who "wanted to freaking party," as Lewis puts it.
"The stakes were so low because we had all been in other bands," Lewis says. "We were coming at it from a point [where] we're super jaded with the music industry."
In 2022, Wise, who had been signed to a label since she was 17, had recently quit the singer-songwriter duo for which she was both lead singer and bassist. Meanwhile, Lewis and Scharf had both had just about enough of their college band. "We were playing in a band for five years before this, and then we both quit the band at the same time," Scharf says.
After that, "Jackson found me on the side of the street. He said, 'Hey,'" Shanny recalls, before clarifying that a mutual friend introduced her to Lewis.
It was during this transitional period that the downtown New York scene blew up with "the Dare and all that hype shit", though Lewis is keen to note that it wasn't their friend group that was getting all the attention. "We were in a different downtown scene, the one that had been there but wasn't getting press. It was local; none of us were trying to do more. I remember Shanny and I were like, 'Dog, our friend group should have a band.'"
There wasn't any expectation that Fcukers would amount to anything — they just wanted to put out a couple of tracks and play a show for their friends. Not putting too much thought into it, they adopted the name Fcukers. Lewis explains, "I loved it because it's a curse word, but you change the spelling so you can put it on stuff and it's not quite the curse word. I thought that epitomized what the vibe was."
They spent their first six months as a band messing around, before DJ and producer Ivan Berko reached out, knowing that Lewis was working on something new. "You're actually getting bonus points because our co-producer — we're at his house right now," Lewis says before Wise points her phone screen to where Berko is sitting on the floor some ways away. We wave at each other over Zoom as Lewis launches into how he and Berko met.
"He DM'ed me and he was like, 'I'll mix your track for fifty bucks.'" Lewis recounts.
"$75!" Berko exclaims, interjecting from the other side of the room.
Lewis corrects himself with a laugh: "$75. I had other people DM me and he was the cheapest." This was a fateful DM, as Berko's copped a production credit on every Fcukers release thus far. They cranked out "Mothers" and the Beck-inspired "Devils Cut" in time for their first show, pulling multiple all-nights confined in Berko's studio.
"We never had grand aspirations. The only time that I'd say I feel like it worked was the first show we played at Baby's [All Right]. Before that, it felt like just a concept." Lewis says. It wasn't until they played live that all three of them felt a palpable shift. "I think the difference between that from Jackson and my old project was people actually showing up to the gig." Scharf jokes.
For Wise, the Fcukers show was wildly different from the shows she was accustomed to. "I was used to playing with my old band, which was the indie, dreamy kind where I sing really soft and play the bass," she says. After her first show with Fcukers, Wise was surprised that she could have that much fun at a show. "I was dancing on stage. It was kind of just like a party. I was like, 'This is way more fun. The hell?'"
That show acted as a jumping-off point; the momentum was there, they just needed to take advantage of it. After their second show, Celine booked them to play a party during Paris Fashion Week. At first, Lewis was weirded out: "We wear baggy pants. We're the least Celine band of all time." In a stroke of shrewdness, they didn't book round-trip flights to Paris but instead decided to fly back from London, playing a couple of shows there before heading back to New York to amplified interest.
Over the last eight months, everything has accelerated. On top of their raucous shows in New York, they've played in Tokyo and Australia, as well as festival stages at South by Southwest and Governor's Ball. For Ben, the prospect of playing these stages, specifically at Osheaga where Fcukers are playing the official afterparty, is mind-boggling. "To be sincere for a second: I grew up in New England attending those festivals as a high schooler and dreaming of playing those stages — we're not playing Osh, but getting to play stages like that has always been a dream. Again, very grateful."
Their Toronto set at Standard Time is one of Fcukers' first properly on the road, not playing festivals or sneaking in sets on Celine's dime. Sandwiched between DJ sets from Kiki LeFreak and Thermal's Josh McIntyre (a.k.a. Prince Josh), this is the kind of show where years from now, you'll be able to say you were there "when."
"As someone who exists in both the dance music and the band world, Fcukers do a great job of blending the two genres together in a way that's both exciting and nostalgic. I'm always drawn to artists who aren't afraid to wear their influences on their sleeve," says McIntyre, who named "Bon Bon" the song of the summer on a recent episode of his Cold Pod. "People love to sing along to songs in a club setting, whether they want to admit it or not, and 'Bon Bon' is a great example of dance music with an infectious chorus."
Along with "Bon Bon" and the recently-released crowd favourite "Homie Don't Shake", Fcukers round out their debut EP with sexier, downtempo fare and a jaw-dropping beat drop on closer "Tommy." Without sacrificing the carefree attitude of their previous entries, what emerges is a well-rounded collection of songs: the cooler, slicker sounds of "Never Give Your Heart" and "I Don't Wanna" demonstrate their range, taking note from their influences like Groove Armada and the Chemical Brothers. "We wanted to surprise people," Lewis says.
"I feel like you guys have a lot of different interests," Berko chimes in from off-camera. "It's not like we just make house music — it's just music."
Throughout our conversation, I try to glean whether this new, heightened level of attention has applied pressure to what began as a low-stakes project, but Lewis affirms that their ethos hasn't really changed.
"We were in bands. We did the thing. And now we're just doing this for us and people are responding to it. The band's called Fcukers. It's, like, who cares?"