By Jim Barber
As a way to give fans a cool new gift, as well as raising some needed funds for a worthy cause, the four-piece Canadian rock band, Envy of None, which features legendary Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson, his longtime buddy, Andy Curran, best known for his continuing tenure with rockers Coney Hatch and his own solo music, alongside veteran musician/producer/music professor Alfio Annibalini and talented American singer/songwriter Maiah Wynne, have released a special three-song, 12-inch ‘single’ called ‘The Thrill.’
‘The Thrill’ features three versions of the song ‘Thrill of the Chase’ which originally appeared on Envy of None’s second studio album, Stygian Wavz, released earlier this year. There is an alternate version of the album track, the original version and a demo. Also, a new video was created for the release, with all proceeds from sales of the 12-inch coloured vinyl being donated to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, following up the band’s previous donation to the UNHCR’s work in Ukraine.
“I think we really loved this song right from the beginning and wanted to have a music video for it and kind of give it its own time in the spotlight. And with the first record, [a self-titled album, released in 2022] we did a fundraiser for UNCHR and it went really well; they’ve been such an amazing organization. They’ve kept us updated with where the funds have gone and all the amazing work they’ve been doing. So, we really wanted to do that again, and so it just kind of worked out that, well we could release the music video we’ve always wanted to do, release a couple of alternate versions of the song and also support this great organization again. And I’m happy we did it, and happy that it all kind of worked out as it did,” said Wynne from her home in Santa Rosa, California.
“We chose them for the fundraiser with the first record because they were helping Ukraine, and they specifically help refugees. They help bring aid and food and support resources. And it’s not just for Ukraine, they work with refugees all around the world. It’s an amazing organization, and they’re doing all the hard work in some really terrible situations. With the first fundraiser, I think we were able to raise around $100,000, which is really amazing. I hope we’re able to do something similar this time. And, like I said, they’ve just been really communicative, giving us lots of updates, which I don’t see happening with a lot of other organizations out there. You kind of donate and just hope it does them good. UNHCR has been really transparent, and it’s been really amazing working with them, and seeing how they can help people.
“For the first record, we know that most of the money went to Ukraine, mostly because it was a very high priority at the time. I’m not sure if we have any influence over where the money goes, but we know that they have experts in the field who delegate where it’s needed most at the moment. I know we were very hopeful that it was going to Ukraine, because that was kind of the idea that sparked it in the first place. But, honestly, if it’s going to help people, that’s really the most important thing. I do understand that Canada is really close to Ukraine, and I remember talking to Alex very specifically about that, and he was feeling a very personal connection to that struggle because of his own family coming over from that part of the world, and just really wanting to do something about it.”
A singer/songwriter in her own right, with a pedigree of acclaimed, well-received original music that is nothing short of impressive, Wynne speaks with authority on the power of music to transform hearts and minds.
“There’s so much to be said about that. I think music, especially, is important in dark times. I think music and laughter are two of the most powerful things in times of despair. Music is healing on so many levels. It’s a way to process emotions. It’s a way to connect with community. It’s a way to build hope. It’s a way to fight against things that are hurting you and hurting those around you. It’s such a powerful thing,” she said.
“For me, in my life, it has been a huge part of my journey and healing. It has saved me in many ways. It’s a part of my mental health practice, and it has been since I was 14 years old. Before I could really even articulate my feelings, I was writing songs about it. That helps me through some of the hardest things that I’ve been through. I think most musicians have that same experience where it’s like when you don’t have the words and you don’t have the ability to process something, music can be a way to do that. I really hope that people lean on music in these times. I know I have been. It’s been such a powerful thing for so many of us.”
As she just mentioned, Wynne has been creating music since she was in her teens, taking what was a passion and form of self-love and self-care into a compelling and important career as a musician, singer/songwriter.
“I’ve always loved music in a way that I can’t even put into words. I was around 15 years old, I think, when I started to play shows for the first time. Then I started playing in coffee shops when I was 16. I left home and went to Montana. I was going through a really difficult time in my life, and I was really leaning on music emotionally. I then started focusing on the idea of this future that I wanted, this career that I wanted. It was, in a way, an escape from the difficult things I was going through. I think I just started to put everything into that, this dream and this hope that I could make a career out of this and ignore everything else that was going wrong for a while. I think that’s part of why I became so dedicated to it because it was this beacon of hope in all of that. I just continued with it. I started playing shows back then and haven’t really stopped since,” she said.
“When I started, aside from Avril Lavigne, Norah Jones was my first big vocal influence. I really wanted to sound like her. The same with Florence Welch from Florence and the Machine, and just her haunting and dark, brooding music. It would send shivers down my spine. I was like, ‘I want to do that. I want to sound like that.’ But also, there was Thom Yorke [from Radiohead] and I also listened to a lot of indie, folk, singer/songwriter stuff. There’s a band called Astronaut Husband, although I guess it’s just one guy, but it’s kind of more underground stuff. I also started to get into Ben Harper. I always forget, as soon as people ask me this question, who do I listen to? It just all goes out of my brain, but there are so many incredible artists that I listen to, and a pretty wide variety too.”
The interview was conducted over Zoom, and the intrepid, highly observant music journalist conducting the chat noticed a banjo hanging alongside other stringed instruments on the wall behind Wynne as she spoke from her home mini-studio. Where did this piece of trad-folk instrumentation come from and how did the banjo enter her musical purview?
“When I moved to Montana for about a year, I lived with my grandparents and my grandpa was a bluegrass musician. He played banjo and mandolin. I had started to teach myself both of those instruments at that point. And in Montana, there’s lots of bluegrass, a lot of bluegrass and folk music. And that definitely influenced me a lot for the few years that I lived there. And, you know, your environment shapes you so much, so getting to be around that, especially growing up and visiting my grandpa and hearing him play, influenced me a lot as well.”
When fans of Lifeson [millions of Rush nerds around the world!!] heard he was working on a side project, and that one of the main co-conspirators on the project was Curran, himself a veteran of the Canadian music scene, both as a musician [Coney Hatch, solo band] as but also as a music industry executive, first with Anthem, Rush’s label/management company, and more recently with Ole Music, the publishing conglomerate that now manages Rush’s catalogue among loads of other music catalogues – folks got excited. Then the X-factor came. Who was this young, female, singer/songwriter working alongside these two grizzled old veterans, three if you consider the fact that Annibalini has also been on the scene for decades? Those following closely over Envy Of None’s first two records already know the answer, but for the uninitiated, it’s a story of serendipity and creative substantiveness that saw a 26-year-old California resident begin making treks to the great white north to make some pretty cool music.
“A lot of it was luck. Around that time, 2017, 2018, 2019, I was entering a lot of contests. I didn’t have a lot of music connections. So, it just entered these various song contests I found on Google. If they didn’t cost a lot to enter, I would enter them. And for a few of them, I did pretty well and even won some. One of my prizes for one of them was a Zoom call with Andy Curran. At the time I had looked him up and it said he was an A&R guy at this big record label. And I was like, okay, cool. He’s an industry guy, and I’m going to ask him a lot of questions. I was super naïve and didn’t really know a lot about him at that point, but he was giving me some really great advice. He told me to do more collaborations, and he had mentioned that he had been working on some music that was similar to a song of mine that he liked. So, I said, ‘well, if you ever need a vocalist, let me know.’ And it was great for me because I think I unintentionally kind of cornered him into saying yes because first he’s saying I should really collaborate more, so how could he turn me down, when I asked to collaborate with him. But I said it out of being super naïve. He was very sweet and we started working on some music – he took me up on the offer,” she said, with a chuckle.
“It went really well, but at that time it was just Andy and Alf, as far as I knew, that were working on the songs. It wasn’t until we were three songs into it that Andy called me and said, ‘hey, so I showed this to my buddy Alex and he wants to add some guitars to these tracks.’ And, again, at that point I had no context. I was like, ‘awesome, great, Your buddy Alex.’ I think he could tell I didn’t clue in because he paused and he said, ‘do you know the band Rush?’ And that’s when my mind just exploded because I was super confused and really excited. But even then, it was sort of just this thing we were working on. It wasn’t public knowledge for quite a long time. We’d been working on music for at least a couple of years, just casually, but soon it became something that we all wanted to put out into the world. So, it was very surreal to have that shift of it going from just a fun project, and now it’s this big thing. It was exciting, but I didn’t think anyone was going to believe me when I say I’m working with Alex Lifeson. Then suddenly it was announced, we had a record label, we were putting out an album and then suddenly there was his influx of people who were Googling me and sending me messages. I was very nervous, very nervous, because Rush is such an established band and to be creating something different, and to be a very different style of singer, to be creating in a different genre of music, I was very nervous of what the response was going to be. I was kind of preparing myself for what that might be like. But for the most part, it’s been really positive, and it’s been wonderful.”
It has to be an interesting dynamic within Envy of None, with ¾ of the band from one place, with their experience, expertise, pedigree and established careers, mixing and matching musical ideas with a twenty-something, west-coast American woman who loves to plink and plunk on a banjo from time to time. But it’s worked well, with the proof being how dynamically compelling the music on both Envy of None records has been, and how happy all parties concerned are with the process, the outcome and the future of the band.
“I think it’s great now that we all have a lot of respect for each other. Early on, it’s not that they didn’t treat me as an equal, I think I had to kind of first show that I could do this right now. I don’t think Andy really knew what to expect when I first added vocals and lyrics to that first track that he sent me. I think immediately he must have thought it was pretty cool, and that he was excited for what we could do together. I don’t know if he was expecting much, so I was really happy that he liked that first kind of demo that I sent. I think it really set the tone for the rest of our musical relationship and this sort of band that we built and how they all saw me as a producer, a writer and as a singer. But I had to really show Andy what I could do at first. And I did. I put a lot of work into it. With that first song I spent at least sitting there recording, re-recording, re-recording, coming up with ideas and basically fleshing out this whole song to send him. And that’s been my process ever since,” she said.
“I don’t do any of it half-assed. I put my whole heart into everything that I do with them because I want to put my best foot forward. But they’ve always been very, very welcoming, very kind. And like you said, Andy has an amazing career both behind him and ahead of him, but he never showed up like that. He doesn’t have a lot of ego, neither does Alex. They’re just very kind people, very down to earth. They’ve never made me feel like there was anybody that was above me, that I didn’t belong there. That was a huge part of it. They’ve really embraced me and supported me and lifted me up. And some of the things that Alex has said about me in the press has been, like, mind-blowingly amazing. I remember waking up randomly one day and I got a notification because I get notified when my name is mentioned in news outlet, and this notification said, ‘Rolling Stone.’ I stood there and just stared at that for like five minutes. I was, ‘this can’t be right.’ But it was. Alex had an interview and he talked about me in that interview and that was such a pivotal moment for me. What he said about me was incredibly complimentary – he was just raving about me as a singer. And that’s just who Alex is. And that’s who Andy is and Alf as well. They’ve all just really rallied behind me and lifted me up and it’s made such a difference in my life and in my career and in my confidence. They’ve always been nice to talk about the impact that I’ve had on them too. I think every time we work on a song, they really express how much they enjoy and are surprised by the work that I do and the harmonies and the layers and the textures I bring into the songs musically. They’ve really, really expressed a lot of appreciation for what I’ve done. And that’s been amazing.”
Just before this interview was conducted, it was announced that Lifeson was going to go out on the road with his other band – for the first time in a decade. Rush, with Lifeson, Geddy Lee, new drummer Annika Niles, and possibly other musicians, are going on what is now a significant tour of North America next year, with new dates being announced almost weekly. How does Wynne feel about being ‘abandoned’ by her guitar player (asked in a joking manner, of course.)
“Honestly, I was so happy for him. We’re all really happy for him. I think we do wish we could clone him because we were kind of considering maybe doing some shows together as Envy of None. But to get to that point, it’s really going to take us a lot of work to rehearse together. We’ve never played together live. So, we’re kind of looking at that and then the timing of it with this Rush thing, obviously he’s going to be going into rehearsals for this huge tour that they’re doing. So, we’re kind of waiting and putting our plans on the back burner for now. But we’re so happy for him and very excited for him. And there’s still so much support and love there for that band. We hope that, you know, in the future, there will be a time when we can gather as Envy of None and figure out some shows. So, yeah, we’ve all just been really happy and excited. Hopefully, we’ll get some comp tickets.”
Folks obviously know a lot about Lifeson, and have a pretty good handle on Curran, but what about the third middle-aged Canadian dude in the mix? Wynne talked just as glowingly about the fella who is essentially the band’s co-founder, co-producer, and holder down of the bottom end, Alfio Annibalini.
“Alf is the glue that puts everything together, and holds everything together. He’s a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer, and he’s very renowned in Toronto. He’s worked with some of the biggest names in Canada and he really knows what he’s doing when it comes to being in a studio, working with ProTools and producing. Andy always says that he shares a brain with Alf. And I kind of think it’s true. They really curate a lot of these song ideas together from the beginning. He is just so talented as a songwriter, as a producer, as an instrumentalist. A lot of the guitars you hear on the songs are actually Alf, the main rhythm guitars. Alf is doing those which then frees up Alex to do the textures, solos, all of those things that you’re hearing on top of everything else. Alf is like a jack-of-all-trades, and for all the places that we need something, he’s there.
Annibalini had the initial spark of inspiration leading to the version of the song which appeared on the Stygian Wavz album, ‘Thrill of the Chase.’
“He said that he came up with the instrumental kind of structure of the song while he was teaching one of his classes. He teaches music production at [Seneca Polytechnic] in Toronto. While he was teaching his students, he came up with this idea and decided to save it for later. Generally, he and Andy come up with a lot of the beginning instrumental parts of the songs, sometimes together, sometimes separately. This one was definitely Alf’s brainchild. It was very different and I immediately was very drawn to it because it was so fun and different than anything else that we had done so far. Originally he had this vocoder part that was, I don’t even think was real words. It was just sort of gibberish, but it sounded really cool. And I kept hearing words in it and started having so many ideas. So, I took that and built the vocal parts and lyrics,” Wynne said.
“I do a lot of the lyric work and I think for this one I did all the lyrics and the vocal melodies. And it was really fun. For some of the songs, I write from a very, very personal place. This was one where I kind of created a character and a story around it. And I was imagining sirens luring their victims and chasing them down. So, I tried to channel that lyrically and in the performance of the vocals. Andy then added some really cool bass parts, especially this dramatic bass drop towards the end of the outro. Of course, the guitars that Alex added at the end were just the perfect touch. One of my favourite parts is when that lead guitar part comes in the second verse and then the musical outro. It’s like it kind of starts with two people, usually Andy and Alf, and then I’ll add vocals and Alex will add guitars and then Andy will add more parts and we built another outro.”
With Lifeson doing Rush things, there’s no word on the immediate future of Envy of None. For Wynne’s part, she isn’t waiting for the fellas to call. She’s never stopped her various solo and collaborative projects, including many live shows in her part of the United States.
“I actually released my debut album, Out of the Dark about a year ago. So mostly I am doing my solo music and promoting and touring the album. I have a lot more music that I’ve been working on, and I’ll be putting more out soon. I also have some other collaborations with my friends Dreadlight. We’re going to put out a song in October that’s going to be pretty fun, and then I have some other collaborations. One is Moon Talk, we’ve got some songs out. So, it’s mostly music, although I have been doing a little bit of acting. I acted in a kids’ movie called Powder Pup, so if you’ve got any kids in your life that like snowboarding dogs, this is the movie for them. It’s out on Amazon Prime. We actually had a real bulldog who could snowboard.”
For more information on Envy of None, visit https://envyofnone.com.
For more information on Maiah Wynne, visit https://www.maiahwynne.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at bigjim1428@hotmail.com.
