It all started in an Ottawa high school cafeteria.
Over 10 years ago, a bunch of students were clustered around their cell phones reading about the infamous former Toronto mayor Rob Ford. News had just broken that he had smoked crack, which was the beginning of a series of controversies. The kids began to make jokes at Ford’s expense.
“All Hail Rob Ford!” one of them exclaimed, giving birth to the acronym behind the rock band AHRF. And now the four-person rock band, which has been compared to Weezer and The Killers, is touring to promote their new album, Illusory Superiority.
They’re playing the Brackendale Art Gallery: Café & Culture Centre (BAG), with The Shindigs, an indie rock band from Vancouver Island, on Aug. 30 at 8 p.m.
“We like how people respond to AHRF. They think it’s like a barking dog … The name has just stuck. And now that a Rob Ford documentary has come out, the cycle has started again because people are back in the know,” guitarist and vocalist Miles Lawlor told The Squamish Chief.
Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem, is a new documentary on Netflix about Ford.
AHRF is made up of James Feschuk on guitar, Liam St John on drums, vocalist Lawlor, and Dan Turrene on bass. A raw independent rock band made of childhood and university friends, the quartet began touring more seriously and recording in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, they’ve played all over B.C. and the Yukon, showing off their sarcastic and self-deprecating lyrics. They record, produce, mix and perform all their own music.
“Our genesis for playing more intensely would be about three years ago, and we realized this was just as fun as when we were 16, so we kept booking more shows.”
They’re excited to return to the BAG after multiple shows there in the past.
“The BAG has always been one of our favourite places to play, it’s like a home arena,” Lawlor said.
Tickets, which are $22 in advance and $27 at the door, are available on the BAG’s website.
