Led by a musician father, Jeff grew up in an environment where music was a lifestyle. It was not uncommon to see little Jeff following his dad to music pubs and coffeehouses for endless jam nights. Quickly enticed by those festive evenings, Jeff learned the guitar and bass to be able to join his father on stage.
At sixteen, wanting to accomplish his own ambitions and to feed his new musical aspiration, Jeff started Perception, the first of a long list of rock bands he played with. After a year of running around in circles, he joined the hard rock band "Wicked Circus", who was already established in the underground scene of Montreal.
At eighteen, dealing with numerous personal problems and playing only once in a while, Jeff decided to leave Montreal for the Canadian west coast, hoping to find some sort of a life direction. After several months of partying between Jasper and Vancouver, Jeff finally came back home more bitter and disillusioned than before he had left.
A few months later, Jeff met Alex Foster and the Lemelin brothers with whom he spoke about musical vision and finds many answers to his spiritual questionings. This first meeting led to a solid friendship and Jeff officially became Your Favorite Enemies’ rhythm guitarist, after many months as musical collaborator. Needless to say that, if 2007 was a good indication of what the future had in store for Your Favorite Enemies, the following year turned out to be an undoubtedly interesting one for the 6 musicians from Montreal, who have been named as one of the top 5 bands to watch out for in 2008 by the Billboard Magazine; a quote which is hard to deny after the incredible success they had in 2008.Success which included being the first band ever to internationally broadcast a real-time live concert on their MySpace page, obtaining extraordinary success for their first European and Asian 2008 tour, selling more 60 thousand copies of their second album “Love Is A Promise Whispering Goodbye”, released in June 2008 on the band’s label, Hopeful Tragedy Records, and becoming the first band ever to write songs for the legendary video game franchise Final Fantasy.
Jeff is an active supporter for Amnesty International, Artist Against Racism and Rock N Rights.
You enter a really special world here, a shelter for crazy, freaks, left behinds and other rejected and broken persons… yeah…That all started as an unbearded young dude…lost, confused, stranger to Rock, seeing myself as a waste of skin because of my folks who always pushed me aside and treated me like I was not good enough to be taken care of…but one day, people took the time to listen to me… people took the time to invest in me… people took the time to say "Sef you deserve to be loved and we're proud to have you in the family"…
Then I realized I was miserably living my life according to the lies of people telling me I was nothing but crap and I realized I was living my life to please people who were treating me like I should've been born dead…
I decided to grow my beard and hair, not as a symbol of rebellion - everybody is rebel to a millions causes nowadays... no…
I decided to grow my beard and hair as a way to separate myself from the past and as a symbol of freedom for anyone who's been the slave of his loved ones' lack of attention and love… for anyone who's been slave of what other people might think of them and desperately slave of being accepted by other… slave… just like I was…Family is shelter… family is compassion… family is patience… family is acceptance… I know some people might think I'm crazy or a total freak… you know what… if being crazy and freak means accepting to be nothing more than myself and if being crazy and freak means not accepting to be treated like a piece of crap anymore… they are right… I'm crazy and I'm freak… because the freedom of wearing a beard, a moustaky or any other type of facial hair is not about appearance… is about the condition of the heart…
So if you need a place to share or only to be yourself without the fear of being judged… let Sef's kingdom be a shelter for every freaks and crazy around… it's time for a revolution… awareness is our path… empathy our scream… and authenticity our victory… hail to the bearded king!!!
- Sef |
