OUR FIRST RECORD. RELEASED APRIL 2011.

When we were naming Careers in Science in 2010, Will Prosper, our first bassist, said "You can walk into any bar in Toronto and see a show by... Whatever... wolf..."

For a glorious 8 minutes it was the name of the band, but the joke that it hinted at, the idea that we were a bunch of goofballs in a sea of very serious indie musicians, stayed.

Whateverwolf, (sometimes stylized as WHATEVERWOLF depending on how I feel that day), became our first EP filled with the songs that we'd been honing in various Rehearsal Factories across the city. The launch party featured us sandwiched between revitalized 70s punks The Anemics, and Bathurst, good friends that went on to make one of the city's best pop punk records. We crammed into the Silver Dollar room and blasted through these early versions of our songs. We sweat. We danced. We made Bathurst close the show. It was a move, let me tell you.

The ridiculous "Bored Wolf" face became our de facto logo, finding its way on our social pages and every t-shirt we sold for the first two years.

Fans of the band that own a copy of FOREVERWOLF, our full length record, will notice two things:

First, they will say "Hey, that's why it's called Foreverwolf!" and they will get a joke that we made 11 years ago, possibly for the first time!

Secondly, they will say "Wait a second, I have some of these songs!"

Yes, friends. These are the originals of the tracks that would populate 50% of Foreverwolf's tunes. Recorded with a different energy and a lot of little structural changes, the songs on Whateverwolf are the artifacts of a band trying to get a lot of nerdy, noisy nonsense to its first feasible iteration. Twangier guitars, deeper vocals, and deeply sampled drums made in a basement after the initial recording went awry.

Missing from your current Careers in Science collection is the opener, "Careers in Science National Anthem," our calling card to the world about how, in the event of a giant monster invasion, we would happily wear merchandise supporting said monsters. You can consider this part one in the "Giant Monsters" saga (including Holy Shit Giant Spiders, Cowards, and... another song...)

It also featured the rare audio sample that named the band, which clever people would find while watching The Venture Brothers and smugly send to us, proving that they never listened to the very first song on our record. Jokes on them, I guess. Also the joke's on us because we received emails for the remainder of our career from people wanting to start their own Career in Science.

Big notable differences include a shorter intro on "Hardcore Nice Guy," the first real ripper we wrote as a band. Angrily japing tough guy hardcore dudes who have to act aggressive to sell records at the merch booth.

Elizabeth Brown, our first actual honest to god song, remains largely unchanged but features an unbelievable "sword being unsheathed" sound that was made with a guitar. Worth the price of admission alone. The song is about a woman who boycotted a wheelchair user from modifying their home to make it more accessible. It is a true story, and it still makes me angry.

ROCKETS, a song that's about both halloween candy, suburban paranoia, and the fear of nuclear war, was the hardest song to sing live and this recording used a LOT more vocal takes to hit the notes than the Foreverwolf version. It's also slower, and tough as shit.

The Luxury of Forgetting, our darkest song, didn't stay in this iteration for long. A drawn out, Fugazi-inspired intro buffered the blistering fast hardcore tune and it's a fun way to ease yourself into some intense, pretty depressing lyrics about some repressed stuff. Need a palette cleanse? Great...

The bouncy, upbeat Konami Code of Conduct really shines in the Whateverwolf production, and it has everything that the sound of this record benefits from. Slightly slowed down chorus, bright guitar, deep growling lyrics about how playing violent video games doesn't make you a bad person.

Finally, Patchwork Children. This remained our set and album closer for years (until Cowards came out, of course. Or until we started covering "Night Moves"). This version of the song takes its time with the long-forgotten beautiful solo bass moment, and still has all the things that made it great: swirling Dino Jr. riffs in a song that makes fun of people that think music began and ended with Led Zeppelin. I had to google how to spell that band name, in case you wonder where I stand on the issue still. Also, this recording features one of the greatest dual guitar solos I have ever heard, with two perfectly matched dubs that diverge once or twice in a way that makes your head spin around.

They weren't necessarily the versions that everyone knew or came to the shows for, but they were built in jam spaces and recorded in basements and played until the labels peeled off of the CDs (which I'm pretty sure we stuck on).

When we sing "You can find our heads upon your shelf, you can find our hands upon your shelf, you can find our hearts upon your shelf," it is referring specifically to this. Records like this. The fragments and disembodied memories that make a thing that last forever. The way all your favourite bands put a chunk of themselves out there that still exists. We hope you still love it. We do.



Recorded by Eric Bourque in 2011 I think.
Drums - Eric Bourque
Guitar - Callum McPhee
Bass - Will Prosper
Vocals - Dave Proctor

Backup Vocals - Matthew Winkler, who later joined the band, don't give up on your dreams kids.

Other backup vocals - More people were definitely involved here but it has been 12 years. Just know that we were so grateful.

Track 1 features a sample from The Venture Brothers, used without permission but with love.