Alex’s New Band 👏 The Clappers 👏 Explained!

Hey,

I hope you’re doing well..! It’s Saturday, a sad day today, since it’s our last day here in Virginia, heading back up north to Montreal tomorrow. This very sad news was generously brought to us by Alex’s flooded home renovation/destroying team as we were finalizing the last touches and details of what almost became our new studio/noise lab! That very frustrating and disappointing notion of having to bring our studio back into its boxes and in the van got me seriously mad and I can’t even imagine Alex… What a total disaster on every possible level. I’m still quite mad as this is a very hard one to swallow! 

I don’t know for you, how you cope with disappointment, how you deal with this idea of planning something which involves 8 people driving 14 hours with a truck which contains the entire recording studio, where, once you arrive, you spend 3 days building that entire thing up and, as you’re kinda soundchecking it, someone shows up and tells you “wrap this up guys, party is over…”! Well, this is precisely what happened to us last week right as I was writing my latest communication with you, in which I had this beautiful flash of exposing parts of the April 1st/fool culture we’ve been embracing for as long as I can remember…!

So, we were having lunch, all completely disappointed by such devastating news last Saturday following what was a quite long and heavy silent moment where everyone’s mind was busy being pissed off. And there we went, Alex and I, sharing about crazy meets stupid pranks we did over the years. Laughter started to slowly emerge around the table, like a beautiful rainbow coming gently right in front of such a dark cloud! 

Then, of course, the 1000$ question came straight from Alex: “What could we do this year?”

I could hear all of our brains switch from being pissed off to becoming extremely creative in a grand style fashion! Creativity is measured by the limit we decide to impose but at that specific moment, creativity was a completely free agent! We all left the table in a better mood than when we sat down but I could feel that Alex clearly and truly was on a hunt, digging every possible corner of his limitless and wonderful imagination hoping to come back with the Holy Grail of April fool pranks! 

And of course…! As predicted...! Alex’s genius left the bottle and a text message came in later on this afternoon which sounded like: “Did you guys start to unplug the studio yet?” 

My first thought while reading this was, “Here we go!” A typical Alex Henry Foster way to do some judo with what could – or even maybe should – have been a situation where all of our frustrations would’ve taken us all into some dark places and now, I feel like something crazy and fun is about to see the light!!! 

Alex followed by texting: “Leave the studio as is and come into my office NOW!” 

When this kind of text from Alex, especially under those circumstances reaches you, buckle up! You’ll be up for quite a ride for the rest of the day. To him, working on a prank demands the same amount of work, passion and dedication as proper work! 

I was not even in his office and I already heard “The Clappers!” 

Alex was on fire! I haven’t seen him like that in a while...! He clearly was touching the sky! 

Some context and history here especially for those who never attended an AHF concert thus far: The Clappers arrived at some point as we were touring and in the song The Hunter, we created a new part where, after we reached the highest point in intensity and noise, everything stops radically and the only thing left are the kick drums going boom boom boom following the tempo of the song, Ben’s very cool and quiet guitar riff and Alex clapping hands inviting the audience to do the same 👏👏 👏 . At some point, I’m sure we could try to know exactly when this The Clappers thing was born, it clearly became a thing...! I even heard about doing merch but this is another conversation! 

The original Clappers in action in Köln, July 27, 2024

So, as I got into the office and Alex was too impatient for me to get there to drop The Clappers, I knew right away what he meant, and what the following days would be made of...! But you should have seen Alex! It was so beautiful! He couldn’t say more than three words as he was laughing too much! Even tears were coming down as he laughed and laughed and laughed and simply laughed more...! He then already had some lyrics idea about Mexican Walls – which I’m still wondering why he chose this amongst so many possibilities, but that could be for another Q&A – and he already had some musical lines in mind and was like, “Let’s rush to the studio and work on something garage/punk vibes and let’s hope to reach 2 minutes!” 

He finally properly said while drying his tears: “I want to prank my managers!” 

There went our Saturday night, Sunday, Monday and some final touches had to be done even on Tuesday since the website wasn’t working! But as we started working on the song, Alex kept coming with crazy ideas such as: 

    •    a Rolling Stone Morocco interview (it had to be a fine line between true or prank);
    •    a full website (we had to buy the domain name and build it from scratch);
    •    a band photo, which in the end wasn’t enough so we added some more behind the scenes photos;
    •    the song, which had to be good and catchy; 
    •    the lyrics, which had to be some kind of a non-Alex way of writing; and of course 
    •    the recording and mixing of it all! 

So, a lot of work, the same amount we would drive into a new AHF song and this, for the sake of pranking a few people! When Alex lights up, the amount of passion coming out of him is an absolute endless source! 

John Lydon was right: Anger is an energy! 😈

Picture yourself with us as it was Tuesday morning, April 1st, and we were all having a coffee together, all excited about the past few days and how much fun it’s been and how amazing and beautiful it was seeing Alex constantly laugh! I haven’t seen him laugh like that for years! Pre surgery I would even say! But I felt something from Alex that morning, as if something was missing! 

As we were all walking toward the studio which we had to tear down knowing we had to leave as soon as possible for the construction team to come and start destroying parts of the house, Alex asked me to stay with him and he went: 

“Do you think it could be funny to send this Clappers thing to everyone online?” 

That got me excited all of a sudden! And I went: “That would be cool!!!! And since no one really knows you like that since you became a solo artist! And since I shared about it in The Club, it could be cool to share this The Clappers Mexican Walls wonder with your friends from around the world! Also, I kept going, many people are sending messages being worried about your health, so, it could be a great way to kind of see that you’re not that bad after all!!!” 

The rest is history! And it’s with mixed feelings that I’m sharing all of this with you! Very funny fact is that a few people from our very close friends who work with us and have known Alex for such a long time got caught by the prank! Also, parts of Alex’s management team got also pranked and of course, heartbreakingly, some of you as well 😅 As I also shared with you last week, we always have to reach the “I think we went too far” point! 

But I think the prank wouldn’t have been that perfect if that feeling didn’t come! 

I thought it would be cool and also funny for me to share this entire background story with you all, since the whole idea was to have fun, connect, and laugh around something cool! Hope you enjoyed as much as we did and hope you discovered a side of Alex I was quite glad he decided to unleash! So, let’s lift an avocado and clap until the end now as we’re all The Clappers – at least we’ve been for one day!!! 🥑👏

Speaking of which: Alex sent and shared about The Clappers having disbanded but… I think he sent the news and April 1st wasn’t over yet! So… I wouldn’t be so sure now!  And now that you know Alex a little better, well, I guess it’s for you to find out 🥳

Meet the Clappers

Until next week from Montreal

Let’s be great to one another!!!! 

Your Host and Chief Operator
Jeff 

PS: I’ve been listening to Mexican Walls on repeat while putting those words down of course!!!!!