Feel the vibe!

Get ready to dance your worries away with Bahrain-based band Juniper’s Club as their new indie dance EP titled Goldfish Tears is set to be released this summer, writes Rima Alhaddad.

This is local talents Debbi Francisco and Sean Fernandes’ first collection of music put out together as they previously have been dropping singles.

The band explained that the title takes inspiration from the term ‘goldfish memory’, referring to the popular belief that goldfish have a three-second memory span.

“So imagine this: You’re crying, and then you cried so much and then all of a sudden ‘what was I crying about? I totally forgot, it’s not that big a deal’,” Filipino expatriate Debbi told GulfWeekly.

The duo are yet to complete their forthcoming indie dance EP, however, Debbi said the song-writing inspiration has been coming from a conversation that took place on a particular night.

“We have a song in the EP called Message Received, and literally, that whole thing was based off a single screenshot, and we have a song called DONTWANTANYBODY and it’s also about that conversation I had with someone, and so are the other songs, the EP is just based on one night, technically.”

The song DONTWANT-ANYBODY is set to be the band’s upcoming single, as they recently dropped a teaser of its music video shot with a Sony Cybershot digital camera, giving the visuals a nostalgic feel.

The indie act revealed that Debbi took the lead for song ideas and concepts for this project.

“What we usually do is, Sean sends me an instrumental idea. And I just pop in on it, see what I can do melodically. And I send it back to him,” 26-year-old Debbi explained.

“But for this EP, I sent him three songs in three days and he was like, ‘Oh I like this.’ Especially the first song that we wrote, there was barely any change. He gave a thumbs-up.”

Indian expatriate Sean added that Debbi ‘had the ideas’ and all that he did ‘was to follow that without stepping out of line’.

They also credit their live set members John Goodwin on drums and Ryan James on bass for inspiring them throughout their creative journey.

“We started up with a super dream pop sound, even our live performances were so much more different than they are right now,” Debbi added.

“Back then, our music was twinkling, and cutesy, also our live performances were strictly me and him.

“Over the past year, we started experimenting by adding new members to the live set. That changed us completely. Compared to 2022, when we released our debut single, it’s now very punk.”

“You could argue that our music lost its original sound, but I would say it gained its soul,” Sean added.

Following requests from fans, the two recently performed along with their live band at Bohemia Art Café for the second time in Khobar, Saudi Arabia.

“I mean, the Saudi crowd, wow,” Sean, 29, said. “For the first Bohemia show we did, we actually got popular on TikTok with hundreds of views, so people came to know more about us and they wanted to see us perform live,” Debbi said.

The two emphasised their admiration for the Saudi crowd for ‘being there for the music’ as they know the songs by heart and sing along.

Juniper’s Club’s next live performance will take place at The Warehouse in Riyadh on June 28. In their first performance in the Saudi capital, the duo will co-headline with Saudi alternative act Gimmix.