It’s been a long, hard and winding journey for Jeff Sahyoun to go from the guitarist of post-hardcore groundbreakers letlive. to the sole mastermind behind the alt-pop might of Fixt English.
With Fixt English’s debut EP ‘Erase Theory’, Jeff tracks that adventure, exploring the loss, betrayal, and heartbreak with frank vulnerability. Ultimately though, Fixt English is an optimistic project of perseverance. “I’m not broken anymore,” he declares on opening track, and debut single, ‘Lost It’.
“‘Lost It’ reflects on the dichotomy of two subcultures,” muses Jeff. “It’s about learning how to find peace and balance when feelings of entrapment to a socially dominant lifestyle take precedence over an individual’s true passion and identity. The mental game of seeking unneeded validation from a world of rejection and abandonment that somebody was once a part of. It’s about learning how to start over in a new culture that feels foreign, while still trying to navigate a past life that truly defined who you were.”
As a member of letlive. for a decade, Jeff was regularly playing upwards of 200 shows a year. “That was your identity. It was your everything,” he says. When the band split in 2017, he was left feeling “lost, trapped and depressed.” “All beautiful things in life come to an end,” he says today. “I'm glad everything worked out the way that it should,” but it’s taken a long time for Jeff to get to a place of positivity. Almost immediately after the split, Jeff started writing music once more, determined to keep the dream alive.
After two years of rejections and a life on the sidelines, Jeff took a job in construction – both to pay the bills and to remove himself from an industry that was getting increasingly more toxic. “Starting from nothing again is so f-cking hard,” says Jeff whose “confidence and self-esteem were slowly worn away” after finding himself sleeping on his little sister’s couch.
Grinding for the dollar during the day and working on college papers in the evening, Jeff slowly got himself back on his feet but never let his “love affair” with music completely burn out. “I’d be studying and when I needed a break, I’d write a verse. There was no pressure. If something sucked, I could always come back to it later.” A couple of days after he graduated, he went back and looked over the music he’d been writing and realised he had a finished record that told the story of balancing responsibility with passion. “It’s about feeling empty, facing your depressions, asking how things went so wrong but also about how you return to a place where you feel like you belong,” he explains.
“Sometimes you have to accept it’s not the right time, but other times you have to be prepared to fight for what you truly want,” explains Jeff before revealing that ‘Erase Theory’ also features a few songs about an actual breakup. ‘Stay’ is an emotionally devastating pop rock anthem written in “two hours, as my fiancé was moving out of our house. I was so sad, I didn’t give a shit about what it sounded like or how honest I was being.”
It's a mood that defines Fixt English, with Jeff trying numerous styles, genres (and a few different singers) before settling for the one that felt the most natural. "For a while, it felt like I was trying to play a character. It was only when I gave myself permission to be myself that it felt right." After a lot of trial and error to find something that felt exciting, the end result is something Jeff describes as The Weeknd meets Nine Inch Nails but with nods to childhood influences David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin and Depeche Mode.
“You get so nervous, because it’s been so long since I’ve been onstage or released music,” he continues. “Maybe people are expecting a hardcore record? I don’t know if what I’ve made will be accepted, but I’m excited to find out. I’m excited to see where this ends up.”
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