At 7:00 a.m., they are just your classmates, lugging backpacks around and weaving through long cafeteria lines. Once the school bell rings, they are Griffin the Band, a viral TikTok sensation that has riveted the world with their shockingly impressive impersonation of Lois Griffin from Family Guy and heavy-hitting guitar riffs. What started as jam sessions in a bedroom has morphed into a music phenomenon that proves that even high schoolers can birth the next big thing in heavy metal.
Each band member’s journey to music is uniquely personal to them. Junior Daniel Fonck’s passion for metal came later due to his family’s disinterest in the genre. As he started to expand his music taste, he felt a desire to learn the guitar on his own accord. Meanwhile, junior Asha Ghai, sophomore Maddox Chartier, and junior Keira Timlin were first introduced to the genre through their parents who took part in the punk and goth scene throughout the 1980s and ’90s.
“My dad has always been in a band throughout my entire life, and drum sets have always been lying around. I’ve played almost every day since I was four. I just love the drums. It’s so much fun,” Chartier said. “My parents were really into rock music, especially punk [rock] in the 90s. Picturing my dad with spiked hair, a mohawk and a nose and eyebrow piercing is always really funny to think about.”
The meeting of the bandmates was a long, triumphant process that spanned multiple years. Ghai and Timlin were first acquainted with one another while attending the same elementary school. A friendship blossomed after they started to message through Instagram. Ghai then started to perform in a band but it failed due to the absence of a drummer.
Chartier was a known and experienced drummer, so when he expressed an interest in joining a band to one of their mutual friends, he was quickly added to a group chat to set their plans in motion. However, they still had one more spot they needed to fill: a guitarist. On an eager scroll through Snapchat, Ghai landed on Fonck playing an impressive cover of the legendary musician Dimebag Darrell on his guitar. With one swipe of hand, Griffin the Band, decidedly named after Lois Griffin from Family Guy, was officially born.
Originally, the band did covers of renowned metal musicians and musical groups. However, when that did not seem to work, they turned to more improvised methods which currently involve jamming out together and seeing what comes out of it. When a general idea is formed, Fonck and Chartier curate a beat that Timlin later follows on bass. Ghai then listens to the final product, constructs lyrics, and establishes a tempo. The different elements are mashed together to create a song that they will later record and publish for the public to hear.
To announce Griffin’s debut, the four decided to post their improv sessions on social media. Ghai was already accustomed to the spotlight since she had previously posted a video of her doing the vocals to the song “Twist” by Korn. Shortly after posting, the clip went viral, with fans clamoring for more. With this in mind, the four posted their most recent song onto TikTok in April, an improvised piece featuring an impersonation of Lois Griffin that would unknowingly become a viral sensation.
“I told them that I wanted to do a breakdown where I talk as Lois Griffin and then it just turned to metal and they improv over my screams of terror. I had the video footage, and I just decided to post it and see what happens,” Ghai said. “Within the first five seconds of the video being posted, it had 120 likes. I went home and it went up to 100,000 likes and people were yelling at us to make a Spotify account and release a single.”
Griffin has many different aspirations for the future of their musical career. At school, they hope to appear in more Listening Lunches, an opportunity for musicians of all abilities to sing and play instruments in the library while others listen as they eat their lunch. On a larger scale, fans of Griffin have been begging the band to tour in various places around the nation, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Las Vegas, Ohio, and Rhode Island.
“We have a lot of fans in the Netherlands. They’re our second most popular listeners on Spotify. It’s insane,” Fonck said. “Someone from New Zealand was asking us to come there. We have tons of Australians in our DMs asking us to come to Australia.”
As a very community-oriented group, the band plans to commission WA students to film their upcoming music video and make cover art for their most recent project: an album.
“We’re really excited to start this next step of our musical career and we have lots of ideas of what we’re going to be doing next for the album,” Timlin said.
Follow Griffin the Band @griffintheband on all social media platforms. Listen to their music on Spotify through the username Griffin.
