Singled Out: Mister Rabbit's Anyone

Keavin Wiggins | 03-14-2023

Album art

Indie rockers Mister Rabbit are gearing up to release their debut album, "End Of History Illusion," on March 30th, and to celebrate we asked singer and guitarist Jeff van Helvoort to tell us about the single, "Anyone". Here is the story:

"Anyone" came to be around 9 years ago. It was within a year of my previous band, Teenage Kicks, breaking up so I was trying to find my footing as a songwriter with my own voice outside of a project that had been largely dominated by my brother's voice & songs.

At the same time, my personal life was... in shambles. I was struggling to get over a former relationship and I was making a lot of the bad decisions that an insecure 20-something makes when they can't deal with their emotions in a healthy manner. While this is happening, a very close friend of mine (who had a boyfriend) told me she was in love with me and my former partner was asking for forgiveness, so that's where the first lines comes from (Everybody wants something that I can't give em, yeah, they all want a little love or a little forgiving). Out of all the poor decisions I made in that time, I did determine there was a song in what was happening and started writing.

Going through the emotional turmoil that I was in, I wrote a lot of songs at that time (some good, most were bad though!) and I was constantly playing them for my friends (sorry everyone), which is where the second verse comes in (All my friends want nothing, but I still give em, all my songs & my little tales of how I'm living). I was just trying to find some value in what I was doing by playing for other people, which I think is still the core of my song-writing. As much as I love just writing a song, I want to play it for people and have them enjoy it.

The chorus for me is pretty self-explanatory & blunt - Sometimes I wish I couldn't love anyone. At that time, I felt like love was taking more than it was giving so I was just looking for the easy way out of those situations.

I did a few different versions of this song with other people - the first time I demo'd it was in 2014. It was my 26th birthday and I decided the most fun I would have would be to demo two of my songs with my buddies, so my best friend Dylan Collie came and played drums, Christian Turner (of Christian Turner & Teenage Kicks fame) played lead guitar & my brother Peter (of Peter van Helvoort, Darling Congress, Teenage Kicks & Glorious Sons fame) played bass. One of those songs, All Ears, Few Years, was released as a bonus track on my former band, Secret Satanists' LP, A Very Sharp Decline. The other one was Anyone - originally called Everybody Wants Something, but I wanted to avoid the Degrassi comparisons (see: Zit Patrol).

When Mister Rabbit started, this was one of the songs I identified that I'd like to re-record so we had another version before we finally landed on this one. I wanted to push for an early 2000s Oasis vibe mixed with Spoon - I don't think we accomplished it, but I'm pretty proud of what we came up with! Matt Snell (Engineer) & Jeff Mcmurrich (Producer) took this one & ran with it in the studio and they did such a great job creating interesting tones to go along with the vibe of the song.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the band here