Age: 29
Hometown: Morristown, NJ
Current Residence: Rochester
Occupation: Musician, artist, caregiver
A world where souls turn into stuffed animals so they can be protected against the Very Bad Normal Man and his terrible contract. A campy puppet folk opera at the crossroads of psychedelic rock and twee. A handmade cardboard set with a mind of its own named Best Evil Transportation System (or B.E.T.Sy for short). Welcome to the mind of Leaphe Ferm, creator of the indie folk-rock band and puppet ensemble Garden of Evil Doers.
Though Ferm is the lead guitarist, vocalist and songwriter, they’re quick to point out their loosely scripted musical puppet shows are never a solo act. Every show is made possible through artistic collaborators including puppet-makers and musicians, friends and volunteers.
“Even if it’s an audience of 10 people in one house, we’re all evil doers in this moment together,” they said.
Born in New Jersey, Ferm moved upstate to study engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology and stayed for the indie music scene. One of their earliest Rochester memories is seeing the band Kitchen in a bookstore basement and thinking “Wow, people can just make things.”
Ferm’s realization that the music they love comes from “people just making things” grew into a sense that those people could be collaborators and friends. They can even be strangers one invites to play in their home. Ferm is now fully involved in the world of DIY (Do It Yourself) music. Garden of Evil Doers records locally with Raincoated Records, producing cassette tapes with liner notes printed by Rathaus Press. Their albums, including the inaugural “Mrs. Magpie’s Garden of Evil Doers,” are available on Bandcamp and Spotify, although the old school tapes are more in line with the band’s anti-AI, anti-capitalist ethos.
Ferm also plays drums, keyboards, guitar, violin and vocals for several other local bands, including Georgie, Starbby and their first love, Kitchen.
When planning a DIY tour, Ferm and their collaborators start by reaching out to contacts across the country, or researching venues and connecting with other bands that have performed in those spaces. They’ve played in living rooms and backyards and bars everywhere from Buffalo to Albuquerque to Seattle, sometimes driving for 10-hour stretches between gigs. During the last Kitchen tour, they played 23 shows in 26 days.
“You post somewhere and kind of take a leap of faith,” they said. “It feels very normal to me now.”
Ferm also performs locally at a variety of venues including Bar Bad Ending, Bookeater, Flying Squirrel and Muck Duck as well as parks, homes and backyards. In keeping with DIY values, Ferm helps both local and touring bands connect with venues, often volunteering to work projections or sound support.
“They always show up to support other people’s visions, even if they’re not playing,” said Claire McClusky, founder of the experimental folk band Georgie, with whom Ferm sings and plays guitar.
To be clear, there’s nothing malicious in the garden’s evil doing. The name is a tongue-in-cheek nod to the idea that queer and trans people, including nonbinary people like Ferm, are inherently untrustworthy or “evil.” Ferm sees the queer community and DIY scene as antidotes to the world’s fear and propaganda. They’re always heartened by people they meet on tour who cook, offer places to stay (once it was a cabin in the woods) and cheer on the music.
“It’s like, wow, people are nice actually,” Ferm said. “It’s a reciprocity thing, but it’s also out of the goodness of their hearts.”
Ferm has been a staple of the Rochester DIY scene since 2020. Prior to that, they lived in Baltimore and New York City looking for work, and spent six months in Seattle helping their aunt care for her business partner, an uncle figure to Ferm, while he was on hospice.
Their aunt hadn’t expected Ferm to come.
“She kept telling me, ‘Hey, it’s not really chill here, we’re in the middle of doing this whole thing,’ — this whole thing being dying,” said Ferm. “So I got there and it really was not chill.”
But Ferm found they had a knack for the hands-on care of tending to somebody near death. They balanced the emotional toll of the work with creation. The background of their song “Mists” samples their uncle’s death rattle, a painless gargle when water gets in the back of the throat.
“(The caregiving) definitely informs my art, and the art helps me balance my sanity,” said Ferm.
They now work the night shifts at Isaiah House, a nonprofit on East Avenue that provides hospice care at no cost. Sometimes they’ll bring their guitar and or play the House’s piano for people in their final days.
During the day, Ferm also does community habilitation work through Starbridge with people who have developmental disabilities. They enjoy bringing people with an interest in creativity to their art studio.
For Ferm, the thread between the sobering Isaiah House caretaking work and the whimsical indie DIY music scene is simple.
“(I’m) trying to make a world where care is free and abundant.” —KATHERINE VARGA
