Q&A: boyhood. on New EP, ‘communal roosting’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY FAITH LUEVANOS ☆
FRIENDSHIP, STABILITY, AND APPRECIATING THE GOOD TIMES WHILE THEY’RE HAPPENING – are all themes wrapped into New York-based artist boyhood.’s latest EP, communal roosting. The origin of the EP comes at a time in the artist’s life when he unexpectedly lost a friend, which inspired his reflection on the times they shared together. This musical ode to their friendship and boyhood.’s newfound appreciation for directing his attention to the positive moments is wrapped in a nostalgic blanket that you never want to come out of.
By inviting friends and fellow artists like Ari Rivera, McCall, and Deloyd Elze to join the project, communal roosting soared to new heights. As boyhood. explored new sounds and equipment, the collaborative process not only shaped the EP’s distinctive character but also deepened the bonds of their friendship.
The Luna Collective had the opportunity to sit down with boyhood. to discuss the making of the EP, his creative process, his experience with collaboration, and more. Read the full interview below.
LUNA: Jumping straight into the title of the EP, communal roosting—how does that tie into the central themes of the EP?
BOYHOOD.: I started writing the EP about a year and a half ago, and I wrote “wes anderson” and “magdalene” which were the first songs. I really like those songs, but they feel a little bit whiny. They're about searching for home in places where you're not gonna find it, or trying to connect with people who are not a good fit for you, searching for this thing that doesn't really exist, or trying to build a home in a place where it can't be sustained. And then, a few months into starting to write this EP, my good friend and roommate at the time passed away really unexpectedly, so the rest of the EP became about him and became about this very tangible, stable, loving home that we had, that we created.
So, the EP is about that before and after, because I think the home that we had and the relationship that we had was very stable and consistent and reliable in a way where it doesn't draw attention in the same way as something that is dysfunctional or falling apart. The EP is about hindsight and where we put our attention versus where we should be putting our attention.
LUNA: Thank you for sharing something so personal with us. With “wes anderson” and “magdalene,” even though they were written in the same week, they have a unique contrast between them sonically. But, I understand that they're essentially about the same thing. Were they meant to represent the different sides to a dysfunctional relationship?
BOYHOOD.: They're like different angles of looking at the same thing. I think “wes anderson” is about the monotony and the boredom of having the same argument or having the same type of dysfunction over and over again, the cycle of that. And I think “magdalene” is a little bit more about the underlying reason for that, or the desire to put someone on a pedestal or chase someone that is not a good fit.
LUNA: Throughout the songwriting process, did any songs look different from the others?
BOYHOOD.: I think the songwriting process was pretty similar. I start everything by myself on guitar, or on a pretty simple loop, and then it gets drawn out and expanded upon over a pretty long period of time. I'm trying to cut that down, but I started every song solo and wrote it out and then brought them to some friends and collaborators and kind of built them out from there.
LUNA: Speaking of collaborators, how did the act of sharing the creation of this EP with friends build upon the theme of communal roosting?
BOYHOOD.: It was great. I started this project in my bedroom a few years ago, and up until this EP, it's been very self-contained. I started it in my bedroom with pretty terrible equipment and recording environment, so for a long time it was pretty heavily sample-based, and very in the box. It was really fun on this project to try to bring it to people and see what their approaches to recording and producing are and what different tools they're using. Ari Rivera, who I really like and really respect as a producer, is on two of these tracks, and I brought them to him when they were like, 90% finished, and we sat in his studio, and just tried.
He had an organ in there and just some different analog gear that I didn't have access to personally; that was really fun to play around with. In general, the EP is 90% live recordings versus pre-recorded samples. It was just really fun to play around with other people's recording environments and instruments. My friend Dean lives down the street and owns an upright bass, and we used that for the second single from the project, “looking for you.” It was also a big learning curve for me to go from never incorporating other people's production to trying to figure out the best way to communicate with people and get the best out of myself and everyone.
LUNA: Every song on the EP easily heightens emotions due to the nostalgic sound of each one. Are you ever chasing specific feelings when it comes to writing or does this sound flow out of you organically?
BOYHOOD.: Every song starts with a central idea or a central theme, and then they live as pretty bare-bones demos until all the lyrics are done, and then after the fact, I go in to be like, Production-wise, what would make sense to heighten certain lyrics, or to build emotion, or drop people in and out of the song.
LUNA: Can you share the story behind “remind me” and what the process felt like writing that song?
BOYHOOD.: The four songs that came after “magdalene” and “wes anderson” are all grief-based in some way, like the different stages of grief. “remind me” is about more of the gratitude, like the home that I had here with my roommate and our other close friend was very special and a very formative experience for me. We were just very, very close, and we did everything together. I think it was a kind of relationship that I had never had before, and that I think a lot of people maybe never have. So that song is about being grateful for that time.
LUNA: Do you have a personal favorite song on the EP?
BOYHOOD.: “remind me” is probably my personal favorite story-wise, and also, that's one of the songs that I worked on with Ari for production. We did some fun things in there; there are drums in there that don't sound like drums, and then there are like, 40 tracks of guitar that are all recorded differently and warped in different ways, and it was a really fun one to record. I think that's the one I'm most proud of.
LUNA: What message do you hope this EP leaves for listeners?
BOYHOOD.: The EP is about looking back on this thing that was special and important and wishing that in the moment I had the same kind of appreciation for it that I do now. The experience has inspired me to look at my life a little bit more closely. Like I said before, I think it's so easy to look at relationships or situations that are stressful or dysfunctional and it draws your attention. And I think sometimes I forget to look at the things that are good and stable and consistent because they're not demanding my attention the same way. So, I think the hope is to try to reframe my thinking moving forward.
