Q&A: Making Music that Feels Good, BOYO Releases ‘Echoes Like Memories’
SEVERAL THINGS WERE MADE CLEAR — after speaking over Zoom with BOYO’s Robert Tilden and Hudson Buckley. Their new surprise album, Echoes Like Memories, released March 11, diverges a bit from the duo’s previous releases. It is the sound we have come to know and love, with a conscious effort to be more “upbeat and funky.” The band shares how much their return to live shows — specifically in touring most recently with Luna Luna — inspired Tilden and Buckley to scrap the original album and begin again. Despite some physical challenges including kidney stones, a cold and general wear and tear of touring, the duo produced the 10-track album in under three weeks.
In between discussing the music, Tilden shares his love of Adam Sandler and “hyperfixation” on Uncut Gems, (check out his Uncut Jams playlist on Spotify), and both share their “fantasy bagel” orders in extreme detail.
Read below to learn more about BOYO’s creative process in producing Echoes Like Memories, inspirations, and how their return to live music has been going.
LUNA: How do you guys know each other outside of performing together?
BUCKLEY: I mean, me and Rob have known each other since like, 2012 [or] 2013 [from] just playing in the same music scene and the same weird, grungy warehouses. And then, a few years later, Rob was looking for a bass player. So I was like, “I'm around. Let's do it.” And then we just got really close. And that was like five years ago or something. The rest is history.
LUNA: I also wanted to do a temperature check with you guys — how are you feeling? You went through kidney stones, almost getting COVID…
TILDEN: There's an album that we have that we scrapped and we wanted to start from scratch. I was just kind of trying to develop some sort of narrative, but just like a background of where we are where we were at. We were just exhausted from touring; we had driven back from Dallas.
We played this show in Dallas — this place called The Trees. It was an epic show; it was amazing. Then we were all said, “We should just go home; we'll just go back to LA.” So we drove back to LA and it was psychotic, and then my body kind of crashed. I had kidney stones; I was feeling awful. I got a cold that I thought was COVID, and it wasn't COVID. When you're going through Texas at nighttime, it’s weird, like you’re just going through gas stations, too, where nobody's wearing masks. So I thought we were all gonna get some new variant.
LUNA: The gas station variant.
TILDEN: Hudson and I got back, and all we could do is really just record and flop around.
BUCKLEY: Yeah, I think in terms of COVID, I believe me and Rob are both COVID virgins — I think we've both been pretty safe.
TILDEN: We never got COVID, which is honestly kind of shocking. All the venues we played at, everybody was really strict and very respectful. But then you go to middle places where we’re staying at a motel and there’s just sketchy stuff going on. We saw some weird, weird shit.
LUNA: Could you talk about why you decided to record on tape?
TILDEN: Well, it's kind of a misnomer in a sense. When we record, we do it digitally where we will record on Pro Tools and just do it digitally. We're pretty efficient in the computer zone world, but then I wanted to master it. So when we were done with all the songs we had — done the production and everything — I just ran it through tape, which is kind of cheating a little bit, but it sounded good… We like gear, but I feel like we're the kind of gearhead people that are bad at talking about it.
BUCKLEY: I actually would never consider myself a gearhead - I actively try to avoid conversations about gear.
TILDEN: But we know what we have. When I'm stressed out and something goes wrong with something, I turn to Hudson to freak out, and go, “What is this?” And you do have answers.
BUCKLEY: I just avoid conversations about it outside of the moments where we absolutely need to troubleshoot. I'm good at troubleshooting.
TILDEN: Yeah, you're a great troubleshooter. You’re the troubleshooting master.
LUNA: Who and what inspired you for your new album, Echoes Like Memories? And what happened to the husk of the original album?
TILDEN: We listen to a lot of similar stuff — both of us. Hudson was playing a lot of cool stuff when we were driving on tour, like that band Panchico. A bunch of more funky stuff. Over the quarantine, we were listening to a lot more angular 2000s music that was a little more sad. For certain shows, I noticed the more upbeat fun stuff that was just more inviting; it seemed like that just made people happy. I think we forgot what playing shows was like and connecting with people in that way. It was the impetus to go back to the drawing board and make happier, funkier stuff.
BUCKLEY: Yeah, it was definitely fortuitous that before any album was released we were playing these shows, and we were playing shows with setlists that were pretty diverse in terms of being upbeat and being kind of lower beat, and we can see what people really responded to more. Then we were kind of just like, “Okay, this is what resonated with people a little bit more. Let's lean into that going forward.”
LUNA: Getting that connection with the audience.
TILDEN: We didn't have that for a long time. Were just making music in a vacuum and listening to stuff. So it's weird realizing, “Oh, this is a part of writing stuff, this is a big part of this … connecting with other humans.”
BUCKLEY: In terms of direct influence, I wouldn't necessarily say that we were taking direct influence from really anything…We didn't go into any session thinking, “Let's write a song like this.” We just played chords and then built off whatever those chords were like, and then just kind of worked on whatever came out.
LUNA: I noticed on your last album that you had a track entitled “Memory Lane.” And then this album is titled Echoes Like Memories. Is there something about memories and nostalgia for your music?
TILDEN: That's a good question - I don't know. I just like things that sound cool, you know? Anything where we think, “This title sounds cooler” — if the shoe fits kind of thing. We're also in a stage in our 20s where it's a little weird. I'll get nostalgic about stuff - the mid to late 20s are just a weird bag. I'm not a very articulate lyric/title person; we try to turn off that part of the critical process. It's just more low stakes, and the music is a little bit more thought-out. I feel like my opinion has always been if you think too hard about the words or the titles, then it gets a little too contrived for me. We decided, “Let’s not overthink this and make stuff that feels good.”
Photo By Bradley Golding
LUNA: What was the process of working on this album like compared to previous ones?
BUCKLEY: We recorded an album over quarantine with an old friend, and we got used to the idea of just going into a session expecting a product at the end of it, because we just wanted to hear what we made. So we got some good practice in over quarantine, banging out a recording. It was less the fact that we had a pretty strict deadline and more of it being the way that we normally work. We got done with that album in, like two and a half weeks. I think we just work quickly.
TILDEN: We were having fun too. It wasn't like, “Oh, shit, we have to do another song.” We would do songs in the session and say, “Cool, bounce it out. Let's listen to it in the car.”
BUCKLEY: Even when we thought we were done, there were moments where we were thought, “Meh, this song isn't as good. Let's just write another one.”
LUNA: Were there any tracks that ended up on the album that were particularly difficult to give birth to?
TILDEN: Most of them were pretty vibey chord progressions, and then we would just stack stuff.
BUCKLEY: I don't think we ever spent more than three hours writing anything. We'd be writing two songs per session; we'd get like two songs out in four and a half hours. I think the longest session we had was four and a half hours.
None of them were particularly that difficult to write. We didn't really have any trouble with any of them. There were some that we banged out and just didn't like at the end of them, but then we just dropped them.
TILDEN: My favorite ones were the ones that were the easiest for us to make, the ones that … flew out of the proverbial canal.
LUNA: Do you guys have a favorite live show that you've attended?
BUCKLEY: I’m surprised that this is the first one that comes to mind, but Flying Lotus at Desert Daze, like two, three years ago. Everyone had 3D glasses on, and it was just one of the craziest things I've ever seen in my life. Flying Lotus killed it. The 3D projections were insane.
TILDEN: I saw Ween in San Francisco, which was pretty great; pretty nutty. They did every song I ever wanted to see them play. Then they also did a Torah portion … a Jewish thing where they were reading Hebrew — it was crazy.
LUNA: What is your dream bagel order — your fantasy bagel?
BUCKLEY: I'm a BLT guy. A BLT bagel sandwich on cheddar jalapeno. I would say everything, but that shit just gets all up in my teeth. So I've transitioned to cheddar jalapeno now.
TILDEN: Big boy moves. It would be everything for me. Unless they have a dank sourdough bagel — that's just on another planet. If it's in the morning, I'm not super hungry. I'm having a coffee. I'm assuming if we're at a bagelry, they have a house lox spread. If it's lunchtime, let's put some turkey, some Swiss in there. Put some lettuce, tomato, spicy mustard, mayo. Call it a day.
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