Artwork by @mystupidsketchbook
WHO are they?
“I’m Edward from The Boy I Used To Be and we’re a three-piece Lo-Fi Pop/Psych/Garage band from Portsmouth. The Boy I Used To Be originally started as a solo bedroom project and I started to play a few shows live with a laptop that had all my backing tracks on there. The band is now the three of us with Max joining on guitar over a year ago when we released Friday Morning EP and then Callum joined on bass just before we released our Grip EP in March. We’re still not playing with a live drummer and carrying around the laptop, so we hop in the back of a car to shows and have a good time. But really we’re three best friends playing music we like and that’s why we do it.”
WHAT are they singing about?
“I tend to not go into the lyrics much, sometimes not even with the other guys for a while. The songs are a mixture of personal stories and escapist tales, not everything is true and probably the songs that people are sure are true, aren’t true. I quite often find a meaning in songs long after I’ve finished them, sometimes writing helps find that meaning. I tend to write the backbone of the song myself and then the three of us listen to it through and think of ways we can take it and the songs tend to come together quite quickly. Once a song is done, we’ll then start trying to deconstruct it and build it back up again to play live. We’re constantly trying to push forward and make the music we want to listen to and make it in the best way we can.”
WHERE are they from?
“The band is from all over the place and essentially just met because of University. I’ve lived in Portsmouth since I was 6 but Max is from Wokingham and we happened to be on the same music course. Max brings in some of the heavier influences to our music like Brand New and then he’ll get really into stuff like Toro Y Moi and Bully right now. Callum came down from Edinburgh for our housemate Ryan’s birthday and loved it so much he moved to Portsmouth. If a guy travels that far and wants to be in your band, you let him in the band. He likes Spoon, Death Cab and a mixture of stuff from Fat Cat Records. If you mould that together with stuff I like from UMO, Beck, Art Is Hard Records, Tame Impala, you get quite a different mix that’s improved by us growing up separately.
Portsmouth and surrounding areas is great musically at the moment though. Kassassin Street and Wyldest seem to be breaking through and bands like Rickyfitts, Popobawa, Indigo, Battery Hens, Big Child Man Child, Sink or Soar, Noyo Mathis, Spaff Tits and Bellyeyesmile are doing cool stuff too (so there’s some stuff to check out!). Pie & Vinyl and Strong Island Recordings do a lot of work to push Portsmouth acts in and out of the city and it seems everyone is making music for themselves and our friends and it’s genuinely good because no-one is hoping they get the front cover of NME, they just want to make good music.”
WHY ‘The Boy I Used To Be’?
“I don’t know, I think at one point the project was close to being called something similar and I just ended up with The Boy I Used To Be. There’s no real meaning behind it but it’s nothing to do with Bombay Bicycle Club, though we love those guys. It’s just kinda stuck and is good to have a name with no meaning, it means we can do whatever music we like under the name.”
WHEN can I see them live?
“Next up for us is Blissfields Festival in Winchester on 3rd July with a couple more festival shows to be announced and then we’ll be back after summer with a few gigs and maybe even a drummer!”
HOW can I get to know them better?
Listen & Watch: Website // Soundcloud // Youtube // Bandcamp
Like & Follow: Facebook // Twitter // Instagram // Tumblr
Listen to new track Bruising, part of a two-track release with Pie & Vinyl Records on T-Shirt joined by a download code
Artwork by @mystupidsketchbook
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