BOYO Talks High School, Sneaking in Backstage & Upcoming Album - Where Have All My Friends Gone?
interview by Liv Bjorgum — photography by Julien Gross
Robert Tilden of BOYO has been creating their whole life. From writing scripts in middle school to forming a band that opened for Surf Curse in high school, and now creating as BOYO and Friendly Ghost, the 23 year-old has a lot under their belt — and isn’t slowing down any time soon. Their fourth album Where Have All My Friends Gone? arrives on June 26 on Park the Van Records, following five EPs and two singles released in 2019. Through cathartic reflection, BOYO created the album that they calls “a clean slate” — flexing their solo instrumental abilities while collaborating with an engineer, creating a consistent visual aesthetic, and, as always, defying categorization.
Liv: Hi! How are you?
Robert Tilden/BOYO: I’m chilling. Just trying to stay sane in quarantine. I’m losing track of time and days and everything’s just sort of blending together at a certain point.
Your new album, Where Have All My Friends Gone?, is coming out soon. I’m sorry you’ve had to push the release.
It’s okay, that stuff happens. It’s more that I had a bunch of tours that had to get cancelled and one I think is postponed, but I don’t really know. Everything’s just so nebulous with touring right now, so I don’t know what any of it means. That’s the weird thing: not knowing when live music is going to be a thing again. It’s so odd. Some stuff we’ll figure out and restructure, but live music is just not a thing right now. So weird.
I saw that you used to go to the Smell [an all-ages, volunteer-run venue in downtown LA] a lot. I finally made my way over there last year for the first time. How has all of that live music influenced you?
I mean, it influenced me big time. I think it definitely spoiled me, in terms of exposure to cool stuff, because I was in high school at the time. I couldn’t drive yet, and I would go downtown with my friend Avery (who’s in the band Girlpool) and a bunch of other people, all my friends that were in Danger Collective… At the time we were just these wide-eyed kids. Like, I’d have to leave shows super early after three songs or something, because I was still in high school. But those nights were super crazy. That venue is so DIY you can touch the musician, you know, there’s no real divide… The security guards outside are like people from Skid Row.
“I couldn’t drive yet, and I would go downtown with my friend Avery (who’s in the band Girlpool) and a bunch of other people, all my friends that were in Danger Collective… At the time we were just these wide-eyed kids. Like, I’d have to leave shows super early after three songs or something, because I was still in high school.”
You’d wait for your mom to pick you up in the parking lot at like 10:00 before the headliner goes on?
I would actually have to hitch a ride from someone else’s mom, because my mom didn’t even want to go downtown. I couldn’t even watch the whole set. I remember seeing FIDLAR there, and Wavves, and lots of different bands like that. I remember playing there for the first time - I had a band called Bobby T and the Slackers and we opened for Surf Curse, and we were all so shocked about how many kids showed up.
So, is BOYO more of a solo project compared to Bobby T and the Slackers?
Yeah, but I think I’ve just always done that. I’m alone recording. I record at odd hours of the night because I have bad insomnia and stuff, so I think recording becomes this solitary thing. I’m trying to do less of that now and be more collaborative, because I have a really great live band - it feels like a friend group that loves each other, which is really sweet. There’s a few people from college, plus a few people from the DIY scene [and] other weird venues that were converted garages and basements and strange warehouses… It’s this incestual pool of band friends. I want to integrate them more and be less isolated, because it’s not as fun at a certain point, being alone in my basement, just making stuff. It’s more fun to have someone else’s input.
And then there’s the title of your upcoming album, Where Have All My Friends Gone? It must be an interesting experience in quarantine right now because I feel like a lot of your music deals with these themes of isolation.
It’s interesting. The way I live, I can be a hermit sometimes, and the positive part of my life is touring and to be the antithesis of a hermit. Every night, I’m with different people and I’m out. My year was structured in a way where I already had the hermit time, and the rest of the year was going to be intense touring, so now I’m just trying to be sane. You have to ride it out.
Did you have a certain intention for this record? You have so many releases prior to this - how does this one fit in?
This kind of feels like a clean slate in a weird way. You know when you revisit albums that affected your life and fall in love with them again? You hear it with a new set of ears, but also have this nostalgic experience. I was doing that on tour with a bunch of old albums I hadn’t listened to in a while, like Elliott Smith and Angel Olsen. They were making me feel something again, and I was like ‘oh shit,’ because I had felt kind of numb before that. I wanted to dissect those records, figure out why they made me feel a certain way. When I got home after touring [with Vansire], I just recorded non-stop. I made probably 30 songs and whittled it down. I even already had the album cover before I made the actual album. I found it in this antique shop. It was an aesthetic and an idea that was already there. I definitely had a very specific idea.
“This kind of feels like a clean slate in a weird way. You know when you revisit albums that affected your life and fall in love with them again? You hear it with a new set of ears, but also have this nostalgic experience.”
What I’ve heard of the album has a lot of clarity to it.
Thank you! Also, it’s the first time someone else has co-engineered with me. I sent most of them to this guy Chad Copelin. He’s worked with Sufjan [Stevens] and BRONCHO, and just has a very good ear. I never met the dude, we just went back and forth over email… [talking about] how to get better sounds and a better set-up. It wasn’t dramatically different from what I was doing; he just made it sound better. The magic that dude does.
I feel like you could also hear the band coming through a lot, with the instrumentals as well.
That’s good to hear. It’s also very aptly titled; there’s nobody else playing on the album, I’m playing every instrument. With every BOYO album in the past, there’s always been a least a track or two where someone will be playing a part, but this is the first album I’ve made completely alone, so I’m glad it sounds like a band and not just like a weird dude layering shit on top of each other.
Do you have any other creative outlets you’re looking to experiment with now?
All the time. I get really burnt out on writing songs regularly and feel like I’m making the same thing. I love movies. I’m obsessed with all those A24 movies (but I’m also super basic and love action and Batman and stuff). I learned how to structure screenplays [in school], so I write scripts when I can’t write songs. They’re usually not very good. I haven’t written one that’s good enough to show people, but it’s where I kind of get my ya-yas out.
“I always go back to stuff that’s noisy and fucked-up. It clears the palate. I don’t know why, maybe something in our weird algorithms as humans, but that stuff excites me.”
Have you ever thought of doing a soundtrack?
Oh, yeah. It’s definitely a dream. I actually interned for Hans Zimmer’s studio when I was putting out my first BOYO stuff. It was one of the scariest experiences of my life. I was watching them score these major movies and just getting their coffee and getting yelled at all the time. It was so bizarre. I don’t think I’d want to do it in that capacity, but I don’t think you have to. So many people do it from home, too.
What’s exciting you the most about music right now?
I do get tired of indie rock. It’s such a basic, like, indie-white-dude lame thing to say, but of course I love Death Grips. I always go back to stuff that’s noisy and fucked-up. It clears the palate. I don’t know why, maybe something in our weird algorithms as humans, but that stuff excites me. There’s certain hip-hop, too; I really love Tierra Whack and Whack World. I hadn’t seen anything quite like it that could really blow my mind in such a long time.
I feel like people are being really creative during this time with live-streaming and how to monetize stuff. It’s a really, really strange time and so people are going to be even more creative with what they’re putting out. I’m really curious. I don’t know, I’m just excited.
So are you excited to, in the future, do more live performing? How do you see that as different from recording?
They’re different beasts for sure. When I was younger, I didn’t like live performing, like when I was a kid and was really self-conscious. But then I played the Smell for the first time and I felt this synergy from the audience. That got me addicted to live performing - it felt really beautiful. I found who I was on stage a little bit more.
The next shows I have in the books... it’s not official, but I’m going to Europe at some point and playing some solo sets. Because I’m home, I’ve had time to do these weird livestreams on Twitch and just fuck around and find how to do solo sets better, so that’s the next thing I’m working on. I’m excited to play with my band again too, because that’s really powerful and fun and it’s very different than jamming with yourself for hours with a loop pedal while you’re super stoned in your basement.
“Tough Kid” is coming out as a single. What can you tell us about it?
That song is like a simple nursery rhyme in the way it’s phrased and the repetition. It’s about the traits you get from your family members and your make-up as a person, as well as how you present yourself to the world and the facade of being a tough person but being vulnerable. I’ve done that before, where I’m trying to be tough but there’s a vulnerable kid deep inside. Also, the chorus interpolates some of a poem that the character from Raging Bull recites. I don’t condone anything that the character does, as he is very violent and ugly, but I thought if anybody’s tough and has a facade, it’s him. He’s so hyper-masculine and fake, so I thought I’d put some of his perspective into it. I love Scorcese movies and I can’t keep it out of my mind.
That repetition reminds me of “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl” by Broken Social Scene. I could listen to that for hours on end.
I just love songs that you can loop. They’re kind of endless nursery rhymes. They get stuck in your head. You hum them. If you listen closely enough, there’s a meaning, but it’s not intrusive. There’s a melody that can be a little more surface and light. Elliott Smith songs that are more simple, I’ll be humming them and then later I’ll look at the lyrics and think about what I was humming and see that it’s extremely dark or powerful. But you’re just kind of humming them while you’re washing your dishes, too, and they get in your psyche, and I think that’s very powerful and cool.
So, you’re on Park the Van records now. How’s that?
They’re awesome. They’re lovely. I’ve been lucky enough to be on great labels like Danger Collective, who’s still my best friends. They jump started a lot of my career. My back catalog is with them… [Park the Van] is great, and they also put out great records. They put out early Dr. Dog and BRONCHO and a lot of shit that affected how I wrote songs, just in general. So I’m indebted to them in a lot of different ways. I’m very, very grateful. It’s surreal a little bit.
“When I was a junior in high school, my friend would do write-ups on shows to get in for free. He would bullshit and say he worked for a magazine, but would always deliver the article to random freelance, local LA blogs… We hit up BRONCHO when that record Just Enough Hip to Be Woman came out.
Never in a million years did I think that the label that put it all out would put my shit out.”
Have you had any experiences where you’ve been around artists you’ve always admired?
Oh, yeah. We got to do a little opening run with BRONCHO!
When I was a junior in high school, my friend who ended up working at Danger Collective would do write-ups on shows to get in for free. He would bullshit and say he worked for a magazine, but he would always deliver the article to random freelance, local LA blogs. Our friend who takes all my album covers, Julian, would do the pictures. We hit up BRONCHO when that record Just Enough Hip to Be Woman came out. Never in a million years did I think that the label that put it all out would put my shit out. We asked if we could come interview them… So we ended up hanging with them before the show, just kicking it with them. It was at the Echo in LA, so we were walking around Echo Park. The article is online — I forget what it’s called, but it’s my proudest written piece.
After that, we ran into him backstage of Burgerama, that festival, and we would sneak in and pretend to be in bands. Ryan [Lindsey] from BRONCHO remembered us and was like ‘what’s up guys’ and hugged us and everything, and we were like, ‘this guy’s a really nice man, like woah.’ It feels very familiar now, a few years on, because we’re a part of the Park the Van family. It’s this band I idolize and he’s the songwriter I emulated and then it’s like ‘welcome to the family’ - that’s crazy. I got to watch their set from the side of the stage and I knew every fucking song. So that’s really weird and cool.
“Kids … have told me, ‘your story made me feel not-weird about my experiences.’ That’s really freeing because it makes me feel not-weird, too.”
Freedom is a big part of Pure Nowhere, so what’s something that makes you feel free?
I think very much just connecting with people through music, as lame and cliche as it sounds. I’ve had interesting correspondences, emails and messages, with kids who have epilepsy and stuff who’ve told me, ‘your story made me feel not-weird about my experiences.’ That’s really freeing because it makes me feel not-weird, too. It’s really freeing because the Internet can be really dark... so it’s nice to know that there’s love and communication and togetherness and community too.
