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Interview: BOYTOY

boytoy-sputty

Cover image by Zooey Jolivet, all other images by Tamim Alnuweiri.


In 2015 BOYTOY released their first full length LP, Grackle. The band skipped out on 2016, like we all should have, and is finally releasing some new music. On January 9th BOYTOY will be releasing a new 7″ Putty which is also the first thing they’ve written and recorded with drummer Chase Noelle. I sat down with Saara and Chase (Glenn could not be there because as I understand it she is living her best life on a boat in the British Virgin Islands) to get details on the upcoming release, their next LP and their upcoming tour.

Tell us about the new 7″

Saara: The 7″ is called Putty we recorded it this summer. Glenn was renting out a little studio called Waverly studios over by the Navy Yard with a couple of other kids from Splash and we tracked everything there.

Chase: I recorded with you guys before we ever even played a show.

Saara: Oh yeah, these are the first two songs we wrote with Chase. There are two songs on the record, “Want” and “Burning in Orange.” We did a cover of the Eyes “When The Night Falls” that originally was going to be on Putty but that’s now on a split with a swiss label and it’ll be coming out in January. Putty is being put out by Little Dickman Records. The cover art is a bag that Chase and I found when we went to Greece after the Europe tour. We went to this little leather shop that and saw this bag with a cat face on it so that’s the cover and Rahill [Roya] actually did the embroidery.

Chase: The record feels like putty.

Saara: Originally when we were writing the songs Glenn had the idea to make a sonically cohesive 7” so the songs kind of evoke a feeling. I’m playing bass on one song and Glenn is playing bass on another which is different, we’re usually just two guitars. The album that we’re going to be recording in March will have bass on it too. We’re recording the album with Kyle Mullarcky who did the Allah-Las record, does a bunch of stuff with the Growlers and all of these California bands.

Chase: Also congas and a lot of crazy shit, its gonna be a piece de resistance.

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You’re playing the record release show on the 9th at Baby’s All Right and you’ll be selling some test pressings of Putty?

Saara: The 7″ is coming out on Little Dickman records, they’re from new jersey and I think the record is being pressed in the Czech Republic so they’re not going to be here on time. But we do have 30 test pressings that are going to be available, not with art but maybe we’ll do something else special for it—

Chase: Finger paint.

Saara: We’re going to paint our tits then smash them on the record [laughs]. We’ve had some really good shows at Baby’s All Right in the past. I know that some of our other releases there have sold out.

Chase: Yeah I love this bill it’s like all of our friends!

Releasing a 7” is pretty rare way to release music these days.

Chase: People like to have it, on the road it’s big money people like to buy tangible things I think. Just going on the road with the 7″ is going to help pay for motel 6 [laughs], it’s something to be proud of and it sounds so fucking good.

Saara: Also if you release two songs digitally there’s so much digital content that it’s so easy to get lost, forgotten and completely disappear. If you have physical copies maybe you’ll listen to it a few times and then it’ll got lost in the stacks but a few years later you’ll put it out again and be like oh this one. I definitely have singles from friends bands that are on 7″ that I still listen to that I definitely wouldn’t even think about if they weren’t physical.

Your sound is pretty raw too and that tends to sound better on vinyl.

Chase: Totally, it’s less abrasive or maybe it’s more abrasive?

Saara: It’s more organic and real, feels like it actually happened. It creates different elements like a screech in an amp or a crackle — we put it through tape afterwards when we were mixing so it’s got natural warmth.

I read that especially when it comes to digital music that record labels have been making the sound so much louder in a way that takes away from the quality—

Chase: Isn’t that so representative of our generation? LOUDER IS BETTER, LOUD IS DEFINITELY BETTER!

Saara: If you talk to people in mastering, I forget the exact decibel difference, a record that was mastered today is so much louder than a record that was mastered in 1970.

Are you guys working on your next full length record?

Saara: Yeah we’re going to be playing a few songs from it on this Putty tour. We’re mostly doing pre-production for the album in February. We’ve got maybe 20 songs that need to be flushed out and then narrowed down. I think we have a pretty good idea of the ones that we’re vibeing with anyways.

We also made a lot of new march for this tour. We made organic surf max and we’ve got some tins and stickers and also t-shirts, a bunch of new printed t shirts — about 6 different t-shirts.

Chase: Fuzzy ones, fuzzy letter shirts! They’re so cute they just say BOYTOY in fuzzy letters.

Saara: Everything’s available at the show at Baby’s and on the rest of  the tour as well as online on our merch site.

What else can you tell us about the Putty tour?

Saara: Lena from La Luz is also going to be playing bass with us this whole tour.

Chase: Yeah it’s gonna be tight, we’re following the sun. We’re going through the south then up the west and when we get there we’re gonna do three dates in California.

Saara: Glenn is from Jacksonville and we’re playing there as well as Miami, Tallahassee, and Saint Petersburg. 

Chase: Our booking agent has Florida on lock.

Saara: The Miami show is always my favorite show of tour — kids get really psyched. We play this place Gramps, it’s awesome it has kind of like a similar thing to Baby’s All Right where it has different areas. It’s got this giant outdoor area which is the best part of playing warm places and you don’t play until like 1 in the morning, everyone’s out partying.

BOYTOY’s Putty record release show is January 9th at Baby’s All Right, 21+ tickets and info here. If you’re not in New York you can check out the rest of their tour dates here

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