First question. You guys are based in Kansas City. How does that influence your guys' sound? Being in Kansas City, I mean, it's kind of a small scene kind of in the middle of nowhere.
So a lot of people making music and playing music are not doing it really to reach any next level or next step. They're making music for themselves and their friends. And I think that kind of fosters a sound that's sort of unique and especially good, because they're just making music for each other. And it's just kind of a really special thing.
Yeah, I think it's something that you do with your friends there. I mean, it's like what most of the bands are. It's just, let's get together with everybody and just make the best music we can. But yeah, I mean, there's no industry presence there or anything, so you don't have a lot of dancers out there making super commercialized stuff or anything.
So when you find like-minded people in Kansas City, you know, for our case, people are really into pop music or oldies or that kind of thing, you've got to grab on and hold tight, because there aren't many people who are going to be as like-minded as that. So we have, Shy Boys is actually a part of two other projects called Full Bloods and ACBs made up of the same members, basically. So in fact, ACBs, the first band playing tonight, is just a reorganization of us around Connor's tunes. So it is pretty small and compact.
Right. And how do you guys say you differentiate from that project, the ACBs and Shy Boys? I mean, we all have similar influences and whatnot, but I don't know, we have our own unique kind of styles, and we try not to homogenize things too much with all of us kind of like keep them. I mean, the biggest difference is that Shy Boys is mostly Colin's songs and ACBs is mostly Connor's stuff.
So there's going to be a little bit of inherent difference, because we're not like, each project has a different songwriter, and the songs get formed around that, instead of like, everybody writes for everybody's band. It's like, one person kind of writes for one band, and everybody helps form the songs together around those. So it just ends up being different just for that reason. Cool.
Let's say I almost see that ACBs is sadder about sounds out here. I think the songs are sadder, but a lot of these are released. Yeah. Oh, yeah, the older music, and then now all the new music is just about to say.
It's like, they're about to say. Cool. Is this your guys' first time around Chicago? We've played Chicago a bunch, actually.
And it's been, actually, now a year or two, I think, since we've played. But off and on over the years, we come up. We're really good friends with the people of Jay Fernandez. We're playing with us tonight.
And so we'll go up to Chicago and almost exclusively play with them. And then they'll come down to Kansas City sometimes and play with us. And we've just built a lot of friends in Chicago. And there's a lot of cross-pollination, if you like.
So it's been sort of home away from home. We have so many friends here already. It's really easy to book a gig and have a good night, especially after the show. We have a great time.
Do you, as a group, have any little pre-show rituals that you'd like to do before you take that stage? I know. And before I play, I have to go and step back for a minute. Because if I'm full of adrenaline, from moving around or shuffling around, it's really hard to sing.
So I kind of have to step back and collect myself before I go up. Otherwise, I'm a nervous wreck. And it starts shitty, and it ends shitty. Well, talk about your albums for a second.
So the first one was 2014. And you guys have your most recent one, which was just a few days ago. Right. And so how do you feel the process has been different from the first album to the second one?
The first one came more organically, I guess. Because we started out as just buddies. And we practiced together and just kind of hung out and just developed songs with no real expectations of making a band proper. And then we had friends who wanted to hear us play.
So we played. And we had friends who wanted to hear us on record. So we made a record. And this was kind of a lazy, natural thing.
And then we put out the first record, and everything was cool. And then we were super dirt poor. And we had to stop for a couple of years. And we took time off to work.
And only since the last year and a half or two, we've kind of reinvested our energy into Shy Boys and writing new songs. And we made a new record. And we just happened to have Polyvinyl, our new record company. It just happened to end up in their inbox.
And they dug it and kind of got a hold of us. So releasing this record has been more organized and a lot more intensive hype through social media and things. Because even in the past four years, things have changed a lot as far as how you promote yourself online. So it's been an adjustment.
Not one I always really like. But it's definitely, I think, helped a lot. Being on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and having everybody pushing it that way. You can kind of see what people are saying about music right after saying it, which is kind of encouraging, too.
You're not just putting it out there hoping people are listening to it. You can kind of get, you know. It's an instant gratification that comes from people replying to your Instagram stories or commenting on your stuff. It's really addictive.
So you kind of have to turn the phone over and put it away if you really want to spend any time not buried in it. Do you feel like that put a little bit more pressure on you guys? Because you're getting this instant feedback from fans and listeners? It put more pressure on us from the standpoint that we're working with a label now.
So for instance, we release a single. And then we'll get an email the night before and say, OK, at 10 o'clock central time, you need to post this, this, and this on all your social media outlets. And it's like a choreographed push. And I find those days extremely nerve-wracking and just anxiety riddled, which is a trek.
But also that means that there's just like this flood of likes that you're just big and just like open wide. It's pretty satisfying in a way, I guess. Totally. Now, is there anything you guys look out for in specific while you guys are performing live?
In the heat of the moment of performing, is there anything you guys are watching for each other, checking up on how tight are the drum and bass, and throwing something different in there with the guitar? Vocals are always the one. Just making sure we can hear each other sing and hear ourselves sing and try to make the sound of the band mesh well with the vocal parts, because those are always pretty much the most important part of every song. I'm also really in tune to what the crowd's response is, which isn't always a good thing, because they may not be giving you the feedback that you want in the moment.
It's a real drag sometimes, because I'll see the claps or something, and I'm not super enthusiastic or something, so that pushes me to play harder and sing louder for some reason, which is the worst response I could have. So I have to remind myself to just kind of remain mentally on stage and not out there, or else I'll just get worse and worse. For me, most of what I'm thinking about, and now it's kind of, most of everything second nature has been playing so much, but since we've got three guitars now, a lot of it is figuring out, trying to find where my guitar's tone fits into the 3Ds, trying to get that blend. Ideally, you want to sound like, you know, like 18th grade guitar or something, you know, like, just like a big sound where everything's in the right place, so I'm not sure how to put that out.
What is your own personal biggest influence, biggest band or artist that's like number one, maybe it might not even influence these records, or this most recent one so far, but what's your most personal one? I have pretty populous tastes, so I'm a massive Beatles fan, especially Paul Cartney. It was my first concert. But Cartney was your first?
Oh, nice. That's awesome. So I'm real deep into that stuff, and it would be impossible for it to not have some influence. And then obviously, you know, the Beach Boys, and a lot of vocal groups of that era, like the Association, or pop groups, like Gators and the Playboys, or some of those, you know, or the girl groups of Motown and things like that.
Just pop harmonies, super heavy on melody, that's basically what I'm going to be ingesting most of the time. I grew up on a similar diet of, like, and Nash, and Neil Young, and Beach Boys, big time. It's kind of like what my dad was playing growing up, and then, you know, my mom was listening to Sade, and Cheryl Crow, and stuff like that. So I grew up, first of all, I was definitely pop music, and so, like, melody, I like all kinds of stuff, but there's nothing I like better than a good melody.
So, I don't know, yeah, I guess that's it. Yeah, well, Paul and I are brothers, and we grew up with the exact same sort of, you know, home listens. But, yeah, there's a couple, like, I, okay, well, in, like, 2006, for example, Colin and I found out about the Brian Jonestown massacre, which, you know, was just really shocking at the time, because we didn't realize that there were modern bands. I mean, we grew up in a pretty secluded sort of lifestyle, and I was pretty shocked to find out, like, modern bands playing pop music or whatever in that way, and then, like, that kind of got us, like, thinking maybe we should be in a band for real, and then, like, years later, we were into, like, the first Girls album, or the first Torps record, I think, influenced the way our first record sounded.
So just, yeah, like, pop music, basically. All, like, from the 50s on to present, you know, like, just, like, that sort of world of song structure and stuff, because we usually, like, keep our ears pretty tuned into that stuff. That's definitely our biggest comment around. Yeah, that's, like, what we all, like, we all have stuff that we like that isn't everyone else in this bag, but the one thing we all agree on is that, especially that, like, 60s stuff that's almost overproduced, it's just, like, so incredibly sugary-sweet and melodic.
And Phil Collins. I love Phil Collins and Genesis. Nice. And then, what do you feel was the biggest influences for your most recent record?
I don't know if the influences changed a whole lot. I think what really informed this record was what we didn't want to do. Again, because we got out the first record, and it was, you know, really rich in reverb, and the playing was looser, the singing was looser. It's all drenched in this heavy, surfy, sludgy vibe.
And we kind of just wanted to wash that off of ourselves and re-imagine what Shy Boys could be without those trappings. So I think Bell House, you know, it hasn't changed a whole lot as far as, like, Song Stretcher goes and how we approach songwriting, but the sounds that we're trying to accomplish are cleaner and more dynamic and more focused. I think the two major, like, references production-wise were Beach Boys Party and Tusk Buckley to Mack. Yeah.
Just in the way that they were able to strip things down to their essentials and kind of do things in a way that was, like, super surprising how stripped down it was, but kind of all the better for that, I guess. All right. So here's a quick lightning round. What is your favorite topping pizza?
Pepperoni. Mushroom. Pepperoni, pineapple, and jalapeno. Favorite color?
Favorite color is undecided. Like purple. I'm in the yellow phase. Favorite season?
Spring. Fall. All right. And then, since you guys did mention you guys do come up to Chicago every once in a while, do you guys have a specific favorite part of the city or part of the city that stands out?
There's so many times that I still don't really know how the layout of Chicago that well. I probably hung out, like, around, like, Wilson and Logan Square the most. But, again, I don't know many parts of Chicago. It's kind of true because it's so flat and it all kind of looks the same.
You want to know where you are at the end of the time. Also, you know, when you're on Seward, you roll into a city. And you may have played in that city six times, but you've really only spent a period of eight hours each time, you know? And it's only centered around whatever neighborhood the club is in that you're playing.
And so, you know, we've come up to Chicago, you know, a dozen times, but I've probably only spent a total of four days, you know, across those dozen times. So we build different puzzle pieces in. So I feel like my picture of Chicago has about, like, five puzzle pieces. I have, like, a possible 100.
Yeah. Right. Now, I do know that you guys just finished this album. You guys just put out this record.
Are you guys still trying to write other songs in the future? We're just now starting to think about that. Because it took us four and a half years to do this record. And the consensus is we don't want to do that yet.
And we have, you know, a relationship with Polyvinyl, a record company, who said, you know, hey, if you guys want to do another record, we should talk, you know? So there's a lot of encouragement to be more proactive about writing and stuff. And I think the next one's going to be a prog record. Whatever that means for Shad Boys, but we're going to figure it out.
I like it. Shad Boys, thank you very much. Thank you.