Good Boys – A great interview with guitarist David Wood
Ralph Beauchamp
Photo Rick Fleck
David Wood is one of the guitarists in the famous Canadian independent band. good boy. Our reporter Rick Fleck recently reviewed their live show at the Sinclair in Cambridge, Massachusetts (see related content below). In addition to wood, good boy Composed of Jacob Tsafatinos (guitar), Nick Frosst (vocals), Jon Kereliuk (drums) and Michael Kozakov (bass). The band just dropped their latest EP good boy 4 Winning rave reviews from critics and fans alike. Their sound combines upbeat rhythms with explosive indie textures. However, some of their delightful habits hide deeper themes of social deficiencies.
good boy 4 Opening with the aptly titled track “Bubbly,” which features a phosphorescent guitar riff and energetic vibe. “From the Start” continues the energetic soundscape. Luxurious rhythms with a hint of jazz and filled with divine spice. “Summer”, “Break”, “Premier Inn” all have a cheeky tone that’s captivating. “Dance Lesson” is truly stunning. Its cinematic elements are rhythmic and rich. good boy 4 A true testament to songwriting and musicianship good boy.
David Wood was kind enough to spend some time with AMP during their sold-out US tour.
AMP: Can you give us a little history of the band?
David: We met in college around 2014. Our first single “Nomu” was released in 2015. It’s all about releasing music for our family and close friends. Then the song was leaked on a Reddit board called “Listen To This,” which was pretty cool. The committee has launched new music that can be uploaded. “Nomu” received a large number of uploads, and the video we posted received over 10,000 views overnight. We were completely stunned. We can’t figure out how this happened.
Since then, someone at Spotify added it to a playlist with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. It was our first foray into making real music, even though at the time we were still just a bunch of friends enjoying music together. This led to us starting to write more songs over the next few years. We launched our first EP in 2018 and it’s going really well.
We released our second EP in 2020. It’s amazing that even though the pandemic has hit, our listening base has grown. The YouTube algorithm found our first two EPs, which helped a lot. None of us could have foreseen in our wildest dreams that things would come to this.
AMP: How would you describe your music?
David: Uptempo indie rock. High energy feel good music. But underneath this poppy upbeat music lie different layers. There are also some very sad lyrics at times. We express themes like anxiety and fear. These topics are obscured by our brisk pace.
AMP: Your new EP, good boy 4, Recently released. How was the reception?
David: It’s really incredible. It kind of caught us off guard. We launch good boy 4 We already have fans singing all the lyrics on our current US tour a few weeks ago. This is an extraordinary experience. Also, it’s amazing how easily we incorporate new songs into our live shows. I’m proud that our stage design and immersive visuals work so powerfully with the collaborative artwork associated with the new EP. Hats off to our friend Xierra (Xray.Alpha.Charlie), an awesome YouTube animator. We were able to incorporate a lot of the visuals she created for us into our live shows.
AMP: What is “Nomu Kid” about?
David: “Nomu Kid” is our little guy. We felt that the first single “Nomu” that I mentioned before needed artwork. So we went to Jacob and a high school friend of mine named Gabriel Altrows, who’s a great artist in Toronto. He created this character for us, and we noticed that people who listened to our music were also inspired by our “Nomu Kid” mascot. Suddenly, other artists and fans started sending us their interpretations of “Nomu Kid.” It inspires us to go with the flow and embrace their creativity. We love the idea that our music can inspire our followers.
From there, we started launching our own world of other characters. There is “Nomu Kid” and a scarecrow named “Cornelius”. All of a sudden, other characters kept popping up on our singles. There is a monk named “Mimi” who has her own story. “Mimi” has her own animated video, once again produced by Xierra for our track “Mimi’s Delivery Service”. The whole concept snowballed from “Nomu Kid”.
AMP: Your music seems to have achieved star status in the gaming community. How did that happen?
David: We are pretty well versed when it comes to computers. Since we are both programmers, we play a lot of video games. We watch a lot of Twitch and competitive StarCraft. So we quickly realized that professional streamers would post highlight reels on YouTube with specific soundtracks to enhance the experience. People started asking if they could use our songs. As a band, we decided to remove the Content ID from our music and make it DMCA-free on Twitch and eventually YouTube as well.
So gamers can essentially use our music without our approval. By making our music more accessible through streaming, we’ve found it to be a great tool for getting our music out there. It has created some cool friendships with professional gamers. We met some people at the show. If we didn’t take down the DMCA we would probably make more money, but it has led to some great gaming collaborations.
AMP: Who was the band’s inspiration?
David: Our influences are broad and we all have different musical tastes. Bands that unite us include Bloc Party, The Strokes, Two Door Cinema Club and Fall Out Boy. There are a lot of new bands that we love. We toured New York with Phoneboy. They are an amazing group. We got to play with or meet a lot of bands that we admired. Another band we like is Last Dinosaurs from Australia. They are a very catchy indie band that keeps putting out great music.
AMP: How do you hope listeners feel when listening to your music?
David: For me, I want our listeners to feel heard and seen. We try to tell stories through songs. For example, “Bubbly” is a song I wrote about my social anxiety issues. I know many of our fans have had similar experiences, so I want them to know we hear them. Hopefully our lyrics can tell people what we’ve all been through. We want our followers to have a symbiotic relationship with our music. Many people come up to us after our shows to express how our music has helped them cope with today’s social climate. In order to feel better, it’s important that we all stay connected.
AMP: If you could collaborate with any artist from the past or present, who would it be and why?
David: Current band, The Last Dinosaur. As I mentioned before, they are a great group of musicians. They share the same spirit as us in terms of incorporating fun guitar riffs. We’re actually trying to be more like them (laughs). Speaking of the past, it has to be David Bowie. It will be great to work with him. Just hanging in the same room can be exciting.
AMP: What’s next for Good Boys?
David: This summer we are hosting Lollapalooza, which will be our first music festival. It’s great to be a part of it. In the fall we toured the UK and Europe. In between these two milestone events, there will be more writing. We are always looking forward to the next project. Hopefully we can be productive and come up with some amazing tunes. We hope to continue our musical development.
AMP: Any final words for your fans?
David: Keep being you. Keep trying to contact us. We love all your artwork and creativity. We read all of your messages and we’re so happy that our music has made an impact on our fans. Also, thank you very much!
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