Getting Candid with bby [INTERVIEW]
We’re getting candid in our interview with bby.
The members of bby found each other on the internet after cultivating their individual musical abilities playing for revered underground London acts. Post-covid, they upgraded to “real life” meet-ups to develop their own gritty alternative sound. Their HQ in East London quickly became a hot spot for packed house parties that has become a personification of the band’s ethos.
We sat down with all five members of bby for our interview – Benji (vocals), Tommy (guitar and bass), Tom (drums), Dion (guitar and bass), Jesse (guitar).
We talk about cultivating community through live music, maintaining individual style and musicianship while creating something completely new as a group, and using audience participation to influence the songwriting process.
Listen to the full interview with bby on Name 3 Songs podcast and find a transcribed excerpt below.
Name 3 Songs: I was very impressed with your show on Tuesday. And I feel like I was expecting it to be very good, but I didn’t expect to be that blown away. With that, performing live is a huge part of like the bby band lore with your infamous hangs at the London studio. When you started making music, did you know immediately that you wanted the live show to be such a big part of the experience or was that something that happened because the initial live shows went so well?
Bby: I think it kind of grew with us a bit. The first songs we made, we made entirely remotely via Zoom during COVID. It was probably a reaction to us having met online and then being gas to be with each other and be playing. I extended from that, and then every hang we were like, actually wait, it’s way better when we do it live.
The records started to be more live. Our sound really changed when we started playing live. Some of the songs that we had made in sessions on a laptop then took a new life. I really also feel like, for me I would say it really came from the first rehearsals we had, we just instantly started to jam a little bit of everything. We learned so much from each other like jamming, like we knew what each other liked. We hadn’t met before, so it was quite nice just spending time in the studio, writing and having a little trip away in the Cotswolds. It was nice at the start of the year. And yeah, just doing some songwriting and jamming. It was really fun.
So it sounds like this was honestly like a really organic evolution for y’all. First of all, meeting online during COVID era, how did you figure out that you were going to vibe together as musicians?
We didn’t know. It was a gamble. Everyone was just blessing it. It was like, all right, cool. Well, this is us now. We’re in a band. Let’s not forget we are a boy band. Come on.
Nice. And a boy band was formed. The rest is history.
We need to get our group harmonies going and we need to wear more matching outfits. Today we’ve been doing a lot of harmonies.
At the show on Tuesday I looked at my friends and I was like, it’s a boy band and they’re like, why? And I’m like, more than two people are singing and therefore a boy band.
That is true. Is that the rules of the boy band?
I’ve invented those myself. I don’t know if that’s like a legal thing, but…
No, I’m going with that. That feels legal to me.
Good, good. Glad you agree. So having met online, it’s a bit of a gamble. You go in person, the vibes are vibing, you’re having a good time. When was it like from when y’all started writing music to when you did the first show? Was it just immediately like, hey, let’s have a show and just invite our friends and see what happens?
How quick was it? It was a few months. Pretty quick though. We played our first show a couple months after meeting and then we got this hang space which was just this amazing place where we could write and perform shows and stuff. And then we did one for just our friends. And we were like, that was great. And then we just invited fans and it just kind of went from there.
Where in London is the hang space?
In this weird warehouse thing at the top of Brick Lane somehow. I don’t know [how we found it.] I wouldn’t be surprised if like I went back there and it was like no longer there, do you know what mean?
I’m also curious about this because when I lived in London it didn’t feel like there was much of a music scene there. I don’t know how you guys felt when you were in New York, but there’s very much of a music community of support. Before you started doing those hangs, was there a music community in London or do you think that the hangs helped create your own community that’s self-sufficient outside of that?
I think that’s the case. We created our own scene. I was talking about this quite passionately the other day. There is definitely an existing scene. I think after COVID it kind of died off as such. And then we’ve started our own thing in our own little corner and like inviting people to come in and play the hangs with us. I think through playing shows regularly, it’s not like an ego thing. It’s like, my God, like we are so massive. We’re playing this show, like let’s get this out.
Let’s play a show. No pressure. And we just shout out friends and stuff to come and play. And through doing that, it created a little scene.
But you were right when you were saying that the UK is a little bit more insular and people probably can get better at collabing and building communities. And I think that’s probably also what we were responding to is like trying to like looking around at all these people being like, you’re doing it as well. You’re doing it as well. Obviously let’s just do stuff together.
Listen to the full interview with bby on Name 3 Songs podcast available on your favorite podcast platforms.
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