Boys No Good

Jacksonville, FL’s Boys No Good’s blend of fast hardcore with catchy pop punk is grounded by front man Jeff Harrell’s clean and sometimes raw vocals. It didn’t take long for the newcomers to inspire fans nationally with the self-released free digital demo in 2010. Since then the group has toured the U.S. receiving mass fan praise playing along side of bands like New Found Glory, Bane, The Wonder Years, Trapped Under Ice, Evergreen Terrace and many more.

In 2011, Boys No Good entered the studio for their debut release, Never Felt Better, which was released that summer via Indianola Records.

Ashley Milholland spoke with bass player, James Siboni this past February after they played their last date of their tour in Jacksonville, Florida at the Pit.

 

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Ashley: You just finished the tour with Casey Jones, Death Before Dishonor and No Bragging Rights; how did the tour go?

James: The tour was great, it was a really fun tour. Turned out to be a success. Turned out to be better than we expected, actually. We were kind of nervous going in but the crowd was great and we got a really good response and we had a blast.

Ashley: Any memorable moments while on tour?

James: On the tour, the worst moments in my career happened. We were in Canada, in Montreal. The wind chill was in the negatives, we were playing a show and my friend Josh came up to us on stage and said that someone broke into our van and I said, “Fuck” so I ran downstairs and someone had bashed in our driver’s side window. Luckily nothing was stolen, but it was pretty miserable. Then that night, we were going to drive to Toronto to stay with some friends and as soon as we started the van we heard this loud boom and we had blown our radiator out, it was like two in the morning and we didn’t have anywhere to go in Montreal and not very much Canadian money and it was miserable. 
 
Ashley: This was the farewell tour for Casey Jones – did you guys doing anything to celebrate their final show?

James: Good question. We really kind of didn’t. But now that you say that I think we should have. The final show was really fun, it was a sold out show. It was kind of an emotional night; everyone was supper sad. Um, we had a good time, but we really didn’t do anything to celebrate.  We reminisced about old times, kind of sat around in the van on our way to the last show and had some good conversations. We didn’t do anything too special or too crazy.

Ashley: Lets go back and give us a brief history lesson, how did Boys No Good form?

James: Well Casey Jones had already slowed down with the touring and the writing, so I found that I had more free time on my hands and I wanted to form a new band. A side project that was more acceptable than just a straight up hardcore band, like something that my mom would like, ya know as silly as that sounds. Something that people would be more open to and something more melodic. Bob, the drummer, I have known for a long time since his old band and my old band played a lot of shows together and um kind of wanted to jam with him and our guitar player approached me at a party and was like, “Hey, me and Bob have been jamming do you want to join us?” and I said “Yeah, that’s awesome, I was looking for a band, I know Bob is a good drummer and let’s kind of jam.” We started practicing and wrote a demo, we put the demo on the internet to see if anyone liked it and we were really overwhelmed with the positive response. So we were like let’s move forward and make this a full-time band.

Ashley: How did you guys come to get signed with Indianola Records?

James: They had put out the first Casey Jones record. I knew the guys that ran it a little bit, and they were from Georgia; from the southeast  just like us. We knew it would be a good label, we knew they were trustworthy guys. In Casey Jones, we had problems with other labels with trust and shady business. We knew Indianola were fair businessmen and would do the right thing. So we finally hit them up. At first they were kind of weird about it because they do metal mostly and heavy music like that and at first they were like  “I don’t know, Pop Punk?” “I don’t know if Indianola is a pop punk kind of label.” I was like well let’s do it, just give it a shot. Then we finally convinced them into doing it. I think they are happy the record has been doing really well. I think they are fans of the band now and it was the right choice.

Ashley: How has life changed from being an unsigned band to being signed to a record label?

James: I feel like in this age, the digital age, it is not that much different. It helps in some ways. They give you’re a pretty decent budget to record on so you can go to a nice studio and kind of take our time recording. So they fronted the money for that, which we wouldn’t of been able to have. They also have good distribution, they get our CD in the stores and they help with promotion, they take out magazine ads and put some banners on websites and they really help and it is a great label. A lot of the things you can do on your own through youtube, twitter, facebook or bandcamp. It is kind of simple to be an unsigned band and get recognition if you are an unsigned band and you work hard.

Ashley: Before you signed to Indianola, you self released a digital demo. What made you decide to go the digital route rather than release a physical format?

James:  I think CD’s just seem like a middleman at this point. We could giveaway CD’s or sell CD’s and then the person that buys them will go straight and just rip them on their computer. It seems like we really wanted to concentrate on doing things digitally, and we did burn something’s onto CDR’s and we would sale them at shows as something to make a little extra cash on the road. We really wanted to focus digitally because it kind of makes more sense; I mean CD’s are kind of like big coasters and I don’t think there is a need for them anymore.

Ashley: Your new album, Never Felt Better, can you tell us a little bit about the title of the album?

James: Yeah, sure. We had the record entirely written and we had the time in the studio to go record it and the label was like, “Hey, we need a record title” and we just couldn’t agree on anything, we had a list of probably 20 titles. All 5 of us could not agree on what we all really liked and the label was hitting us up everyday like,“Hey, you are past your deadline…we need a title…we need a title” and then our guitar player just said it, and he just said something like, “To be in this band he could never felt better.” We were like man, that could be a good title. We liked the positive feel of it, and it was more original than anything we had on our list.

Ashley: What was the reasoning behind re-recording some of the songs from the demo for the full length?

James: Two main things. One, we knew we were going to take more time and go to a more polished sounding studio so we wanted to just redo, and see how the songs sounded like, taking our time, changing a few things that we didn’t really like about the first recording. Also, we got a new singer between the demo and the full length. So we wanted to hear his rendition of the songs, which is our new singer Jeff. And um, we thought some of them were cool and some of the songs were really good and we wanted some more people to hear them because we knew that after Never Felt Better came out that we wouldn’t be pushing the demo to any new people. We just kind of wanted to get some of those songs out.

Ashley: What has the reaction to the album been like?

James: Positive. We have been honestly slighted overwhelmed, it is doing better than we anticipated. Indianola is a small label and we didn’t really know how many people we would reach doing a record on a small label, but thanks to the internet and we have been touring a lot the word has spread and we have gotten a great reaction, we had a lot of positive reviews before the record was release like on websites, blogs, and magazines reviewed the record and almost all of them were highly positive which felt great and um the CD sold well on iTunes, in stores and from our merch table and um and we are gaining fans at a good rate and I honestly couldn’t be happier with the response to the record so far.

Ashley: Other than the obvious nod to Lifetime with your namesake, what are some of your musical influences and how that has played a role in your songwriting?

James:  That’s a good question. We all have very different musical backgrounds, and our ages span almost 10 years. Our musical influences are pulled from very different directions. But I know some bands that we liked, we all wanted to start a band that was like New Found Glory or Blink 182 , we all liked those bands and wanted those bands to be a heavy influence. Some of the younger guys in the band listened to a lot of mid year 2000 pop punk that I wasn’t that into, I don’t know maybe like Sugarcult or Fenix TX, bands that I was a little to old for when they were hitting, but then there is stuff from the 90’s that I feel like they were too young to know about that I was bringing to the table and it is kind of a cool mix. Overall, I would say it is a melodic hardcore band that is trying to be melodic.

Ashley:What do you guys feel is the most important part of maintaining a good relationship with each other being in a band, as most bands tend to break-up due to conflicts in the way the band is handled from songwriting to recording albums?

James: I can answer that question in one word and that word is Communication. It really is the key, the older I get the more I understand that is such an important thing in being in a band. I think that is what really destroys bands full of younger dudes, and I mean we definitely get into our share of petty arguments or frustrations with each other. As long as we remember to communicate and bring everything to the table that is on our minds and if no is overly sensitive and no one in Boys No Good is overly sensitive or defensive and it works, I mean, especially with songwriting like you said it is hard sometimes creatively for everyone to be on the same page. We just kind of express the problems we have with songs, the problems we have on the road with each other and be positive. We have done a good job of being positive and open to each others criticisms.

Ashley: You guys have been touring in support of the album for a while and show no signs of slowing down with the tour with ThirtySeven starting  – what are some down falls of traveling in a van? As I call it ‘van life’?

James: Actually, we canceled that tour with ThirtySeven, we dropped off because we had some pretty severe van issues.  Unfortunate van issues, really bad luck I feel like.  We are home now, and we are just playing a few shows in Florida and Georgia just to raise money to put a down payment on a new van and we have almost succeeded. Traveling and missing events at home or van problems like if you have a shitty van breaking down all the time it’s so frustrating, it is very, very, financially damaging and nothing can make you feel more stressed on tour than van problems. Boys No Good had to cancel two shows because the van was in the shop. So I would ride with Casey Jones and leave the other four dudes by themselves in the city behind to work it out and meet up the following day, which is really stressful not being around each other through hard times like that. It definitely sucks, ‘van life’ sucks.

Ashley: All bands want to get signed to a label, what advice would you give the struggling artist out there waiting to catch that big break?

James:  Definitely having a good work ethic is the most important thing. Not waiting around, not being to focused on ‘getting signed’, do anything independently as you can. I always say everyday you should make your band a little bigger and a little better. Be practicing as much as you can, work on writing better songs, working everyday to promote your band online or with paper flyers or going into the local college or whatever. So I think if you really concentrate on those two things all the labels will come to you eventually. You can’t sit around and wait for an opportunity you just have to really be pushing forward each day to get your band fans, to win fans. Labels want bands that have fans, they don’t want bands that are lazy. Labels want to go with a band that has worked hard independently to gain fans.

Ashley: Since you guys are back home now in Florida after touring, what are your upcoming plans for the rest of the year?

James: Since the Thirtyseven tour has been canceled, we are home now and using the time to try to start writing again and practicing for whatever our new release is. We are writing for the next few months, a couple of mini tours, nothing concrete to say right now but a couple cool tours for the early and late summer. Hopefully after the summer, get home and continue writing and start thinking about recording towards the end of the year.