DJ LSD: Hello everyone, I’m here with Scott from Boyscott, this is DJ LSD, interviewing Scott for WKDU 91.7 fm Drexel university’s free format non-commercial radio station. Scott, how are you?
Scott: I am doing well, technically, I am very good.
DJ LSD: That’s good! That’s good to hear, so I wanted to get your formal apology for eight years of us waiting for this album. Do you have any form of an apology for that?
Scott: I just, I am an anxious person and it took me a long time to write these songs and uhh let me tell you, I was well aware it was taking so long.
DJ LSD: I remember when we first met each other at the house show and you were talking about working on the first couple songs and that was like 2018.
Scott: When was that, yeah.
DJ LSD: That was like 2018 yeah that was like when you guys just started doing house shows, live shows again, crazy, crazy, crazy. Crazy how long it’s been, Covid pandemic and everything included.
Scott: Oh my god.
DJ LSD: So how does it feel to be less than a week from Spellbounds release?
Scott: Yeah it’s pretty unreal, it definitely, I don’t think I’ve allowed myself to realize that it’s finally coming out just because we’ve had months of just like preparing for it to come out so it just felt like it always kind of like, “oh it’s already happened,” but no it’s finally happening and I’m really excited for people to hear what we’ve been working on for literally so long.
DJ LSD: Yeah, is there any particular song that you’re really excited to get people’s reactions to?
Scott: Oh that’s interesting uh we’ve got this one- Oh here’s my guitarist Tom, whats up?
Tom: Hey dude.
DJ LSD: Hey Tom.
Scott: So we’ve got this one song in particular called “Moose Head” that’s a very energetic, upbeat, song so I’m excited for people to hear that one. Then we got a very moody strange song called “Fell” that I’m excited for people to hear, uhmm, yeah, yeah.
DJ LSD: That’s sick, that’s sick. Is there any chance you think of either of those songs dethroning a “Nova Scotia 500” or any of the other tracks in the millions at this point?
Scott: I don’t see it, I’m not sure, if one song gets a little bit of traction from this record then I’ll be happy, but I mean, you know, it’s taken years of those songs being passed around by friends and people to get it to where it was. So it’s probably going to take another few years to hopefully gain some traction similar to that. We’ll see, who knows, I just want people to find something they like in there.
DJ LSD: So talking about your previous record, I just wanted to ask, when you originally made that record what was your headspace? What were you thinking? Where were you at?
Scott: The first record was truly “first thought best thought” mentality, it was just like “hey this sounds cool, let’s do that,”. There was no extra thinking over it. It was truly just fun, experiment, first try at making something, there was absolutely no pressure, you know what I mean? So it was honestly one of the most fun experiences of my life, of just like “ohh lets do this thing I’ve wanted to do for a while,” which was like make music, and maybe make an album, and then for this next record it was a little bit of the opposite. It was more like anxiety, a little bit of stress. Just like, wait, is this good enough? Is that good enough? Wait, let’s not record that yet. Maybe I can come up with something better. So it was a very different process for the second record.
DJ LSD: Were you anxious that you wouldn’t be able to follow up the first record? Just because of how big it had gotten in comparison to what you probably thought it was gonna hit?
Scott: Yeah, yeah, kind of, I definitely- it was a little nerve wracking just to start to play shows again after the pandemic and have people sing it back to us and have people come tell us how much it means to them, and be like “ohh, no, oh ok, shoot, so you’re gonna be listening to the second one” then that’s a little scary. It, you know what I mean, it was like now there was suddenly a little bit of expectations, so yeah no it was definitely a little scary. I mean, I tried not to think about that, also lots of the songs on the new record are very old but I did rewrite them and workshop them a lot just with that thinking in mind of, “oh no,” people are listening now you know?
DJ LSD: When was the last track recorded? I’m curious.
Scott: So we finished recording in the fall, no, that’s not true, we finished recording in 2023 technically, the way end of last year, oh sorry, the way beginning of last year, I quickly re-edited some stuff. But we recorded all of it, the final recording at the end of 2022 in the fall, but as far as writing goes I mean, the writing started right when the first album finished and I think the last bit of writing ended really in fall of 2022. So it was like, as we were doing it so, it’s all pretty old stuff, but technically, technically, in 2022 there was some writing, so I don’t know it still feels fresh, some of the songs, but uh for me they’re actually pretty old.
DJ LSD: That’s fair. Do you think that because of how long it’s been now since you’ve written those songs, you think the next batch of tracks are going to come out a little bit quicker? Or are you gonna do an EP or gonna do more single- more throwaway singles or just a single by itself and without a project attached to it?
Scott: That’s a good question, you know, I haven’t really thought about it but I’m definitely an album person, so we’ll probably stick to making a third album, but definitely sooner than eight years, whatever it was, ten years, you know what I mean? Uhh so yeah but that’s a good idea, I don’t know, yeah, maybe throw some extra singles out. I definitely have some songs I’m excited about that I want to track and hopefully for sure get them out sooner than the last time.
DJ LSD: I mean some b sides or demos would be sick, I’m not gonna lie.
Scott: That could be fun, that could be really cool. We don’t have- I mean I guess we do have some demos. I mean the songs have come a long way from when I was originally demoing the new album, songs are like completely different now. It’s the same song but just, you know, I really workshopped them so.
DJ LSD: Is there any track from Goosebumps that you still enjoy playing live like every time?
Scott: That’s a good question. I mean I do, I do love playing all of them, but it is true that some of them, you know, we’ve played them for a while. I think everyone has a different pick in the band, for me I really like playing “Embarrassingly Enough,” that arrangement has just kind of stayed true to how we play it live. We’ve changed up a lot of the arrangements of the other songs on the record, but that one has always just been that one just feels good. And then we like playing the song “Sleepaway” which is the last track on that album cause that’s a weird song. That’s a good question though, we technically enjoy all of them.
DJ LSD: Fun fact “Sleepaway” and “Embarrassingly Enough” are my two favorite tracks
Scott: Really!
DJ LSD: Well Sleepaway was a little band I had that I named after-
Scott: No way I remember this
DJ LSD: I messaged you about it and I had like a whole logo designed. And “Embarrassingly Enough” is just, the vocals are so nice on that.
Scott: Oh thanks dude, I appreciate that, those songs, funny enough, were recorded in the same week, like were written and recorded at the same time, and then actually one of the songs on the new record, “Fell,” was recorded in the same week with those songs. But I didn’t finish it in time for Goosebumps so the third installment of Embarrassingly, Sleepaway, and Fell is coming out.
DJ LSD: So is fell the oldest track on the entire record?
Scott: Yeah yeah exactly
DJ LSD: Uh, just, just gonna real quick look at my questions.
Scott: Yeah no worries.
DJ LSD: Uh so, Spellbound why that name of all the names? I get Goosebumps, goosebumps is kind of a nature thing from what I got, but Spellbound seems an interesting choice. It’s still like a feeling someone has-
Scott: Exactly-
DJ LSD: Within their body-
Scott: Exactly-
DJ LSD: That isn’t really describable in, like, a non weird word I would say.
Scott: Right, I mean that’s kind of it. When I was making this record I would go to the library a lot and- I just messed up my contact, uhh, I would go to the library a lot and rent old movies and I just always remember I would just like be walking down the aisle just, like, looking at, you know, how the dvd cases are lined up so you only see the title.
DJ LSD: So you only- yeah.
Scott: So yeah just be like perusing and iI always, I never rented it, I’ve seen this film, but I never rented it, but it was “Spellbound” by Alfred Hitchcock and I don’t know why, the font at the time, I was looking at it, it just like stuck with me and I thought it looked cool and that word, I like wrote it down in a notes app thing. Just like that word is kind of a weird, interesting word, uhm, and yeah I’ve just saved it for this long and when it came time to put a name on the record, I don’t know, that one just kind of popped out at me a little bit.
DJ LSD: I think Alfred Hitchcock has some, like, awesome posters like “Vertigo” for me.
Scott: Exactly, yeah, oh my god, love it yeah.
DJ LSD: But uh that’s sick. So, any ideas so far rattling your brain, what word you’re gonna go, name wise, with the next record? Do you have like “Starstruck” or, or something like crazy?
Scott: No, it’ll probably be something weird though, it’ll probably be something like in a different realm. We’ll see, but, uh no, I don’t have anything kicking around and I don’t want to say anything else in case I end up not using it.
DJ LSD: That’s fair.
Scott: But uh, I am excited. I am excited to see what the third thing is gonna be. It’s definitely up in the air as far as what direction but I have some songs fleshed out for it.
DJ LSD: So for the cover album, I was wondering, were you guys actually in front of wolves with bags of meat or something trying to get them, like, to go in a specific direction?
Scott: No, no, no, no, not at all. So, that photo is- so I love with album covers editing and messing around and it’s kind of a collage that I made. It’s all like, the background is different then the original photo, the rock that’s on the bottom is edited in there. I took a photo at the Museum of Natural History in New York of these taxidermy wolves and the photo when I went home, I kind of like, I looked at this photo like a year later, like, “Where the fuck was this?” and they looked real, they looked alive.
DJ LSD: They looked so real I genuinely didn’t know.
Scott: Yeah they look so real, they looked so alive, and I don’t know how I feel about taxidermy per say.
DJ LSD: That’s fair.
Scott: I’m not against it. I’m more against zoos and live animals, if anything, maybe I’m more pro taxidermy so that it’s just two animals that kind of, whatever, were found.
DJ LSD: You don’t have to replace them every year.
Scott: Yeah exactly, you know, it’s kind of like, you can learn about nature in a way thats not fucking with a live animal but technically, those animals were fucked with in some way- maybe not, maybe they died of natural causes and preserved. That’d be cool, but uh yeah, I took a photo at the Museum of Natural History and that was cool, and then I just ended up throwing it in photoshop and just like creating my own world with it.
DJ LSD: I mean the ogs will know about the wolf mask from Goosebumps.
Scott: Ha!
DJ LSD: Uh I was wondering if that was a reference to that.
Scott: I didn”t even directly do that, but it’s just me, I just, I just like that shit.
DJ LSD: Yeah, you uh put the dog mask in there (the After Dark music video) I was like oh that’s, uh, is he de-volving over time?
Scott: Yeah yeah.
DJ LSD: Or is it evolving, I guess, you’re going from a wolf to the dog, whats, what’s next a Shih tzu, or?
Scott: Thats funny, thats funny, yeah, the dog mask was also kind of random where it was just like our bassist had that mask in his car for years and we’re uh recording the music video and it’s just like, Dave is like, “oh what if I got the mask?” And we’re like, “sure bring it,” and it ended up being the thing.
DJ LSD: What about the wolf mask, where’s that lying around?
Scott: I actually don’t know. That’s kind of sad, I don’t, maybe it’s at my dads house, I’m not sure.
DJ LSD: You should put it on like, uh, during the merch tables so that people can see them.
Scott: Dude it’s funny, we’re actually, our earliest shows our drummer would wear a wolf mask and we sounded terrible because he couldn’t see anything
DJ LSD: So 2019 I remember messaging you being like, “Hey what happened? Someone re-released your record, what happened with that?”
Scott: Yeah yeah.
DJ LSD: And I thought it was a glitch or something, and then you were like, “No I signed to a record label, we were re-releasing it,” how was that? Re-releasing? How did that feel? Because that must have been like the moment where you were like, “Oh this record did well enough that like years later a record label wants to re release this.”
Scott: No that was cool yeah, basically, the whole thing with that deal was that they were like, “Hey this should be pressed to vinyl and like cds and tapes properly, like do you want to do that?” And I was like, “yeah that’s awesome,” and it came at a great time when we were about to go on like, that big tour where we first met, and yeah, no, it’s super surreal. It’s been crazy, it’s been so cool. That was like four years after it was released and then after covid we came back, people were singing the songs, it’s been really, it’s been a wonderful experience and super grassroots but still like growing its cool.
DJ LSD: How’s it been uh, basically, doing your shows leading up to this without having released the music yet? Has it been a little bit weird hearing people try to figure out what the hook is and the chorus etc. while like not knowing the song ahead of time?
Scott: No totally it’s like, we want to play all these new songs but we also know, like, that the first five shows the audience hasn’t heard a lot of the songs, and we still want to play them, but it’s like “ah shoot, they haven’t heard them. we should still play more old songs,” old song heavier on these shows. But yeah, no, it’s been cool, but we’re definitely excited for people to hear it, so we can just start playing the new songs all the time.
DJ LSD: That’s sick uh, now I’m just curious, why Philly as the first show on the tour?
Scott: Purely, just availability, our booking agent was like, “oh yeah Philly is uh, this date works best for Philly.”
DJ LSD: I mean that works for me, so.
Scott: Yeah, luckily our drummer lives here so it was easy for us. We crashed here. I don’t know if people in Philly fuck with us that much, as far as how many people are coming to the show, but it’ll be fun regardless.
DJ LSD: I mean regardless yeah, I mean, uh, lord knows WKDU has been playing you quite a bit.
Scott: Yeah super grateful for that.
DJ LSD: Uhhh but yeah. So, now considering the fact that the album’s going to release, what are you gonna do after the tour? Any idea? Or are you just gonna hibernate for a year, eight years again?
Scott: Yeah yeah so no, so, when we finish the tour I’m definitely gonna take it easy for a second. But then yeah- but then i’m gonna have fun with trying to, for lack of a better word, promote the record by like “oh let’s make more videos, let’s do some live videos, let’s do some fun stuff,” to try and bring life to those to these new songs like maybe so some live sessions, play the songs in a different way, probably tour sone more in the spring.
DJ LSD: South by Southwest-esque like, stuff like that?
Scott: I mean that would be cool, if they were interested.
DJ LSD: I remember you guys played one year right? Like, 2019 or 2020 or am I remembering incorrectly?
Scott: We, we did unofficial South by Southwest before and, South by Southwest the company itself, not super great, but they’re getting better, they’re hearing musicians, they’re hearing their crowds say like, “hey we don’t want certain people represented at the festival” uh, so yeah no I’m interested for sure, but regardless Austin is awesome we love Austin.
DJ LSD: Sick, well uh this has been awesome. This has been an awesome interview, I’m really excited to hear the new album on the 16th. I have it pre saved on my phone. To anyone else that is reading this article right now, check it out, I’ll link it below and yeah, Scott, any parting words to the people of Philadelphia or to the people in general on the internet?
Scott: Yeah well, hey, thank you for listening. It means the world to me, it means the world to the band, thanks for all the support. It’s crazy that people are still listening to our music and yeah, yeah, I say maybe give the new album a try, if you find something that you like, that would be awesome, no worries if not. But thank you to you Lukas, I appreciate it, you rock.
DJ LSD: Appreciate it to you too, thank you Scott.