It’s predicted that next year, Boyce Avenue will hit ten million YouTube subscribers and over three billion video views. They’ll also play Royal Albert Hall in London. Not bad for three brothers who started with nothing but some instruments, a YouTube channel and a dream. Well, there’s also the matter of them being extraordinarily talented…
So you’re headed down here in December. How does it feel to know that you’re in an independent band that can do headline tours all across the world? That must be satisfying…
Oh, it’s great! That’s one of the things we’ve loved about getting the start through YouTube and being independent – we have a certain amount of autonomy over our fate. It’s nice because we get to get out and see the fans and the world. You know some people spend their whole lives wanting to travel, and we’re able to call it work!
Your rise to fame, it’s fair to say, was built on covers. How do you feel your fans have responded to your original music over the years?
Very favorably. These days a lot of people find us through music sharing services via both the covers and the originals. What you’ve observed is that we’ve always used the covers as a discovery mechanism because we don’t have radio or any of the things signed artists have. We’ve always played a lot of original music at our live shows and I don’t think people would keep coming back if they didn’t like it. So I think there are a lot of people who are really into the originals. I mean we see fans coming to shows with our lyrics tattooed on them. For us, that’s really humbling and inspiring and we also have different kinds of fans who like us for different reasons.
A new originals album came out this year, Road Less Traveled. How has that been received stateside?
It’s been great. I mean, we don’t get very involved in the charting aspect of music or anything. But the way, people are reacting to it live has shown us that they’re very appreciative that we made the album. It’s been a long time since we did an originals album. I didn’t realise until we got on stage and played some of those songs and heard people talking at the meet and greets about the new songs, how important it was for people that we kept putting out new original music. I don’t think we’ll wait as long next time, but we still feel that there’s a lot of touring to do on the new album. We’ve never played any of these songs live in Australia for example, so we’re very eager to get over and do that.
Tell us about where the first single “Be Somebody” came from…
That was one of our co-writes. We did a few things differently this time. We actually partnered up with some big producers who executive produced the album for us. So about half the album was done completely independently, but then the other half was done in a more mainstream fashion. The producers would pitch us a few songs, we’d make them our own. Maybe change a verse or change a bridge. So “Be Somebody” was one such collaborative effort. It’s a song that has grown to mean a lot to us because whilst it’s sad at times, the message is ultimately positive. That’s the core of what we like to do.
I think the first song of yours that really connected with me was your cover of Michael Jackson’s “Will You Be There”. I think it proves the point you’ve just made but also I can imagine when you play a song like that live it really allows people to understand how genuine you are as artists.
Wow. Yeah, thanks! I’m glad you mentioned that songs because that’s actually one of my favourite numbers we’ve ever done. We don’t listen to a lot of our own stuff, but when I do, I always go back to that one.
You’re featuring a few local talents as supports for this tour. Given that you guys have done it the hard way and earned your musical stripes independently, what advice do you give to these young aspiring artists?
The two things I like to preach are hard work and consistency. I feel like a lot of the time when people are trying to do things independently, they’re chasing whatever the sound du jour is. They’ll go with what’s hot. One thing with us, we’ve never done that. We’ve stayed consistent. Our sound and our brand is dependable. I think that’s important for independent artists, particularly those seeking the internet route. Apart from that it’s just hard work. The way we got to where we are is by outworking all the competition who were also uploading covers. We did more and made them better.
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BOYCE AVENUE AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES
Tickets available HERE
December 8th | Enmore Theatre, SYDNEY
December 9th | Thebarton Theatre, ADELAIDE
December 10th | The Tivoli, BRISBANE
December 11th | Palais Theatre, MELBOURNE
December 13th | Astor Theatre, PERTH
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