Musync^®: You Need Better Music!

Our Take

Band Talk

Johnnieboy grew up in a small rural community outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. At fifteen he began playing the bass. After a few years of of listening to soul records and honing his chops, he landed a gig in a local funk band. He eventually tired of the midwest music scene and at 19, headed for New York City to try his luck there. Johnnieboy figured out how to create drum loops and began writing songs by jamming along with the beats on his bass, then adding guitar and keyboards using an cheap casio and an old electric piano that his roommate had. He recorded some of the vocals with a Fisher Price toy tape recorder. This gave his voice a lo-fi distorted sound. Many of the lyrics were made up on the spot and recorded right after they were written to capture a sense of urgency.

Being that he played all the instruments himself, it was impossible to perform live. Johnnieboy tried to put together a band, but that didn’t work out. All was not lost however, when his self-released demos got some airplay on some college radio stations. His song “origami” attracted the attention of an LA filmmaker who asked to use the track in his movie. Johnnieboy had accumulated enough songs for an album and when Headshop Records heard them, they offered him a deal.