Richmond is welcoming the Charlottesville-native band New Boss into our city again with open arms this weekend, who are currently doing a string of shows with You’re Jovian and promoting their re-released album, Home Problems. Their inimitable brand of noise pop is so catchy it’ll have you thinking you were transplanted back into the days of 70s power pop.
Richmond is welcoming the Charlottesville-native band New Boss into our city again with open arms this weekend, who are currently doing a string of shows with You’re Jovian and promoting their re-released album, Home Problems. Their inimitable brand of noise pop is so catchy it’ll have you thinking you were transplanted back into the days of 70s power pop.
The band sat down with RVAMag after their stellar show at Hardywood Brewery last Sunday to talk about their start, latest recordings, and upcoming show at Strange Matter this weekend.
The six-piece band consists of Nick Rubin (keys, backup vocals), Scott Ritchie (bass), Thomas Dean (guitar), Parker Smith (drums), Jordan Perry (vocals and guitar), and former member Chelsea Blakely who played organ and vocals for the record Home Problems.
Dean and Smith were originally in a band together in 2001 called Order. The rest of the members met through the Charlottesville music scene.
“We all get along really well which is the only way to make it work,” Perry said. “The logistical running of the group is the thing that’s difficult but that would probably be difficult with two people.”
New Boss first got their start three years ago and released their first album Twee Boogie Vol . I &II in 2015 followed by their second album Home Problems at the beginning of January. The album was originally released as a cassette run and then repressed for vinyl.
The process of creating this album took a little over six months and the band recorded the majority of it themselves. “It’s a little hard to figure out {when} the beginning point was because a lot of the song ideas were fairly old,” said Perry.
Some of the songs were written by Dean before they introduced Perry to the band and he took over the majority of the writing process from there.
“I don’t know that anything really starts with a topical perspective,” said Perry on creating the new album. “It’s really just a bunch of stuff I’m thinking about or worried about or things that are currently going on in the world.”
The title of the album as well as the seven tracks recorded on Home Problems highlights the problems in our own home territory while maintaining an upbeat, catchy melody.
“I started to think about how I was personally preoccupied with a lot of current events on an international scale,” Perry said. “And then I’m looking back at the beginning of this election cycle and things like that and our current weird flux/ terrible state our country could be in. I was just thinking about how we have a lot of issues here that we’re almost ignoring.”
The band has managed to stay fairly busy with traveling shows up and down the east coast. New Boss has played from Charlottesville to Raleigh, North Carolina and a lot of venues in between. “We’re a little bit constrained with full-time jobs and it’s hard to get out for long all at one time,” Dean said. ”But we do as much as we can with the restraints.”
The band is no stranger to Richmond either, having played in venues such as Strange Matter, Hardywood, The Camel, and Gallery5 and they are looking forward to performing here this weekend.
“Richmond has always been a music city,” Dean said. “It feels cool to come here and play music and be a part of it.It feels a little more open here and the scene is not as insular and one-sided.”
The Boss plans to release a followup to Home Problems, called Third Sister which will be their third studio album so be on the lookout for that in the next couple months.
You can find New Boss’s album Home Problems here https://newboss.bandcamp.com or purchase a vinyl copy at Plan 9 and Vinyl Conflict. Catch New Boss this Sunday, Oct. 2 at Strange Matter playing with Virginia Beach’s You’re Jovian. Show starts at 8 pm.
