NOT A BOYS NAME
The quirky indie-pop sounds of NOT A BOYS NAME will be like nothing you've heard before, and something you'll be dying to hear more of. This DIY artist is one to look out for with his unique synth sounds, boppy melodies and strangely relatable lyrics.
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I sat down with Dave to talk about the new EP and living the life you've always dreamed of.
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Tell readers a bit about your latest EP The Internet Sucks and how it came together
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This EP was born out of collection of songs that I'd been sitting on for ages. I was working towards making an album but with COVID, questionable touring plans and release schedules and not being able to record with other musicians, I was forced to go back and look at all the songs I was sitting on. I went straight back to songs I haven't listened to for two years and listened to it with fresh ears, and I picked out my five favourite songs... the ones with the strongest narrative and sounded the most like what I wanted to put forward as NOT A BOYS NAME.
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What's the story behind the pseudonym NOT A BOYS NAME?
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Well, I started this project a while ago while touring with a few different artists but not doing anything for myself. At the time I was in the states with Vera Blue - I love Vera and I've worked with her for almost 5 years now - and she is super supportive of my music and everyone in the band who has their own project. We'd been on tour in the states for a couple months and just got a bit burnt out by playing the same songs every night, and I felt like I just needed my own voice and something of my own creatively to work towards because I felt like I had that to offer. We did a show and I met a band called Ohmme who are this duo from Chicago and they're just amazing. The music they make is like this fuzzy guitar harmony laden stuff, and it doesn't seem like they made it for anyone but themselves. The next day I hung out with them and went all around Chicago and it was exactly what I was looking for; people who are taking their surroundings and filtering it into their music.
Like this is the life you wanted!
Yeah! So I got home from that tour and was really excited to make my own music. I sat down and ended up writing Hazard Perception Test and that just came out in a day because I was thinking, "what would Ohmme do?". I started showing it to people and the response was really positive. So then I had to find a name. I didn't want to call it 'Dave Jenkins Jr.' or anything to do with my name because that is associated with all the other stuff I do. So I was thinking of a name and a friend of mine said I should listen to lyrics of songs that I love and it will pop out. I was listening to this song called Appetite by Prefab Sprout which is a band from the '80s, and it has a lyric in it which is: Wishing she could call him heartache/But it's not a boys name". And it kind of just made sense to me! And people reacted to it well which is the ultimate test.
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Yeah, I mean it works!
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Yeah! Like, if you think of any band name, a lot of them sound so dumb when you say it for the first time. Like, Silverchair. What? Okay.... [laughter]. And Cake, Custard... There's lots of food ones! And then Regurgitator.
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Perfect combination, wow.
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Yeah they should do a tour! But yeah, that's how the name came about!
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It rolls off the tongue really well too.
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Yeah! Thanks!
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Do you have a favourite song on the EP?
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I think my favourite song is the first song, which is only a minute long [laughter]. It's called Show Me A Way Or Throw Me Away. It's one of the first things I recorded for NOT A BOYS NAME and I just sat down with my guitar and started putting down ideas. I looked up and it was midnight, there was no lights on in the house, it was freezing cold and I hadn't eaten anything, but I just listened back and was like, "wow, this is exactly what I wanted to put down." It was just one of those ideas that rolled on and became this song. So when I listen to that it takes me back to that feeling of, you know, just making music.
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Would you say it's a song that really encapsulates NOT A BOYS NAME as an artist?
​Yeah, definitely. It's something I recorded all the instruments myself for, and there's not that many words in it but I think the words that are in it really sum up NOT A BOYS NAME.
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What made you decide to pop the EP up on bandcamp before it was actually released?
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I haven't really thought about that, it was pretty spur of the moment. I think that came about in those initial stages of the pandemic taking hold and the arts being in question. I saw that bandcamp had started this initiative where they were giving artists 100% of their royalties and not taking a cut, which I thought was such a great initiative and I really wanted to push that because I have so many friends that have music up on bandcamp. And I thought it would be really cool if I had some music I had up, but because I'm signed to a major label I'm not really allowed to do that. But I was talking to my A&R Ally Cole at Island and she's a massive music fan and really supportive of a lot of indie and alternative bands. And she said if I had unreleased stuff I wanted to put up then I should just do it. So I put it up and made a bit of a package out of it with some photos and other content. It was only three songs I put up, and it was up for a while before the label approached me and said they wanted to release it. So we added the songs I wanted to add and now we have the EP!
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That's awesome that they gave you the freedom to be able to do that, and with the cover art as well.
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After I'd put it up on bandcamp they gave me complete creative freedom over it which is so nice. It meant that the cover art and all the songs, mixes and masters was signed off on me but came out through their channels. It's awesome, it means there's a level of trust there. Working with them they've been super collaborative with suggesting collaborations or things about the music in general, so that's helped me learn that you can definitely have an open conversation with your label.
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Okay, so what sucks so much about the internet?
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[Laughter] Um, TikTok, I don't know? Nah, I'm a bit of a hypocrite because I love the internet. But when I wrote that song the sentiment that I was portraying was that it could tear people apart rather than bring them together. There's a lot of shady stuff that goes on on the internet, especially with influencer culture. The whole glamour aspect about having the perfect body, and face.
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And it's so hard as a parent to see all that and know that's what your kids are going to grow up with.
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Yeah, I'm not looking forward to that. My daughter is five and a half and loves phones and watches a few people on YouTube, but not Instagram yet. But with The Internet Sucks it was written from a relationship angle and how the internet is pulling people apart when they're laying in the same bed on their phones. That whole screen addiction can really drive a wedge in relationships more than people know and before they know it, and something that people don't really address. Like how people will go out for dinner and they're both on their phones and the only time they look up is to take a photo of themselves to post on Instagram. It was a song that I woke up and had it in my head from a dream of Alex Turner from The Arctic Monkeys singing it. It was either a really bad idea or a really good one, and I guess it worked out. I showed a few people and they thought it was cool... I mean I always need that validation [laughter].
And how come you decided on The Internet Sucks as the title of the EP as well?
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I just think it's a nice strong statement for the current climate of what everyone's living. I really liked the sound of it and most people can take something from that that they can relate to; it's such an open statement.
Image: Talya Jacobson | @shotbytalz
So speaking of lyrics, do you have a favourite lyric off the EP?
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Good question. Let me think... So many lyrics!
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Accidentally drops lyrics not on the EP...
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No! I will not do that... There's a song on the EP called Two Sides which is the second track. It's one of the first songs I ever wrote over ten years ago and I ended up remaking it and it totally suits NOT A BOYS NAME. So that has some funny lyrics in it that I like from when I was trying to figure out how to write songs. It's all about having two sides to your personality. So there's a lyric... "I'm like a thirty-three compilation LP/One side is jazz and one side's a symphony". So there's all these little rhyming couplets that sounds like me trying to be smart, so it fits in the EP. But I guess I'd have to say "The Internet Sucks" is my favourite lyric. My favourite lyric from The Internet Sucks EP is "The internet sucks". I'm so bad with my own lyrics because I've only sung them once a lot of the time, and I've never played those old songs live.
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How will playing the new music live look like?
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Yeah I'm not sure. The last line up of the band I had was with my partner Lucy who was heavily pregnant and played flute, keyboard, and sang. And then my friend Ben Corbett who I play with in a few different bands, and then Dan Williams from Art vs Science playing drums. So if there are shows to do, that would be the line up. Maybe with the inclusion of Rosie [Fitzgerald] who was playing bass for me for ages but she's been touring as well. She sings on a few different songs on the EP so it would feel right to have her back in the band.
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What's your favourite part about playing your music live?
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I think the most rewarding thing - something I didn't understand until I started playing my own music - is when you see someone sing your own words back at you. I can't remember my words at the best of times [laughter] … nearly every artist that I play for they all have that problem and when they can't remember a word they just put the mic out and they have thousands of people singing it for them.
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It's funny because when you see people do that you think, oh! They wanna get the crowd involved! But they just cannot remember the words.
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A lot of the time that's what it is. Or they can't sing it because it's out of their range. That is the best feeling; that someone knows my music and are connecting with it enough to dance and sing that song in a public place, in front of people without fear of judgement. There's a few people that are familiar with my music now and it's so nice to know you can play songs for people and they'll get excited about it.
Image: Talya Jacobson | @shotbytalz
What were the driving inspirations for the EP?
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Musically?
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Yeah, musically and conceptually also I guess!
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One of my favourite artists is this guy called Todd Rundgren who's a singer-songwriter who started in the late '60s and is still making music. He's this crazy eccentric guy who's been through so many different phases of his career from being a huge billboard artist to being a weird experimental artist. Like he was one of the first artists to release music on CD-ROM when that was a thing. He's always been a step ahead of the music industry but on the opposite path in a sense. Like, he'll say something is the future and everyone goes a different way but he just sticks with it. It's awesome. I've always loved his music and he does it all himself. Those DIY singer-songwriters who do things in a similar fashion to me... they're who inspire me. So Todd Rundgren, Stevie Moore, Ariel Pink, I think they're amazing and who I always listen to. Then I guess inspiration wise with movies - not only James Bond [laughter] - I watch a lot of Spanish cinema.
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Oh that's awesome! And so popular now.
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Yeah. There was a film on Netflix recently called The Platform and basically there's this prison that represents society with two people on every level with a big hole in the middle. This platform starts at the top of what I think is 250 levels, and there's a banquet table at the top. The people at the top get to eat and then each level gets the previous level's left overs. It's really dark and twisted but it's a good commentary on society and class. So I like that and also all of Pedro Almodóvar's films too, it's really vivid and just nuts. So they're kind of my inspirations... It's equal parts film and music.
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And finally, how would you like people to listen to the album for the first time?
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Good question. With headphones! Or in a car. I feel like the way I make music - there's a lot in it. There's a song on there called Little Vampire which I made in one sitting with one guitar, but I just kept overdubbing different guitar parts. There's something like 35 guitar parts all playing at the same time and they're all kind of sitting in different places in the mix. It's that kind of subtlety that you can't hear unless you're either listening really loud or have headphones on. I want people to be able to listen to the whole EP, and it's not a long EP! It only goes for 20 minutes, maybe not even. I want people to be able to let themselves into that world and exist there for a while. And all the songs were made to sit together and live together in that same universe, in the order they're in as well.
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Yes! Listen in order friends!
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Totally. And when I put the EP together, that first track was me asking for some guidance and direction not knowing where the music was going just yet, so that leads into the rest of the songs and my skills develop along the way before it ends with the newest song I've written called Sleep Paralysis, which could be a good launch point for the next batch of songs.
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So ultimately it would be cool to have a way to listen to all your songs in order!
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Definitely. And it's slightly different to how I've released them online too. So Hazard Perception Test was the first song that I wrote, and then Cut It Off. I guess the only one that doesn't fit in order is Raise The Alarm which is a song I wrote with Lucy and that's how we met as well! And now we have a baby! So, because we had fallen in love and so obsessed with each other, [the song] just had to come out straight away, like it was the most important thing in my life. That's a good idea though, I'll make a playlist... The sequential preference of my songs.
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How to listen to NOT A BOYS NAME songs.
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Haha, yes! Coming to you soon. Thanks man!