‘Room for Reason’: an Interview with Boys Cruise
Meet boys cruise: the three-piece indie punk/garage rock band based out of Burlington, Vermont – composed of Johnny Clarke (lead vocals/guitar), Jack Parker (vocals/bass/drums), and Sammy Josh (vocals/guitar). Coming in hot from their debut LP Jerry in 2019, the boys are ready to make a grander and louder entrance into listeners’ ears with their self-titled, sophomore up-coming album. With multiple changes in their lineups over the years, they have secured a strong vibe with the current trio to create new energy that cannot wait to be heard. When I sat down to chat with boys cruise, I instantly could tell that they were very down-to-earth artists. boys cruise cannot be defined by one genre or sound; they are a melting pot of jangle pop, punk, garage rock, and doo-wop harmonies. With one of their biggest musical influences being “Vacation” by The Go-Go’s – I think that’s enough of a reason to give these boys a listen.
Their new single “Room for Reason” is the first released track off of their upcoming album – marking a new era for a much noisier and aggressive rock n’ roll sound compared to their indie rock style from their LP “Jerry”. “Room for Reason” has a mix of their original doo-wop harmonies with a more intense, aggressive rock n’ roll atmosphere – creating a combination that is much needed on our playlists.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How did you all meet and form your band?
[Johnny]: We met on the first day of class at the University of Vermont, and since then we’ve been playing music.
[Jack]: It’s kind of a weird trajectory because Johnny and I started in our freshman year of college with this guy named Jake, who was on drums. Then at some point, we had a guy on guitar named Joey, but then he quit and Jake, the original drummer, quit at one point too. Sam and I are in another band called Pons as well so when it was just me and Johnny we needed someone else to play with, so we got Sam and that’s how it’s been so far. Sam and I go way back, we’ve known each other from before as we’re both from North Carolina originally.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What’s the story behind your name ‘boys cruise’?
[Johnny]: My friends and I at the time were supposed to go booze at the end of the weekend on a nice little sunset cruise on the lake. We ended up not being able to because the tickets were sold out but we got super excited and pumped for it. We didn’t plan it well enough and it was supposed to be a boys cruise. That idea seemed to have stuck and I liked it.
[UNPUBLISHED]: I really love your 2019 album “Jerry”, I found you had a lot of songs that were more indie punk based, and you had songs that were complete rock n’ roll headbangers. How would you describe your style of music with those differences?
[Jack]: “Jerry”, the album that we released in 2019, was definitely us trying to find our sound because we didn’t fully know what we wanted to sound like yet. We just knew it was going to be light and bouncy but also kind of aggressive. I feel like that was part of being in the basement scene too, seeing that a lot of those songs were crafted in the setting of playing live a ton. With this next album, it was definitely more of a concentrated effort to make a distinct sound. It was more about balancing the extremes of both ends with bouncy rhythms and flavor in songwriting. Then the production and guitars are super noisy and heavy, it’s pushing the dynamics further.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Do you feel like your sound has developed from your 2019 LP “Jerry” to your newest single “Room for Reason” in 2021?
[Johnny]: Yeah, the songs on Jerry were definitely the first batch of songs that we wrote together as a group. Then going forward, as we learned how to work better with each other, we grew and got a lot closer. We were able to have a more concentrated effort on what we wanted and how we were trying to go forward, so it definitely does feel like a great step.
[Jack]: The lineup changes played a huge role in all of it because now with the current incarnation of the band which is so far from what it was supposed to be originally – the process has gotten way more efficient and we got that Sammy Josh magic on the guitar now! Through that whole process of people leaving the band and stuff like that, we are able to get a one-track view of what we wanted to do.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Do you guys have any musical inspirations or influences?
[Jack]: Definitely old doo-wop bands, stuff like that.
[Sam]: Vacation by The Go-Go’s – all-time favorite.
[Jack]: The Rolling Stones too probably.
[Sam]: Early 2000’s pop-punk music.
[Jack]: Yeah, early 2000s music in general and My Chemical Romance.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Could you tell us about your song “Room for Reason” and your inspirations behind writing it?
[Jack]: We wrote this song over the summer. Johnny and I did the core songwriting for the album before we linked up with Sam a little bit later in the process. I wrote “Room for Reason” when I felt terribly ill with this 102 degree fever – I was having night sweats, feeling delusional and I just felt trapped in my mind palace. [The song] was just about that feeling of horrible confusion and longing for rest. Then all the lyrics were just about some weird things going on in our lives and personal relationships at the time. It was all coming from a lot of places I guess. Sonically, I would say there was no single inspiration to point to. I know when writing the first section, it felt like a doo-wop song, and we just sort of went from there.
[UNPUBLISHED]: As this is your first single introducing your next album, why did you choose this particular record to release first?
[Jack]: I guess it’s in context to all the other songs on the upcoming album. It stood out to me at least because it’s so theatrical with just not really having a song structure. There are just different parts that sort of flow into each other as the song progresses. I like how theatrical that felt and the vibe of that lends itself to becoming a weirder song too.
[Johnny]: It seems like enough of a departure from where we’re at and seemed like a good first.
[Jack]: Yeah, and especially when we were playing shows so much, we were so used to everybody hearing the songs live. When we dropped “Jerry” it was exciting, but at least around here a lot of the people had already been hearing most of the songs for a year or so. Now with COVID and not having played live at all, people have no idea what’s possibly coming, so it’s very exciting. So that’s a good thing I guess because it’s substantially different from our past stuff.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What was your creative process like when creating your up-coming album?
[Johnny]: It can move so quickly. Just trying to not think about it too too much, but do the song justice. We tried to finish it in a few months.
[Jack]: A lot of this album came with experimentation in the studio. It definitely would not have been the same without that aspect because we were just set loose with all this equipment and stuff. The guy who produced the album was a big help, just saying yes to whatever dumb stuff we wanted to try. Trying to incorporate any weird instruments and tracking elements, so yeah it was pretty exciting.
[UNPUBLISHED]: I’ve read that you guys have had some pretty wild shows. Do you have any fun stories that have happened while playing live?
[Jack]: There are so many bands that make good music, but there’s not really any point seeing them live because it’s the same thing, just kind of a drag. It sounds exactly the same on the recording, which is cool but it can be kind of boring. So we wanted to do something different, and we started doing these little skits at shows.
[Johnny]: I think one of the first ones was ‘Shave That Leg’.
[Jack]: Yeah I shaved his leg on stage!
[Johnny]: We just had to consistently top what we were going to do but in a capacity that would work.
[Jack]: We were playing a battle of the bands at the University of Vermont, and we had this whole ritual seance thing with all this fake blood, and we claimed it was the blood of the current University of Vermont president. After the show, there ended up being an article in the school newspaper which just had a picture of me looking like a psychopath with all this fake dried blood on me.
[Johnny]: We’ve also done a lot of clothing swaps super quick as fast as possible, like switching outfits with each other.
[Jack]: There’s an infinite number of very embarrassing things that we’ve done. Johnny punched me in the face at a show!
[Johnny]: With a boxing glove on! It was supposed to be a play flight, but I didn’t know the boxing glove would still hurt.
[UNPUBLISHED]: If you could open for any artist, dead or alive, who would it be?
[Sam]: That’s a good one. The Rolling Stones, The Go-Gos.
[Johnny]: The Go-Gos and Blondie.
You can find their other music on Spotify and Apple Music, and connect with them on Instagram.