NEWS
EVENTS
Boo Seeka: 'We write songs about tricky situations & ways out of these situations'
Boo Seeka are bromance goals, starting a music relationship on impulse and touring with each other, just days of knowing one other. Ben 'Boo' Gumbleton and Sam 'Seeka' Croft are back with their highly anticipated album Never Too Soon. An indietronica gem filled with catchy beats, soul wrenching tracks and lyrics drenched in positivity.
As the duo get ready for their October tour Sam lets us know how a little "spooning" & wine made him and Ben the duo we know so well today.
What was your first thought this morning?
I can't believe it is sunny that was my first thought. We woke up in Brighton and we got into the back of the van, which is where we sleep, and a beautiful blue sky opened up and we couldn't believe it, we didn't think it was real.
How did Boo Seeka come about?
We met through a mutual friend of ours in December of 2014 so a bit over two and half years ago and the guy that introduced us ended up becoming our manager.
He knew what I was doing in the electronic music world, and what Ben was doing in the singer songwriter world so he put us together. And we bonded over a couple of wines and listened to some tunes and thought, sweet, let's make a thing of this and we went on tour about two weeks later and our first single was released and we started doing really well on the radio in Australia.
What was your first impression of Ben?
I thought this guy is a pretty talented for one, and I thought, there's no boundaries, I woke up one morning and he was spooning me in a bed, that was like in maybe our third show. So I was like o'right cool, no boundaries, that's good. So very early on we had brotherly love for each other, lastly his a gangly, long legged, fluffy headed cool dude.
So what's been the best part about performing together?
There is times where one of you or both of you is a little bit frustrated at the world or frustrated with the day. And you get on stage with each other and you start playing music, and you just look at each and I can't help but often crack a big smile. Just cause it makes me really happy to be out there and to be out there with Ben, we are very much on the same page as people.
Tell us about your latest album Never Too Soon?
It is a combination of old songs, new songs all written from life experiences that we have gone through in the last couple of years, we have had to grow up a lot.
About 4 of the songs on the album were all written about the same time, which is about May of this year or a bit earlier, it was March, April or May, Ben was going through a rough relationship with someone and it ended, and out of that the lyrics just poured out of him.
So it was the ending of one relationship documented in 'Turn Up Your Light', 'Does This Last', what else 'Broo-', ah not 'Brooklyn' that was a different relationship.
'Turn Up Your Light' was very different, again that was born out of that relationship, with Ben having the lyrics, and no music necessarily, so we camped out in my house and sat in my studio, I hopped on the keyboard, put the screen blinds down and Ben jumped on the drums, and started hitting the high notes.
And there was these ring noises in the studio making this really cool comfy, old school almost like sound so we sampled that and built this track, the lyrics weren't said for a while and really that song came together in about a week.
Seeing with this record as well the parameters are so vast that you can end up having songs that are musically quite different, and not even going into the fact that our life experiences are so up and down that there is going to be songs that are leaping at us, pure happiness and there are songs that are going to be about devastation.
Basically, the end of Ben's relationship made this album...
Yeah, a blessing in disguise I suppose.
There's always a silver lining somewhere...
Yeah exactly, there's so many clichés that we could use for that scenario.
So do you guys make a conscious choice to talk about what you are going through in your music?
Our art is an expression of what we are feeling at any one time so it's very much a subconscious thing a very natural thing. If we desire to make any political statements that's when we would start saying, 'I feel this about that and we have got to get this out there' and we would try to make our voice known, we are not really like that, we just write from our hearts, write what we are going through.
Your touring schedule this year also looks relentless...
Yeah, it's been a big year, even the two years prior to that, where just big really, I think that's why it took so long for the album to get made is because we were on the road so much.
You played a sold out show at the Waiting Room in London in August, and with plenty more sold out shows for this tour, how does it feel to be living out your dreams?
You pinch yourself every single day. There is three of us on this tour there is Ben, myself and Gold Member our support, his a mate from back home in Sydney so we pulled him along for this tour. So it's three mates travelling around Europe and the UK playing music and doing what we love, playing to sold out shows that's something you dream about as a kid, but you think the chances of that happening are pretty slim so when you actually get there and make it happen it's a pretty amazing feeling.
Is there a message you were trying to get across on the album?
Positivity. We write songs about tricky situations and ways out of these situations so if you listen to the lyrics it is always about trying to find a positive in there. 'Turn Up You Lights' is a song about breaking someone's heart yet it's saying that you should be the best person you can be, find it within yourself to be the best person you can be and be happy. Everything is positive and in every tough experience in life there will be a light at the end of the tunnel you just have to push through it.
What's the ultimate goal for Boo Seeka?
The ultimate goal is just to keep going and try and touch as many people as we possibly can with our music and make every tour more satisfying and more enjoyable, and more fun for everyone involved.
It must be amazing to see how many people are touched by your music.
We tend to get a lot of messages from people on social media, we get a lot of people come up to us after the show and it's incredible how many people say the same thing. That they are going through a tough right now or previously gone through a tough time, and it was our music whether it was 'Kingdom Leader' or 'Deception Bay' or whatever other song does it, that actually got them through that tough time and helped them. And was there to comfort them or for them to relate to know they are not alone, so whatever way it works it helps people and that is an incredible thing and you never think you can do that with music sometimes, you don't think you can that with anything but you absolutely can and that is very rewarding.
So what ideas changed your life?
The idea of free thinking and non-conformity and anarchism, all those beautiful things but so many people these days are too consumed with their benign day to day activities. Some people don't even think about it, when you think about these things, you can't help it but your life changes, and you think I could go to that night job every day or I could follow my passion and be happy and make a difference in the world.
Is this why the title of the album is 'Never Too Soon'?
The title comes from the fact that when we started out Ben and I were touring Europe, opportunities were being presented to us and we had to adopt the philosophy that it is 'Never Too Soon to take these opportunities' and we were going to make the most out of these situations and so it is our personal mantra.
What would you do to make the world a better place?
I think it is another cliché thing to say but 'be the change you want to see in the world', I know that it is so overused but it is overused because it is so relevant and so true.
So in the last month we realised that in over two and half years just how many plastic water bottles we have been using in the music industry and how many get wasted and how horrible it is for the environment and the planet you live in so we have started to go plastic bottle free. And we just carry stuff in our metal bottles around with us and we just refill them when we need it, because of that we use 4 or 5 plastic bottles a night, which is not a lot in the grand scheme of things but it's our part and that's one thing we do in helping people, I mean whatever we can do we try and do and help people, as anyone should.
What would you fill a swimming pool with if it could be anything?
Before you even finished that question the answer was already in my head. I would fill it with custard and I would swim in it and I would probably just eat it all up.
So what are your plans for 2017 and beyond?
We are doing about a month's worth of trip raising for the Australian album tour so we are just trying to step everything up a notch. Get all the new songs from the album ready and a pre killer live show and that will take us to November, mid-November were we will start doing the summer festivals around Australia, hopefully, we will enjoy some fine weather and a little bit of time off.
We have already started to work on new music as well, so we are just experimenting with different sounds, different ideas and a different direction at the moment.
Follow the guys on Twitter - Facebook - Instagram
