Project Description
Interview with
TOM HOWIE
from
BOB MOSES
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Buy/Stream ‘Battle Lines’ HERE
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Bob Moses, the Vancouver-bred duo consisting of Tom Howie and Jimmy Vallance, came to life in the Brooklyn underground scene in 2012. Early single releases on taste-making electronic label Scissor & Thread led to signing with Domino and the late 2015 release of their debut album Days Gone By.
Meshing guitar licks, a moody smolder and a dash of dance-floor ambience with lyrical depth and classic songwriting, the duo created a sound that appeals equally to club goers and rock music fans. Translating their sound seamlessly to the live performance realm, years of nonstop global touring – including appearances at every major festival from Glastonbury and Coachella, to EDC, Lollapalooza and beyond – cemented the duo’s reputation as a must see live act. A standout performance on The Ellen Show, a pair of nominations at both the Junos and the Grammys (and a Grammy win), and a top 15 US Alternative radio hit with “Tearing Me Up,” have further sealed the band’s burgeoning mainstream success.
May 2018 saw the announcement of a headline US tour and the release of track “Heaven Only Knows,” the first new music from the next exciting phase for Bob Moses.
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I know it is a corny question but it is always a good one to start with. How did you first get into music? Where did it begin? How did you meet each other? What was the first big break?
I’ve always been into music. From like age 4, so the story goes from my parents, I had announced I was going to be a musician. I would sit in the bathroom singing for hours because there were great acoustics in there relative to the rest of our little house. I got my first guitar when I was 8 and immediately tried to write songs. Those lyrics are somewhere. I’m going to call my mom and tell her to hide them after I’m done this interview, ha! Then I did the high school band thing, and it just grew from there. Jimmy was much the same I think. We went to high school together but were never in the same bands for one reason or another. Our bands played the same high school talent nights, Jimmy’s band was metal and mine was punk. We had art class together in the last year of high school but at that time we had both gotten out of our bands and were doing our own thing, me as more of an acoustic crooner and Jimmy as a trance DJ. Both a bit embarrassing in their own ways haha. We moved to NYC separately and met up in Brooklyn as we had rehearsal spaces in the same neighborhood, coincidentally. We went for dinner and decided to mess around in the studio for fun at one point, and there was immediate creative chemistry. Once that happened we both had the thought that we should join forces and postpone whatever other plans or ideas we had for our future and work together on something. Since that day we’ve basically had our heads down just making the best music we can.
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What kind of music did you both grow up on? What artists inspired you to be musos or does what is happening “in the moment” regularly inspire you?
We both grew up on a lot of grunge, punk, rock, metal and electronic music. We of course did our best to get educated about all types of music, including blues and jazz, and there is so much music out there that there’s always more to learn and more to digest. I think we both just wanted to be musicians because it’s what we were immediately drawn to doing. I don’t know, personally the need to make music feels much the same for me as the need to eat or to sleep. No matter what I’m doing, music is just going on in my brain. I’m most drawn to music when it’s playing, even if I’m focussed on something else. I can’t read and listen to music or anything, because if music is playing, especially music I like or am interested in, I find it almost impossible to focus on anything else. I don’t really know why that’s the case, but it is the case nonetheless.
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With the Grammy, and popular shows like Ellen spreading your name around, you must be super busy all the time. How do you find the balance between your everyday life and your musical one?
A life in music is a demanding life and a life that challenges a lot of conventional ways of living. We don’t really have an “everyday life” because what’s going on with music sort of dictates everything else. Even sleep. When we were making this record for example, I’d regularly dream in music and get good song ideas in a dream and force myself to wake up and figure it out on the guitar or piano and record it on my iPhone to be worked on the next day. I think it’s important to realize the things that are going to keep you sane and that are going to be the foundation for your happiness beyond your need to follow your creative spark. For me, that’s spending time with family, exercise, enough sleep, meditation and eating healthy. If I do those things, and I follow my creative spark and work hard, everything else seems to work itself out around that.
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You have your latest album “Battle Lines” out September 14. Can you describe its origins and evolution?
We decided to move to Los Angeles and make this album in a house in Laurel Canyon, which has a rich musical history. Joni Mitchell, The Doors, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Frank Zappa and many others…a lot of people have lived in those hills over the years and made music. It has a sort of magical feel to it, and we were inspired by that making this album. We set up our studio in this house and just got to work. It took us about a year to write and produce the whole thing. We were inspired not only by the vibe in Laurel Canyon, but also a lot by what was happening in the world, and what we witnessed touring the last album all over the world to so many different places. A thing we were struck with while traveling the world is that for all our differences in culture, place and tradition, we are all very much the same and have the same core desires. With that insight, this album is a reflection on how our inner impulses and feelings are reflected in others and in the world, and how those inner feelings alter our societies. It discusses the struggles or battles we all go through; battles inside ourselves, struggles with each other and with our society. And so that’s why we felt the title Battle Lines was very apt for the lyrical subject matter of this album.
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The last album in 2015 resulted in a couple of Grammy nominations and a Grammy? Describe that unbelievable experience firstly, and did the success of that album put pressure on you with this one?
It was quite surreal, really. I was in Australia on holiday and I woke up to like 100 text messages from people going crazy that we had been nominated. To be honest I don’t think either of us had even realized we were submitted for a Grammy, or when they even occurred. It’s something our label had just done on our behalf. Going to the ceremony was a blast, it’s an amazing event with top notch production. I didn’t really feel pressure from the success of the last one…if anything I think we felt strengthened by it. The feeling of doubt in creativity for me personally seems to never change, you’re always not sure if you can write another good tune, or if your past results have just been a fluke. The more history we have of getting it right, the more confident I feel that my own judgement about what is good or not good is getting closer and closer to the truth.
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Do you feel the weight of expectation, or do you just take it as it comes?
The only weight of expectation I really feel is that of my own expectations. I set high goals for myself, and we both do as a group, and I think the only worry is whether we’re going to be able to get there or not. If you start making music based upon others expectations of you, or doing anything for that purpose really, that’s where I think you can run into trouble. If you act in a way that is in accordance with your own goals and ideas about what you want that you’ve truly vetted and considered, then whatever comes you know you’ve done your best and can take responsibility for where you misjudged or went wrong.
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You tour extensively now; any special plans to tour the new album? And you have a great following here after all your trips down under, are there any plans to tour the album for your Aussie fans?
We’re very much looking forward to getting out on the road with this new material. Top of our list of priorities now actually. We can’t wait. We are planning on coming down to Aus and NZ for a few festival plays around the new year, so we’ll be happy to be back down there and playing new stuff down under!
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Buy/Stream ‘Battle Lines’ HERE
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Talking about touring, if you could pick absolutely anyone to bring on tour with you, whom would you pick and why? (Dead or Alive)
We’d love to tour with Radiohead, that’s always been a dream. Personally, Nirvana would be pretty amazing to tour with. John Lennon would be great too. To be honest the list could go on forever…other than being able to be around bands we respect and musicians who are our idols, I’d just want to ask them a million questions and learn how they’ve done things. I always want to know more about how to do something in a way I haven’t considered or thought of, and there’s no better people to be able to ask than your musical idols.
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If someone had never listened to Bob Moses before, what song of yours would you recommend to them if they only had time to hear one?
Tearing Me Up or our new single, Back Down.
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It’s been a big 5 or 6 years, where do you see yourself in the next 3-5 years?
Hopefully in 3 years we’ve completed a successful world tour of this album and are in the process of making our next album. And then I guess 5 years would take us to nearing the end of the world tour of that album and getting ready to make our next one! The process of making records and touring them around the world and getting to see new places really is the best, so I can’t think of much else that I’d like to have happen.
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What are your major goals or milestones for the future?
To make the greatest impact for the most people that we can through music.
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