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Interview with
BOY AND BUCKET

(26th February, 2021)

Interviewer – Dave Bruce

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Do you have any memories of the Darlinghurst Theatre? Have you been as an audience member or performer?
Bucket: We played at Darlo as part of Thirsty Thursdays
Boy: I had already played there before, but Bucket had no idea what to expect.
Bucket: I was expecting musicians like us to be playing. Instead, emerged the most crisp musical theatre vocals I’ve ever heard. I was so excited to be involved!
Boy: I knew the vibe already, but I thought it would be funny to see how Bucket would react. They didn’t disappoint. The environment was so friendly and warm. And the TALENT was fucked, in a good way. Shoutout to Grace Drisoll for blowing us away with her amazing rendition of “I Have Confidence” from “The Sound of Music”.

What excites you the most about the Darlo Sessions?
Boy: The amazing diversity of talent they support. Seeing other queer, trans, PoC, and/or women artists like Imbi, Jamarz OnMarz, and Grace Driscol actively represented is a huge breath of fresh air.
Bucket: Definitely. We’re both queer and non binary, which can mean a bit of a gamble with certain spaces. Darlo Sessions feels safe, and we know our identities will be respected.

When was the last live show that you performed?
Bucket: Sapphos bar in Glebe. It’s basically our home headquarters at this point.
Boy: They’re family, and they were also the first venue to really give us a chance.

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Did you create any music during lockdown?
Boy: Oh god did we.
Bucket: We formed just before lockdown started, so the majority of our music came from this wack time. We were basically living together as the COVID sitch developed, so we had lots of time and emotions to express.
Boy: It’s also when we released our first album.
Bucket: Oh yeah. We didn’t know when we’d see each other again, so we recorded a 9 song album in one day in one take. It was in Boy’s bedroom and you can literally hear birds chirping and doors slamming in the background.
Boy: It was super raw, but lots of our friends said it helped them feel less lonely during lockdown. Kinda like a warm hug.

Where do you get your creative inspiration from? Boy: Drinking and grief
Bucket: Can we say that?
Boy: It’s true though…
Bucket: Fair
Boy: Yeah, we formed as a way to cope with the loss of my partner, who was also a good friend of Bucket’s. Turns out being really sad can help with music or something.
Bucket: “Boy and Bucket” started as a way to help us and our community heal. That’s always been the core for our inspiration.

Has the last year changed your music influences?
Boy: So there’s been a lot of grief and sadness all throughout the past year, so my sad-boi music playlists are kinda cancelled.
Bucket: During the worst times, we had to institute “the Sufjan Stevens banTM”.

Who is your biggest idol? Music, style or otherwise.
Boy: Laura Marling, Joy Oladokun and Moses Sumney. Singer-songwriter music has always influenced my music.
Bucket: Matti Caspi. Something about him always hits.

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Throughout your career how have you grown and changed as an artist? (NOTE: we’re answering it together rather an individuals)
Bucket: We started out trying to process our own things directly, since life was so overwhelming at the beginning. But now it’s a bit different.
Boy: Yeah, we write more stuff to allow others to process their own feelings. We focus more on accessibility too now, which can make it easier to insert oneself into our music.

How did you begin your music career? How has the industry changed since then?
Boy: We started our music careers very differently. Bucket was gonna be a professional trumpet player, and I thought I would only ever do solo work. At most, I expected I would have a backing band.
Bucket: I also am a bass singer, which is a bit of a curse for most genres. I guess I never expected to be able to use my voice anywhere.
Boy: I think we’ve grown a lot. We are consistently learning how to navigate the industry.
Bucket: Needless to say COVID also affected the industry. There’s been some good though. I think people have realised how valuable and precious live music is.
Boy: I was doing lots of live music before COVID, and audiences now pay so much more attention to artists. I really hope that love and appreciation stays around.

What is the one thing you want everyone to know about you?
Bucket: It would be nice to actually be clocked as nonbinary one day.
Boy: That identifying as a black man and going by the name “Boy” is a reclamation of my gender, and not furthering the painful and demeaning history of the term.

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Finally, a few questions for some quick answers

Favourite Album
Boy: Right now it’s “In Defence of my own Happiness (vol. 1)” by Joy Oladokun. It changes month to month though.
Bucket: “I Wanna Meet Richard Dreyfuss” by Gabriel Gundacker. I know it’s a comedy album, but I’m always down to listen to it again. It just slaps.

Favourite Artist
Boy: Tracy Chapman. I always found her musical activism inspiring.
Bucket: Daniel Johnston. Oh or Stephin Merritt from “The Magnetic Fields”!

Favourite movie
Boy & Bucket: Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Favourite place to visit
Boy: Tanzania for my family.
Bucket: I would say the same for Israel.

Favourite venue to play
Boy: We love playing anywhere. Please give us gigs. We love gigs. Gigs.
Bucket: They mean to say the Darlo theatre. (Please have us back)

Favourite Food
Boy: I would die for a good bread.
Bucket: Boy used to make these cheese toasties all the time. I’m normally not food obsessed. However, I remember essentially having a sex dream, but instead of sex, I was eating this toastie. God I can taste it now.

Favourite drink
Boy: Grapefruit Soju
Bucket: Rodka. I invented it. One part Rum. One part Vodka. You can judge me, and you’d be right.

Favourite person in history
Boy: Bucket
Bucket: Boy

Favourite Tattoo (if you don’t have one, what would you get?)
Boy: We both got the same tattoo, which is from “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”- our fav movie.
Bucket: It’s my only tattoo, so ditto.

Something extra:
Bucket: There was this period before lockdown, when we did nothing but eat Huxtaburger, play music and drink. It wasn’t sustainable, but somehow a very creative period.
Boy: I was turbo depressed, and Bucket used to twist my locs for me. They wouldn’t even say anything; they would just hop behind me on the couch and twist away.
Bucket: I had to research what to do because I had no idea, but I knew how important their hair is to them. It was nice to help them look their best.
Boy: I don’t let people outside my family or barber do my hair. Trusting Bucket with my hair was a big bonding experience. I wasn’t well enough to do it myself, so I let this loose white person do it. Bucket actually did a really good job.
Bucket: Shout out to Black Hair TikTok for teaching me everything I know.

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Follow DARLO SESSIONS
Website

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DARLO SESSIONS
SCHEDULE

Friday 26 February
JamarzOnMarz @ 7pm
Jamaica Moana @ 9pm

Saturday 27 February
DVNA @ 7pm

Friday 5 March
Boy and Bucket @7pm
Erin Clare @ 9pm

Saturday 6 March
Hot Potato Band @ 6pm & 9pm

Thursday 11 March
KYVA @ 7pm
imbi @ 9pm

Friday 12 March
Huck Hastings Album Launch @ 7pm
Brendan Maclean + Jack Colwell @ 9pm

Saturday 13 March
Okenyo @ 7pm
Banoffee @ 9pm

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AMNPLIFY – DB