headboy
Words and Photographs by Eva Leung
Eva: How did you meet? Why did you start a band together?
Oli: We need to come up with a cooler story, for the next interview.
Jess: We were grave-digging, and we looked into the graves, I said, I wanna make a band, life’s too short...We actually started as footballers and now we play in bands. It’s very hard to have more than two things in your life at the same time. Mars and I met at uni and we were already kind of playing a little bit and then me and Oli kept talking about music at football and then we were like “we should all play together.” And yeah, [we] had a really good time and we just kind of kept going.
Eva: Why do you call yourselves headboy?
Oli: It was so long ago. We were just messing around, we had a previous name that I won’t disclose that involved the word ‘heads’ and we just kept an element of that. But I chose headboy for, I guess, a bit of nostalgia and playing around. It fitted with our gender androgyny. Jess: Yeah it’s kind of ironic. I think we were just brainstorming and it fitted. I think there’s that thing with band names, where you pick them but then they start to kind of shape the band or they become more fitting than you originally thought they would be, so it’s hard to know what came first.
Mars: I haven’t really thought about it but before we’d called ourselves that, I didn’t realise it didn’t really mean anything in America, it’s quite a UK kind of thing. It has a bit of a particular meaning but then I like that it doesn’t mean anything. Like it’s completely ripped out of context.
Jess: Did you have headboys at school?
Eva: No, I think it’s because I didn’t grow up here.
Oli: It’s like the valedictorian like the head prefect kind of vibe. It’s yeah essentially the prefect like the person that represents the students. And they wear little badges. It’s very traditional British, and very gendered, which is why it’s funny that’s what we called us.
Eva: Do you sell any merch?
Mars: We’ve sold quite a lot of it and it’s nice. Like it’s really nice when I see people with it. Actually I have a crazy story - I might not have got all the details of this story correct, but my friend was travelling in Mexico, and they were in a campsite, like the middle of nowhere, no one was there. And they said there was one other person in the campsite, they could see they were wearing a blue hat, and they got close and realised it was a headboy hat. They were in the depths of rural South America. I don’t really know where exactly it was, it was that far out, and there was a head boy hat.
Jess: So it’s quite cute as well. Because I feel like people will text us and be like, “I’ve seen another headboy hat”.
Oli: And dating apps, someone showing their merch.
Eva: Who’s your favourite artist or what is your favourite album at the moment?
Oli: Mine is Dennis by Sega Bodega. It’s a bit electronic. And you know when you get an album that just hits your soul. I’ve also been playing drums along to it, which is really fun, I like playing experimental stuff over electronic stuff, and then using that in the band as well. So, always good to keep it fresh.
Jess: I was going to say the Billie Eilish album, it is the most recent album that I’ve properly listened to. I think because also it was cool that she dropped it all together. There’s a couple of albums I’m looking forward to, like, the new Goat Girl album, Charli’s album. I only have a few songs, and I listen to them on repeat. But it was so cool to just suddenly be like, oh, I can listen to the whole album, and then keep listening to it. But yeah, really enjoying the return to form and the gay awakening. I was texting a friend, I was like, oh my God, she’s gone through every gay experience so quickly, like song about rejection, like crush, like, falling in love.
Mars: I’m pretty obsessed and have been for quite a while, like, it’s been a couple of months with ML Buch. The way she records is so interesting. I read some interviews, and she said she was recording stuff, and then playing it back. So she’d go to a place, like a hall, or like, a swimming pool or something, I can’t remember, I feel like this interview is full of like, false information. But she plays back things that she’s recorded in a space, and then re-records it. And she said she just spent like ages and ages, just experimenting with recording stuff in spaces. I think when you listen to it, you can get very into sound recording.
Eva: So if you need to describe your music with three words what would you say?
Oli: Shall we choose one each?
Jess: I don’t know if it’s true but like a little bit spiky is coming to mind.
Oli: Maybe a bit nostalgic.
Mars: It’s, kind of, maybe tangy.
Oli: Tangy, spiky and nostalgic.
Eva: What is your favourite food?
Jess: I love pizza pizza. It’s also a common misconception that I’m a vegetarian and I’m not, so I quite like a pepperoni pizza.
Oli: I’ve just forgotten everything I eat.
Jess: Oli’s a really great cook.
Oli: Oh thanks Jess. Yeah I’ve been nailing the pad thai recently. I kind of get obsessed with one dish at a time and then make it like it’s too much till I get bored of it and then move on. Sorry is this really boring. Jess: No, it’s really good.
Mars: My housemate makes this really good like burrata with a kind of balsamic sauce and artichoke, it’s really really really good. I’m not the best cook but I’m surrounded by people that are really good cooks which is a great way to be I think. But I do like fermenting things so I like pickles and I make pickles at home.
Jess: Mars is actually president of the pickle club.
Eva: Last question, what is your favourite moment to be in a band?
Oli: I think it’s, for me, it’s after we’ve played a show where, usually not in London, and then we’ve just gone swimming, like, in the river at Wilderness or in the sea in Portsmouth. Just that adrenaline you get after the show and then jumping into water, naked with my best mates. It’s so good.
Jess: Scandalising. People of Portsmouth.
Mars: I guess, we play quite a lot together. And I think, sometimes we reach a point where we just get really tight and we’ll be playing something and it will just, like, click and everyone’s like, in the pocket of it. And it just feels so good, it’s kind of addictive.
Jess: Yeah, it’s definitely addictive. I think that’s probably my favourite bit too. But I think to get to that point, we have to trust each other. We do a lot of talking through what’s going on in each other’s lives. And we’ve started to do these check-ins at rehearsals or before a show, so that we can know, because when you’re on stage, you’re so intimate with each other, it feels so intimate that if someone’s having a bad day, you can feel that. And so if you don’t know what’s going on, but it feels like something’s wrong, it can make you feel isolated. So I think we’ve learned to kind of try and open up as much as we want to about what’s going on, because then we are able to kind of play our best, I think.
