Yes Sir Boss Interview

"Business and Music is like oil and water. Sadly Oil is more profitable."

1.) How did you guys get started?

The group started as a jazz/blues trio back in 2005, but of that trio Matt is the only remaining original member. Since then we’ve picked up sax, trumpet, melodica and second guitar. The name came about because at the time Matt (the lead singer) was the only member not studying science and since then it has just stuck.

2.) Who are your influences?

One of the most exciting things about being in this band is the diversity of musical interest. Jehan loves Jazz, I love hip-hop, Tom Waits, Luke is into his Rock and blues, Tom’s well into The Beatles and Lewis makes electro music and even dabbles in music for computer games, although most of his music could be classified ‘silly’…basically between us we love most forms of music. However, I wouldn’t say that music is our only influence. Most of our lyrics are about things that have happened to us, or events that we are concerned about. Favourite Candidate for example is about Bush and the war whereas a song we are working on at the moment is based around a night in the pub where Matt got in a fight over a lady and was booted out!

3.) What was it like supporting Joss Stone at the 02?

Great! The Amsterdam one was better though! The atmosphere in London can be quite timid and un-welcoming at times. It’s a tough place to gig, everyone is so spoilt for choice and you often feel like a speck in the ocean. However, we got some lovely feedback and I was surprised at how many people dug our sound considering it’s so different to Joss’s. What a weird world we are subscribing too though! Business and art are like oil and water but unfortunately oil is far more profitable!

4.) What current bands are you fans of?

Ooh, tough one. We’re all lovin Amy Winehouse at the moment. It’s nice to have a bit of rock’n roll living. Let me see, Modest Mouse, Andrew Bird, Gogol Bordello is wicked. I Think Anthony and the Johnsons are gorgeous. Razorlite, Queens of the Stoneage, The White Stripes. Tom loves the Kaiser Chiefs but he is northern! Cat Empire are pretty fabulous. One of my favourite bands at the moment went to college with us. They’re called Burt Miller and the Animal folk. They’re so original and manage to be totally hilarious and beautifully poignant in the same breath. That’ll do I think.

A few other questions.

5.) We all really love the album cover. Where did the idea for that come from?

We wanted something quirky, weird, colourful and fun. We also had no money to hire a professional artist so I began looking for stuff that already existed. I found this dude called Frank R Paul who drew for comics in the 40’s. We picked a picture that suited the title Yes Sir Boss!!! and super-imposed our heads on the characters. I guess we liked the symbolism of the picture and it’s relevance to the big bullying world we live in today but mostly I think we just thought it was funny! We’re simple country boys you see.

6.) What is your opinion on sites such as sellaband.com who offer artists the chance to get published on the back of fan support rather than promotion from a record label?

Bloody brilliant. That should stop talentless nobs being respected through persuasion! No, really I do think it’s fantastic and believe that’s how music ought to become popular in the first place: hard work to acquire genuine diehard fans that don’t care whether you have ads on the TV. There’s also a certain charm that comes with discovering music for yourself and watching it grow. You feel a sense of ownership and pride for being the first to hear about them which you don’t get when groups are heavily marketed from the word go. There’s little exclusiveness or personal touch in that route. Music’s all about connecting with people and how can you do that they’re up there and the audience is down here right from the start?


We are playing with The Quails on 20th Oct in Barnstable at ‘In On The Green’ and that’s all we have booked at the moment. We’re trying to write some new material so are taking a bit of a break from gigging for a month but check our myspace for gigs near you.