One quiet Wednesday afternoon, Big Peter found himself in the company of Stefan and Dominic of Glasgow band The Boscos. Being almost completely devoid of answers himself, Peter started asking questions.
PM: How did you guys come together as a band? Remember, you don’t have to be honest.
Stefan: We might as well be honest! I was singing a daft song just to take the piss and Dom said “you’ve actually got a good voice!” Three of us went to high school together and we just met Chris and that’s it, really.
Dominic: At that time I was playing xylophone and keyboard or something. Chris has just always played bass – he’s been playing bass for about 13 years or something like that!
PM: What’s the story behind your name?
Dominic: I think we just like the catchiness of it. It was a joke at first, but then we began to realise that it had a good ring to it. It felt good at the time, and it works, so we’re happy with it.
PM: How would you describe your band to readers?
Stefan: We’re not trying to reinvent an old style of music, we just play what feels and sounds right to us and it works. That’s it.
PM: So, it’s an evolving thing?
Dominic: Yeah. I mean, I’ve got lots of bands that I love, as does Stefan, and Chris is into reggae and Bob Dylan and stuff. Our drummer Chris and bassist Chris are both obviously really into their rhythmic music, so all coming together it just feels right.
PM: Do you share a collective favourite band, or bands, or are your influences wider than this?
Dominic: We don’t all have the same taste in music, which i think benefits what we create.
Stefan: We now feel that we’re comfortable with the setlist that we’ve been working on over the past few months. We know what we want our sound to be, and were just looking forward to finally getting it out there. Our next gig is at Dublin Castle in London on the 29th of May, and we’re excited about it. A different audience is good because no one knows who we are.
PM: It does seem that a lot of bands in Glasgow are reliant on friends attending their gigs because of a lack of enthusiasm for attending gigs by local acts.
Dominic: Yeah, I mean it’s hard getting started and heard initially. We played Sleazys in November and these people from Manchester came up to us after and told us that they really enjoyed our set and we reminded them of Joy Division, which is cool.
PM: Would you be looking at getting more gigs down south or in Edinburgh in the future then?
Stefan: We played Edinburgh in late February. Bannermans. That was a good gig. It was nice to play in the capital. It’s all about getting about. We’ve done most of Glasgow.
At this point, I took a few minutes to ramble semi-coherently about the significance of getting booked on a Friday or Saturday night, and the difficulties that come with it. Nothing that the band didn’t already know, but beer brings out the gobshite within, doesn’t it?
PM: What has been your favourite gig as a band so far?
Dominic: King Tuts. To play what as a band was our third gig was huge for us as well as a gamble, it was certainly an experience and certainly went well.
PM: Do you have plans to record an album?
Stefan: Yeah. We’ve recorded stuff before, but we want something that is radio quality. We’re recording our EP at Green Door studios in June.
PM: I take it that the plan is to record and then play as much as possible for the rest of the year?
Stefan: Yeah, we’re recording in the summer and we’ve got a lot of gigs over the summer. Over the next month we’ll be announcing quite a lot. We’re really keen to finally let people hear what we’re all about.
Dominic: Basically, we’re really looking forward to the summer. Right now some of us have university and stuff, but the summer is going to be busy.
PM: If you could tar and feather one pop culture icon, alive or dead, who would it be?
Stefan & Dominic: (both laugh)
Stefan: Good question, well if we can say a band then it’ll definitely be Coldplay, nothing worse than a sell-out for me. They’ve just reached a point where they sound like everything else that’s going on in music. Even in Glasgow it has got like that and we all agree, there have been gigs where we’ve appreciated other bands but just feel like we’ve seen it all before.
Boscos, thank you for your time!