Rediscovering Be Nothing: Boston Manor Talks Songwriting, Tour Life, and Fan Connections

0:04 Hey, you're listening to The Adventure of Pumlin on W4CY. For you. This is the Pipe Man here on the Adventures of Pipe Man W4CY radio, and I'm here with.. Henry from Boston Manor. Nice. Here at Warped Tour Montreal. How does it feel to be at Warped Tour? It feels great. It feels great to be back in Montreal. It's been a hot minute since we've been here, but where I am right now is pretty beautiful. We're in the trees, we've got the river wrapping around us, and the sun is shining, and. Yeah, it's great.

0:45 Yeah, it is like perfect weather. I just got back from Bakken and Bloodstock in the UK. And then I live in Florida. So I've been in heat waves for the past month and a half. So this is like having air conditioning. It is. Yeah, the UK has been particularly miserable all summer. We've had five heat waves in a row. And any North Americans that have spent time in the summer in Europe will know. We don't have air conditioning and it's not made for those temperatures. The buildings are built to trap the heat in. Yeah, exactly. Your house is over there. They trap the heat in. So it's like when it's like this. Oh, my God. And the dust was so bad at Bloodstock. Yeah, the festival dust. Oh, my God. I was stupid enough that I got into a pit the first day of the festival. And then I was dying the rest of the festival.

1:38 Your chest and stuff? You coughing and that? Yeah, I'm still coughing. The nose. It sucks, yeah. Because it was so bad because of your drought over there for two.. It's been brutal, man. We played a festival in Belgium last weekend and yeah, the dust was crazy. I was wearing a white t-shirt on stage and I came off it, it was like brown. I know, right? And, like, we go through this all the time, but, like, I don't usually go through that as much in the UK because it's usually all four seasons in one hour. Oh, yeah. Especially when I live in Manchester and it's, yeah, it's literally that. You've got to go out with three different outfits when you leave the house, for sure. Oh, when I pack to go do Download and Bloodstock, man, I've got to pack, like, a suitcase to make sure I have the right clothes for the right... Yeah, yeah.

2:25 You just never know. Yeah, totally. Definitely. So... Warped Tour hasn't been... You know, it's coming back now. Okay? MySpace is coming back. Is it? Yeah. Did you hear that? No, I didn't. Like, how wild is this that we're in 2026 and it's kind of like we're repeating 2006? You know? Yeah. Yeah, totally. I mean, so far, we've done a few of these Warped Tour dates this summer and they've been great. It's been super well organized. Like.. I mean, they've had more than 24 hours to build the site this time, so it's a little bit tidier, a little.

3:06 Bit shinier, but yeah, it's been awesome. And it's definitely like a healthy mix of bands from, I guess, the quote-unquote Warped Tour era, and loads of new bands coming through, playing it for the first time, who are amazing. Yeah, it's such a great community, and then like, I walked in here today, what a great venue, I'm like, I feel like I'm just at a big skateboard park. Yeah, it's a lovely spot. Yeah, I don't know. It's like a public park or something. It's great. Yeah, they have apparently a lot of concerts and a lot of festivals. Yeah, I think so, yeah. You know, so it's kind of cool, and we're on an island, so it's kind of cool. Yeah, I forgot to mention that we're on an island, which is in the middle of, I guess, a river?

3:49 Ask her, because she's Canadian. Yeah, it's beautiful. So, are we by a river? Yes. What river? What kind of Canadian are you? You don't even know. Well, it's the ocean that then just goes past Calgary City and then turns into this river, whatever it's called. St. Lawrence, of course. I didn't want it. It's the St. Lawrence River. Okay, there we go. Because that feeds one of the Great Lakes, right? That goes down into Lake Ontario, I think. I got to tell you, too. I was just listening to your acoustic version. Of Laika. And Oh My God is so good. Thank you. It's so different and so good.

4:40 It's the same, but so different. I was listening to it over and over again because I liked the original version. But this was just such a different vibe for the same song. And it was so well done. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. I feel like that era of our music lends itself quite well to acoustic versions. The kind of style of songwriting that it is and the kind of simplicity of it, you can break those songs down to kind of like one guitar and a vocal and it still kind of works, which is nice. It's fun to kind of do new versions. Of old songs. We haven't done a lot of that before, so it's a good opportunity to do that. And it's kind of cool, too, because you evolve as a musician, so you're at a different stage in your musician life and more mature in your musician life in some respects, you know? And then, so, it's like you probably sit there and think, well, how would I write this song today?

5:42 It's a funny one, that, because you can get sort of stuck in... rabbit holes with that question. You know, you can torture yourself listening to old stuff and. Thinking, what would I do? What would I do differently? I think the thing with Be Nothing. Is it's so different from our kind of later material and it's such its. Kind of like own thing that. It's probably the record I would change the least because it kind of has its warts and all kind of like bare bones, it's doing its thing appeal and we wrote it so kind of earnestly and as kids, to change it would be kind of.. I. Mean, I don't know what... Not to say it's a perfect record. It's a deeply flawed record in some ways, but that's kind of its charm, I think.

6:28 But that is part of the charm. And I think that's part of where nostalgia is for fans, too, is that it's not perfect, it's not polished, it's what they remember a band being. Yeah, it's just kind of... It's just a bit punk in some ways because it's kind of scrappy. It's not super tidy. It's not super polished. The production's quite simple, you know, which is a good thing, I think. And that's kind of how it's meant to. Be, really. No doubt. It's been kind of inspiring, really, because we're writing at the moment. And we've kind of tried to take the spirit of that a little bit with some of our new music. Not kind of stylistically, but just the same kind of approach to writing songs, you know?

7:11 See, and... I think, too, sometimes it gets harder in some ways and easier in others to write new music as you've been a band for a while. Because it's like, you know, when you're first doing it, you have all these fresh ideas and everything's new. And now it's like, you know more, so that makes it better. But then it's like, I always think, how do you keep coming up with more things to write about? Yeah, I guess it's different for everybody. I mean, for us, we've opened up enough of a space amongst our fan base that they're very open-minded and let us keep trying different things, which is cool.

8:00 I love that. And we're also, in a weird way, fortunate to not have.. The record you know like some bands like they'll have a hit record which is amazing and it'll make. Them massive they have to live up to that but they gotta. Like live up to that and they've also gotta play those songs every night and if they deviate from the sound of that hit record then people for the most part the fans are like well that's why I fell in love with the band I don't really wanna hear it whereas we've kinda constantly been evolving and you know every fan will tell you their favorite record's a different album and that's kind of been a bit of a blessing in disguise really but in terms of like inspiration like I don't know really I suppose the last few years have been really great in the sense because we sort of had a lot of big life moments as individuals and we've actually been touring a bit less and as a consequence, been living a little bit more, and you can kind of get stuck in the routine of like, well, I'm on tour.

8:54 All the time. You know when you kind of listen to those big 70s. Bands, and their kind of third record or whatever, they were just on the road all the time, and then they would write road records, and they were just kind of boring, because all they were doing was just living in a tour bus and partying, and then.. Yeah. They hadn't really got anyone or anything to write about, you know, and.. You're so right, too. In some ways, we had done a lot of that. We toured so heavily for so many years, and now we've kind of like... Well, we just had a more spread out couple of years, and it's been really nice. See, and... I think that's the one thing I talk about, about the positive of what happened with COVID, because it allowed artists, I always said it allowed artists to jump off the hamster wheel and really start creating again.

9:45 Definitely, yeah. To your point, when you're on the go, go, go, and writing from one gig to another, you're just going through the emotions, and you don't even evaluate where you want your music to go, because you don't have a time to stop and think about that. No definitely yeah and some albums I think going back to the thing that you said before about like you know what would you change or would you not change it's like some of the albums where I would probably want to change the most are the albums where we had the least time to write you know we were like touring and writing on the road and and fitting the recording sessions in between tours and all that kind of stuff.

10:25 So and you have those deadlines so it's not even really finished usually it's like you have to put in finished or not totally you know type of thing yeah definitely. I mean i mean we've never had anything crazy where we've like really had to like compromise fortunately but you know The last couple of years we've been writing a record and just taking our time with it. See, that's cool. It's been nice and we've still got a ways to go, but we're not trying to rush it. It makes it more fun. Yeah, and that was a big part of what's been great about revisiting this first album this year. It's kind of like rediscovering why you started writing music in the first place. Yes. Which is just super.

11:06 Fun and hanging out with your friends and writing music with no expectation other than to write a cool song. See, I talk about that all the time too. It's just like anything. If you're in a slump in anything you do, when you go back to the basics, go back to the beginning, that's what you do. You figure out why you started doing it. Yeah, definitely. And it brings that passion back. Totally. And I think also just like our biggest mistake a band can make is trying to recreate their most successful material. Because you never can. You've got to keep moving forward and you've got to keep trying different stuff, whatever that looks like to you, because you have to be invested in it. And if you're writing something for somebody else or to tick a box or fulfill a purpose other than your own creative satisfaction, then it just won't be very good.

11:59 Exactly. Really. So now I've been looking at your eight ball tattoo. And I have a question. Does that have any significant meaning to you or did you just think it was cool? I just thought it was cool, man. I was filling some gaps and the person who was tattooing me had a flash sheet and saw it on it. I just thought it was pretty interesting looking. It is pretty cool. And like it's funny, it caught my attention because when I was like 12 years old, I made a decision that changed my life. Based on... There used to be this toy. It's still around, too. Magic 8-Ball. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I wanted to move... I was thinking of moving from my mother to my father, but I couldn't make the decision. So my dad said, ask the Magic 8-Ball.

12:47 Oh, wow. Big decision on an 8-Ball. I know. And I did ask it, and I did what it said. And was it the right decision? I wouldn't be here with you if it weren't. Right on, brother. That's cool. Because I moved with him, and then... I grew up in New Jersey, and then he moved me to L.A., and that's when I got into metal and punk and the whole scene, and that's why I'm here today. A sliding doors moment, yeah. Right? So the whole interview, I'm looking at that, I'm like, I wonder if he has some meaning to that, because it sure has meaning to me. I wish I did. That's a way cooler story than mine. Right? Yeah. Anything else you want to share with the listeners we haven't covered already? Not especially.

13:28 I just want to say, you know, if you've been sort of just checked us out recently, thanks for checking us out. If you've been with us for a minute, thanks for sticking with us. We're not going anywhere. We've got a whole bunch of stuff planned for. Next year as well. If you're in North America, which I'm assuming most of your listeners are, we're doing a full US in November, playing our first record in full. And we're deliberately doing like tiny venues and mostly tiny venues and like no barrier shows and stuff, which we've not done for. A long time. So it's going to be super fun, a fun kind of like chance to hear some stuff that we have not played in, well, 10 years really and probably won't ever play again. It'll probably be fun for you too, right? I'm really excited.

14:09 I'm buzzing. Yeah, I'm that excited. It's like taking a different, you know, doing something differently instead of the mundane. It'll be well outside the box for us, for sure. Are you playing any South Florida dates or Florida in general? Actually, the Florida date of the tour is Warped Tour. There you go. That's perfect. All right. Love it. Well, thanks for being here in Montreal. Look forward to you in Orlando. And thanks for being on the Adventures of Piedman. My pleasure, man. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to The Adventures of Pikeman on W4CY Radio.