For a second, try and imagine a night of pure insanity. A night when you wake up and your loved one is bloody and on the floor with the eerie sound of your favorite song repeating over and over again in the background and with the little thought in the back of your head that maybe you’re the reason for her death.
If your imagination is up-to-par then you might just be able to wrap your head around Boys Night Out’s mathematically-laced, progressive record Trainwreck.
If your knowledge of Boys Night Out stemmed from the “screamo” music of their prior album Make Yourself Sick, then prepare to open the window and throw out all your preconceived notions. The band back then is clearly not the same band now. Centering their new record around a 12-part dark story of death, love, mental insanity and the start of a new beginning, BNO have created a record that sets them far apart from bands they have been compared to in the past.
The Canadian based group began as an all-male band, appropriately calling themselves “Boys Night Out.” For their latest album, the boys enlisted the help of a girl. Kara Dupuy joined to play synthesizer and background vocals for the record. The addition of an X chromosome to the group was intended to be only temporary, but it seems that Dupuy is here to stay.
“It’s funny because they didn’t think I was going to become part of the band permanently … we worked so well together that it just came out this way. They really liked the keyboards so they asked me to be part of the band permanently,” Dupuy said.
Trainwreck is a concept album based on the psychological disintegration of a man.
With the new album the band’s screamo past has disappeared and as a result the group has lost some of its initial fan base. Despite the setback, BNO has decided that as musicians the only way to become better and stronger is to change and grow.
“With the new record we wanted to challenge ourselves and reflect what we are currently listening to. When we grouped together with the whole pop-punk-screamo thing it’s not really what we listen to and we wanted to show a more mature side on this record,” Dupuy said.
The indie band got their start with label Ferret Records. Make Yourself Sick, filled with catchy hooks, hand claps and amazingly harmonized vocals, made them a household name in the underground scene. With the release of their first album music lovers listened and fell for Boys Night Out, but Dupuy speaks for the group when she says remaining underground is not their end-all goal.
“It’s so hard to be underground and you know the whole business of selling out or whatever … All we wanna do is make money doing what we love and if that means playing arena shows then so be it,” she said. “I mean I don’t understand these bands that have piercings with side black hair and doing jump kicks. I mean if they can live with themselves doing that, that’s fine but that’s not why we got into this. We don’t want to show that type of image at all.”
Solomon Sofolawe can be reached at tua32615@temple.edu.
Be the first to comment