The Boy Least Likely To: The CJSF Interview
<p>Scott Wood talks to Jof of the Boy Least LIkely To.</p><p>It took the server four pints to notice that Jof, the ultra-polite singer from The Boy Least Likely To, didn’t like lemon with his Strongbow. There were four slices discarded on the table before the fifth glass finally came without the citrus accent. In England, Jof explains, most kids start drinking with cider, then get sick of it, and move on to beer and spirits. Jof didn’t and so now he has taken it up as his drink of choice. I tell him that I have a friend who is just as devoted to that brand of cider and he is unremittingly teased for his girly-drink selection. “You shouldn’t.” Jof laughs, insisting: “It’s a man’s drink.”</p><p>Boy Least Likely To’s sound has been dubbed “cuddlerock” in some music circles. Jof likes the term but he isn’t sure about the rock part. “CuddlePop” maybe.” Then he clarifies. “When we made the record, our template was anything but rock. Any rock instruments or clichés we tried to avoid. Pop gives us the freedom to experiment more, whereas rock is quite restrictive. There are just guitars and drums and not really anywhere else you can go from that… You can do anything in pop. The Neptunes are pop and then Kylie is pop… The BMX Bandits are pop… anything can be pop.” </p><p>I counter that his music is closer to post-rock or alt-country than Kylie or The Neptunes and Jof is delighted by the challenge, laughing again. “Post-post-rock-pop then I suppose. The next record will be post-cuddlerock”</p><p>He likes the word “pop” because it means Boy’s music is easily accessible, and the “cuddle”-part definitely characterizes their sound and fan-base. In any event, Boy is certainly successful in crafting a soothing yet charming rural pop sound with banjos, glockenspiels, acoustic guitars and fiddles thumping away in a home-recording nu-folk style. </p><p>The band is a two man act, consisting of Jof, who writes all the words and sings, and Peter, who writes all the music and plays all the instruments – the duo has known each other since they were wee tykes. They grew up out in the boonies in a small town of 7000 people called Wendover. This strange UK village is filled with “not useful” odd shops like a restaurant devoted to only chocolate which Jof describes as “a lovely beautiful country place cut off from the world in its own bubble.” The music evokes this setting over a bustling London “it’s much more the sound of a country lane or of being stuck behind a tractor or just puttering along at our own pace.” </p><p>Boy’s music is almost relentlessly pleasant yet the lyrics are filled with the bittersweet and dark sentiments of the post-existentialist-crisis- mid-20-something. For instance Monster on their debut release, The Best Party Ever, bemoans all the people he knew as kids growing up to become monsters and then creating other monsters. Other tracks talk about fear of death and the weaknesses that come with getting old as the words wind their way to a longing to recapture a lost innocence. </p><p>When I mention that the lyrics often work against the music, Jof explains. “The lyrics were always angsty and a little bit dark. When it came to making the lyrics we didn’t want to make it painful, a torturous cathartic thing. So we’ll make the music a little more uplifting… it takes the edge off the lyrics.” </p><p>So then I ask him if his dark lyrics are also inspired by his seemingly quaint upbringing. </p><p>“My childhood was lovely. We collected snails, me and my brother. It was us wandering around the countryside…”</p><p>So then I press further, why so bittersweet? </p><p>“If you have a very idyllic childhood the adult world always seems much scarier.” </p><p>I look at him strangely since another music cliché is that tortured upbringings usually equal tortured music and so he breaks it down; “When you have to get a job and you have to worry about money… You start to think, ‘Wasn’t life so much easier when we collected snails?’ It was so much easier when we just cared about whether their shells matched.” </p><p>For more information about The Boy Least Likely To, check out theboyleastlikelyto.co.uk and listen to the interview show Mondays at 4:30 on CJSF 90.1FM where you can hear the entire interview!</p>