{"id":57801,"date":"2015-09-30T15:12:14","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T15:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wonderlandmagazine.com\/?p=57801"},"modified":"2015-09-30T15:16:12","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T15:16:12","slug":"beau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wonderlandmagazine.com\/2015\/09\/30\/beau\/","title":{"rendered":"Beau by Ryan McGinley"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Like two Stevie Knicks in technicolour dreamcoats: meet NYC\u2019s timeless twosome, Beau.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Taken from the 10th Birthday Issue of Wonderland.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Emma wears black t-shirt vintage tie dye by BROWNSTONE COWBOYS and Heather wears striped cotton top and black trousers both by ALEXANDER WANG<\/em><\/p>\n

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In the under-appreciated 2002 movie Igby Goes Down<\/em>, actor Kieran Culkin meets a precocious vegan called Sookie Sapperstein, played by Claire Danes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat kind of a name is Igby?\u201d she asks, sulking. Igby responds, \u201cThe kind of name that someone named Sookie is in no position to question.\u201d Talking to New York duo, Beau, reminds me of these two characters from a film loosely based on coming-of-age tome The Catcher In The Rye.<\/em><\/p>\n

Both take themselves very seriously – 21-year-old Heather\u00a0Boo slightly less so than Emma Rose, 20 – in a way that time and increasing self-awareness will forgive.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a child, everyone called me Heathyboo, then it became Heather Boo,\u201d says Boo, explaining the history of her stage name. \u201cThis is before the term Boo became so commonly used.\u201d So pre-Honey Boo Boo then, I ask, referring to the star of reality TV show Toddlers & Tiaras<\/em>? Boo laughs, kind of. She and Rose changed their band name from The Boos to Beau to reflect\u00a0their maturity. \u201cWe like the simplicity of Beau.\u201d Boo thinks for a second. \u201cAlso, sexual labels are so ambiguous today, so Beau kind of goes with like… a generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The phone line we\u2019re speaking on is muffled and distant, like I\u2019m trying to overhear a neighbour\u2019s conversation by pressing my ear to a wall. Boo is in her car, driving through the Adirondack mountains in upstate NewYork where she\u2019s trying to enjoy a holiday.Rose is nestled in her apartment in SoHo, NewYork. They don\u2019t live together. Yet. But they\u2019re \u201cliterally\u201d five blocks apart and have known each other their whole lives, born and bred by mothers who were both painters and best friends in Manhattan. They solidified their friendship when they were 11-years-old. \u201cWe never talked before that,\u201d recalls Rose,\u201conce we gave each other the chance, we actually enjoyed each other\u2019s company.\u201d Boo giggles in the background. \u201cWe\u2019re soulmates, totally inseparable. Everyone at school knew us as \u2018together\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rose recollects one post-school hang particularly fondly. They were walking through NYC\u2019s West Village when they decided that education sucked and one day they\u2019d be in a band. \u201cI was like, \u2018Heather! We could do this!\u2019,\u201d says Rose. \u201cWe were very inexperienced at the time.\u201d They were 13.<\/p>\n

Boo: \u201cWe were jumping up and down freaking out, completely confident.\u201d Boo, who is the singer and received her musical pointers from guitarist Rose, said, \u201cEmma had such good taste for her age. We were into Elliot Smith and Radiohead.\u201d She added dramatically, \u201cRadiohead\u2019s when my life changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rose\u2019s favourite Radiohead album is OK Computer<\/em>. \u201cI like Pablo Honey,<\/em> too. It\u2019s hard.\u201d Boo? \u201cOh I agree with Emma.\u201d The pair were invited to see one of their favourite bands, Modest Mouse,\u00a0a few nights ago. Rose tells me they\u2019ve worked with Morning Teleportation, a band signed to frontman, Isaac Brock\u2019s label. Boo would rather talk about the afterparty. \u201cEmma got to hang out with the band and Iron & Wine. She had the time of her life.\u201d Rose falls silent.<\/p>\n

Boo is definitely the more extrovert and taken of the pair, elongating her words as though she\u2019s narrating Snow White<\/em>. Rose is businesslike, probably the musical driving force, though they\u2019re keen to express that they\u2019re collaborative when it comes to writing the lyrics and melodies that inform their 70s folk sound. The more I delve into their backstory, Rose grows cautious\u00a0that the conversation has veered too far towards Boo\u2019s former modelling, her acting credits and their association with the likes of clothing brand Opening Ceremony and photographers such\u00a0as Ryan McGinley, who was partly responsible for forming NYC band The Virgins. \u201cCan we just focus on the music?\u201d she says, eager to talk about their self-titled debut EP, released earlier this year by Parisian fashion label, Kitsun\u00e9.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe don\u2019t want to come off as a fashion band,\u201d says Boo. \u201cWe want our careers to mostly be about music rather than lifestyle,\u201d repeats Rose. \u201cMusic.\u201d Boo wishes they could delete all online photos of her modelling past. \u201cI did it for survival, to make money. It\u2019s exhausting,\u201d she says. Rose attributes their pursuit of so many creative outlets in the past to the expensiveness of New York.\u00a0The city\u2019s gentrification has been a subject of frustration by many musicians, most notably David Byrne who wrote about it for The Guardian in October 2013. Rose is not sure she agrees. \u201cThings are just moving outwards to Brooklyn and The Bronx,\u201d she says, somewhat na\u00efvely. \u201cInflation and rent filters artists out but most\u00a0of our creative friends grew up here. That\u2019s how we maintain a sense of artistic New York. I love this city no matter what, even if everything changes.\u201d Boo adds, \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be New York without the artistic struggle that comes with living here. You might not be able to spend much on lunch, but you gain a great imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair\u2019s debut album will be released next March. It was written in New York but recorded between NYC, Nashville and London with Shoreditch-based producer Alan O\u2019Connell, who\u2019s worked with The Big Pink and New Young Pony Club. They\u2019ve loved the experience. \u201cEach song has its own life, but I think they all work together. They comprise who we are since we were 13-years-old,\u201d says Boo. It will follow in the same vein as the acoustic Americana of self-described \u201csoft rock\u201d singles, \u201cOne Wing\u201d and \u201cKarma\u201d, from this year\u2019s EP. The latter reminds of America\u2019s \u201cHorse With No Name\u201d and contains the lyric, \u201cbreathing like a horse with no lungs\u201d.<\/p>\n

Influentially, they\u2019re fans of Alabama Shakes and earnest Notting Hill songwriter, Flo Morrissey. \u201cEven mainstream stuff like Amy Winehouse, Adele…\u201d adds Boo. Rose interrupts. \u201cThe great\u00a0poets and writers of the past. Bob Dylan, Federico Garcia Lorca, Hunter S.Thompson, PJ Harvey, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, grr,\u201d she runs out of names. I assume they love vintage shopping and crate-digging. You know, vinyl? \u201cOh! I have to get\u00a0a record player!\u201d Rose enthuses. \u201cI don\u2019t have one, but I collect records.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting you mention \u2018vintage\u2019,\u201d says Heather. \u201cYou know when you hold a vintage item, it has so much history and it\u2019s been around for much longer than you have?\u201d I feel like I know where Boo\u2019s going with this. \u201cObviously we\u2019re alive now, our music is current, but in a way there\u2019s a vintage essence to it. We\u2019re trying to make music that\u2019s timeless.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Beau release their debut album ‘That Thing Reality’ on Monday 11th March 2016 via Kitsun\u00e9\/Sony Red.\u00a0<\/em>The video for ‘Soar Across The Sea’ is out now.<\/em><\/p>\n