WERS 88.9 fm - Artist Interview: Po Boyz

March 15^th, 2010

Boston's funkiest organ trio, Po' Boyz, came by WERS to record our weekly series, On the Verge, which showcases our favorite up-and-coming artists. The band is three parts: Keith Hollis, Hammond B-3 Organ, vocals; Sean Mannion, percussion, vocals; Andrew Wagley, guitar, vocals. After an hour-long set-up, the boys laid down two tracks from their new record, Country Funk. The record features nine songs (eight original tracks) including "Bunkie's Basement," and "Country Side of Life;" songs they played for us in studio. After the performance the guys spent time chatting with WERS about the new record, the self described "country fried funk sound," and what's next for Po' Boyz.

WERS: So what's your back-story? How did you get started as a band?

Keith Hollis: That's a good question. The drummer [Sean] and I came to Boston from various locations throughout the United States. [We] play music here, and we've been playing together for a long time—over ten years. We got together with Andrew back about five years ago and started doing this project, Po' Boyz—playing the New Orleans funk, and slowly our own original influences have been seeping in. You know, when Andrew joined the band we sort of changed and became what we are today.

WERS: Okay, so speaking of influences, what are your major influences?

Andrew Wagley: Definitely The Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead, a lot of the classic rock stuff…Santana…but of course various Jazz and Blues artists…

Hollis: Lonnie Smith…

Wagley: Definitely Lonnie Smith, who else?

Hollis: We love New Orleans music…

Sean Mannion: The Meters.

Wagley: Definitely the Meters…

Hollis: But we do our own combination…we have a Hammond B-3 Organin the band, so there's a lot of lineage of history, of Jimmy Smith and Jack McDuff, and a lot of the soul organ players of the seventies. Mix that in with the Grateful Dead influence and you get Po' Boyz, every Saturday night at the Middle East.

WERS: Very cool. Then where did the country theme come from for this record?

Wagley: I live up in New Hampshire, so we wrote a lot of the songs up there. These guys would come up, spend a couple days, and we'd just hang out in the country, write songs, [play] acoustic guitar, keyboards, whatever. We kind of let that be our theme, just country life.

Hollis: It seeps in, you know. You live in Boston, and you head up to New Hampshire, and it's a change of scenery. It's like going on vacation from the city life, so it starts to effect your energy system—in a good way.

WERS: Where do you see this band going in 2010?

Hollis: Well, we have a steady gig at the Middle East and we're really excited about our new CD. For us it's a fresh start because it's the first CD that we all play on together. We hope to go down to New Orleans Jazz Fest this year and play some venues there in the city in the end of April, beginning of may—and just keep doing what were doing. We're slowly trying to build a steady fan base here in the northeast, and we're also planning on touring the Bay Area in California and Colorado next year.

WERS: Great.

Hollis: Yeah, it's exciting.

WERS: Are you planning any collaboration with other local musicians—or are you just doing your own thing for now?

Wagley: We've just been doing our own thing, we're trying to collaborate with each other and keep writing more tunes. We pretty much have enough material to start working on our second full-length album, so we're hoping to start working on it this fall.

WERS: All right, well I'm going to wrap this up, but just to leave off—as a Boston-based band, what's your favorite part of Boston?

Hollis: Our theme song is "Welcome to Allston." Allston's our favorite part of Boston.

 -Words by Lindsay Tucker and images by Fernanda Gomez