Touring The Bobaflex Way

Album, tour, album, tour, repeat could very well be the Bobaflex mantra.  The band named after Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fet, has never shirked from road duty.  Whether headline dates or gigs supporting other acts, Bobaflex just can’t seem to get enough road warrior action. 

Playing guitars and handling vocal duties are Shaun and his brother Martin.  They are joined by Jymmy Tolland on bass, Tommy Johnson on drums and David Tipple on guitar and vocals.  Bobaflex is currently touring in support of its 2015 album, Anything That Moves.

Bobaflex is on the road year after year.  How do you and your bandmates maintain any sense of sanity while logging all those miles?

It varies.  Some people party a lot.  We go to the gym.  We have a great tour manager.  When we get into town, we go to a Planet Fitness the day of the gig, like 8 in the morning, so I get all my aggression out there.  It’s tough to be away from [our] families, but we’ve done this a long time.  After being home so long we start to get stir crazy because we’ve toured so hard.  I’m more used to the constant motion, and so is the rest of the band, than I am sitting still.  That is our sanity, just getting out and playing.  We were on labels before, but being an independent artist, [touring is] our bread and butter, how we make our living.  I almost stress out when I’m off the road too long because I need to get out there and make cash and pay bills. … It’s just become a way of life.

When you’re home, what are those signs telling you that you need to get back on the road?

You start to get cabin fever and get stir crazy. …The first week or two, you’re glad to be relaxed.  Then, you feel that stage time hit.  It’s 10:30 p.m. and you’re sitting at home watching “Law and Order” or something, and you’re like, “Wait a second.  Something exciting is supposed to happen right now.” You get that instinct and you’re not on the road.  My brother, Martin McCoy, is somewhat of an insomniac.  He’s used to staying up all night on the road. … He never really breaks the cycle when he goes home.  But me, I’m like, “Something is supposed to happen at nighttime and it’s not. My world’s messed up.”

So there really is a touring clock?

For sure. … [Touring] is also our purpose. If we’re not rehearsing or writing a record, it’s touring time.  It’s cool to be off of the road for a little while.  I have a little girl so I spend a lot of time with her.

Bobaflex seems to follow a pretty strict regimen of record, tour, record tour, with albums spaced about two years apart.

We’re actually trying to kick that up a little quicker.  We’re writing new songs and we’re thinking, possibly, the next album will be an EP.  So we can put things out quicker and have a reason to tour more.

Although you’re touring to support the latest album, are you already working new material into the set?

We usually get about two songs down before we start recording.  So there’s always a couple of songs, maybe two or three, that we test on the audience.  That’s if they’re finished early.  We run those a few months before they’re actually recorded. 

Do you record live or build it track by track?

On this last album, some of the music was live, some of it was not.  The vocals were multi-tracked.  However, we’re going to do something different this time. … It’s all going to be completely live on this new EP.  We always try to change up how we layer guitars. Sometimes we just do two straight guitars, sometimes we layer a lot.  We try to do it differently each time.  The band’s tight. We’ve been together for over 10 years.  We just said, “Why are we wasting so much time together? You go in and do guitar for two days, you go in and do bass for two days …” We just did a live version of the song “Start A War.”  We haven’t released it yet. We just did it in the studio and we really liked the sound of it. Everything was super tight.  There was an organic feel to it. Also, we’re not going to nitpick so much on the new EP.  We’re going to leave slight little live-sounding mistakes, where your finger swipes or one note goes a little longer. We want a more organic feel.  So we’re going to do the new one live.

Do you have a title yet?

Not yet. (laughs) We’re kicking some things around here and there, but we just have some skeletons of songs right now.

Unless you’re going to name it after a specific song on the album, how do you come up with album names?

Sometimes we brainstorm, sometimes it comes out of nowhere.  [In the movie] “Blue Velvet” Dennis Hopper says, “I’ll [blank] anything that moves.”  He’s a psychotic character as Frank Booth.  We were watching “Blue Velvet” after the show and repeating lines.  I’m like, “Can we just call the album ‘Anything That Moves’ in dedication to Frank Booth?”  They nodded their heads and that was that.

Are there other movies that are band favorites?

I always bring “Flash Gordon” on tour for inspiration.  Also, the “Buck Rogers” box set.  I’m kind of a late ’70s to early ’80s sci-fi fan.  “Escape From New York,” “Big Trouble In Little China.” And one of the worst movies ever made, one that I make fans watch if they come on the bus,” is “Rhinestone” with Dolly Parton and Sylvester Stallone. Stallone is trying so hard to be funny. It’s embarrassing.  He’s so not funny that it becomes funny.  My tag line for it was, “Enter a universe where Sylvester Stallone cannot be funny, but is funny.”

Do you and your bandmates like to shout out lines from movies you’re watching while traveling on the bus?

Oh, yeah.  I’m a big comic book geek so I have Marvel [movies] “Batman” and “Man Of Steel” [on the bus].  We’re always watching something like that.  I’m a science fiction fan of all genres, hence the name Bobaflex from Boba Fett.  We’re always doing that.

“Flash Gordon” was my first introduction to rock because Queen did the soundtrack.  I was pretty young when I saw it.  I was like, “What is this music?”  I believe my parents got [the soundtrack] on vinyl back in the early ’80s.  So I listened to that and it kind of geared me toward rock at an early age.

Other than the “Flash Gordon” soundtrack, what else did you and your brother hear around the house while growing up?

Our dad played bluegrass so he always … played guitar and sang to us when we were really little.  We naturally wanted to get guitars for Christmas and that happened.  We both started bands in high school.  Before that, our parents trusted some older kids to take me to some heavy metal concerts when I was about 14.  The first big [concert] I saw was Mötley Crüe on the “Dr. Feelgood” Tour.  They just exploded out of the stage.  There were fireworks.  I think it’s illegal to be that loud now.  I couldn’t hear for three days.  I said, “Mom.  I think it’s permanent.”  It just overwhelmed me, a sensory overload, and I was like, “I want to do that.”

At that time, while you and your brother were playing guitars around the house, was it always metal?

My brother … at first was more of a Metallica, Slayer, Pantera guy and I was more of a Guns N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe, Queen ’70s rock [fan].  I went through a hard ’70s phase.  In high school I bought bell bottoms.  I think everyone [who likes rock] goe through that Led Zeppelin phase.  I was like, “My God. These guys are unbelievable.”

The ’70s phase took me to The Doors, Blue Cheer. … Then my brother, we kind of met in the middle … through some ’80s rock, like Alice In Chains, and we started hanging out more.  When we went to college we always had separate bands that always jammed together.  We had two different drum kits in our attic for two separate bands. And we ended up [asking] “Why are we not in the same band?” Then we kind of got serious.  It took a few years to get the ball rolling.  Once we both dropped out of college I said, “OK. Let’s do this professionally.”

What were you studying in college?

I was an advertising major and an English minor and the English kind of took over the creative side.  I really wished I had switched to an English major.  I’m only about 40 hours short of graduating but the music thing took off and I [ended up] focusing 24/7 on it.  But I really enjoyed the English classes.  On the road … I’ve picked writing back up.  It’s something that gets your mind focused.  It kind of connects itself to writing songs with the band. I get in that mode, I’m typing my stories and I write certain words that remind me of certain lyrics.

Did you learn anything from studying advertising that you’ve been able to apply to the band?

Yeah.  I had some marketing classes, too.  Once I got to the 400-level classes, you spend a semester on Pizza Hut or Hallmark … at that point I think I tuned it out because I realized I wasn’t into it. … Music may not pay much but I think I’d rather do that than work for Hallmark.

You’re doing shows with Ill Nino and you have upcoming headlining gigs.  Other than the length of time you’re given for your set, how does the band approach headlining performances versus supporting?

A support date you try to keep short and quick.  You try to come in, punch ’em and get out.  And you want to play songs that will make an impact live.  [Regarding headlining dates] it depends on how big we are in that area.  If it’s Columbus, Ohio, or Madison, Wis., we usually take our time.  John Lennon always said, “Nobody should play for more than 45 minutes.”  In this day and age, people with their cell phones, you really got to get up there and get their attention.  You don’t want to drag.

We try to do at least an hour and 20 minutes.  Sometimes a little less. I feel if you’re not Journey, and the whole crowd doesn’t have lighters up and singing 25-30 hits … I don’t know if you’ve earned the right to play two hours.  I’ve seen smaller bands get up there and go on too long.  We always try to keep everything really punchy, in your face.  We don’t quite do it like The Ramones.  We speak a little bit in between songs.  We don’t like to have the lead singer go on and on and talk and point people out in the crowd.  We try to keep that to a minimum.  We try to take a little bit of a punk rock [approach] and play the songs, don’t talk.  That way you end up working more songs into the setlist.  The setlist might seem like it’s not that long, but we played 15 songs.  We just played them back-to-back.

What kind of reasoning and thought goes into a Bobaflex setlist?

My brother and I pretty much argue on the bus for about 20 minutes. (laughs) “What about this one?  What about that one? Oh, you’re going to sing one of your songs.  We can split lead vocal duties.”  I’ll be in the bathroom and I’m like, “Oh, I see.  He made the setlist without me being there and he put more of his songs on there.  Let’s change that.”  We kind of all talk and argue back and forth for about 20 minutes but we usually come to a compromise.

There have been a lot of brother bands over the years, and some of them are just as famous for fighting as they are for their music.  On a scale where one end is totally harmonic while the other end is the Gallagher Brothers in Oasis, where would you place Bobaflex?

My brother and I get along really well.  We occasionally have arguments but they’re really mild. … We’re very like-minded, too.  Maybe during songwriting we butt heads a little bit.  We don’t beat on each other or anything. Maybe a few drunken nights years ago we … maybe got into some screaming matches.  [But] we both stay pretty focused and keep our eyes on the prize. Yeah, we may get on each other’s nerves a bit but overall we get along great compared to other brothers.

Other than personnel changes, what do you think is different about today’s Bobaflex than the band that recorded Primitive Epic 13 years ago?

Just focused.  We know what we’re doing.  We know who we are and we know where we’re going.  Back then we were … distracted by girls, maybe partying a little too much.  We still like to party here and there but the band is more focused about taking care of ourselves and keeping it going.  Being an independent band … to try to stay alive in this ever-changing business.  Just from 2014 to 2016 the entire music industry lost $100 million from streaming.  Everything kind of evened out with downloads, a lot of servers helped on the excessive stealing, pirating of songs.  Once that evened out, we were doing really well with Charlatan’s Web on downloads.  And then all of a sudden streaming becomes popular, from 2014 to now, and most people who have iPhones are [listening to streams] and you don’t make nearly, even a tenth as much money as you do off of straight downloads.  With stuff like that happening, always changing, you got to stay on your toes. I think when we were younger, taking mushrooms and drinking too much, I think we were clueless to what was going on.  If we had that attitude now we wouldn’t be able to stay in the fight.

Several artists have spoken out saying they feel royalty rates for streaming are too low.  How much should one person pay for one listen of a song?

I think, to me, the straight iTunes rate, 99 cents is fair to buy one song.  It’s a dollar.  I have a huge library on my iPhone 6 right now.  I could be part of Apple Music for $10 a month and I’m not knocking anybody that wants to. … I want to own it. So if I’m out in the desert in our RV and there’s no signal, I can still listen to Waylon Jennings. I bought the record. It’s on my phone.

As far as streaming goes, there are ways to get around it.  You can save the song for a certain amount of time, I believe. … I, personally prefer [to buy it].  What’s 99 cents? It’s a dollar for a song that you love. It’s not too much to ask.  Spotify is great because it does make us more popular.  We had a record that got 65,000 streams in one day.  So we’re on there.  We’ll take the money that we do get from it.  But I don’t think it’s too much to ask to spend $10 for a record that you want to own.

How involved is the band with its social media outlets?

We do it all ourselves.  Our manager helps out, sometimes, with our Twitter page but it’s generally a band member dealing with all of that.

Is there more contact with fans after shows or during the time leading up to a gig?

Absolutely. … We always hang out before [shows] if we can and we definitely hang out afterwards. Sometimes we drink, sometimes we don’t but we hang out until the bar closes … signing autographs.  If you go to a lot of Bobaflex shows, you’re going to hang out and hear a story or we’re going to hear your story.

Do you see a lot of return business?

Absolutely.  It’s funny.  Sometimes when it’s a tight-knit front row, I’ll realize that I actually know half of these people.  The place is packed at 300 people and I’ll remember names and see the same faces all over America.  It’s really cool but it makes me like, “Man, you have toured a long time.”

Are you seeing longtime fans bringing their kids?

Yes.  Absolutely.  Fans bring kids out when we’re doing all-ages shows.  What’s crazy is … all of a sudden their kid will be a grown man coming to the show.  And girls will go, “I loved you when I was 13” and they’re now 22.  And I’m like, “Oh, my God!”  Touring makes time seem like nothing. It does not seem like 10 years. It’s all a whirlwind. … You don’t realize how much time passes.

Do you remember melodies and lyrics for every song Bobaflex has recorded?

Not the lyrics.  When we dig one out of the woodwork, sometimes I’ll have to revisit them and put headphones on.  Melodies? Yeah. I don’t forget the melodies.

What’s the strangest place where you’ve heard your music played?

It was something on YouTube, someone was covering “Bury Me With My Guns Down” in some town in Texas, I don’t remember the name of it.  It was in the middle of nowhere.  We had never played there.  And this band did a very good cover of it.  That kind of blew me away.

The coolest place, we were playing Texas and we went to Coyote Ugly.  Our road manager said they had a routine to this song.  We didn’t believe him. We were like, “Whatever.”  We get in and the manager says that Coyote Uglys from here to London, all have to do a routine to “Bury Me With My Guns On.” And, sure enough, once we got all in there, four girls got up and had a whole routine to [the song]. … That was a really nice surprise.

Where do you see Bobaflex 10 years from now?

We would really like to open up the European market.  That’s kind of the band’s dream right now, to start touring Europe and South America.  I’d like to land some bigger things. Being an independent [band], if we could land some publishing through television shows.  We’re kind of anti-label.  The record deals that they’re offering these days, 360 deals, including merch and show money.  We got the last of the old-school record deals where it’s just a deal between you and your label over your music and that’s it, and you get everything else.  Once they started doing these 360 deals, I just could not justify the numbers.

So I definitely don’t see us on a record label.  Be it through movies, publishing, I’d like to see the band get bigger.  And I would be pleased to know the band went global and goes to Europe, South America and even more.  That would be the end of the dream right there.

Bobaflex on the road:

April 15 – Pomeroy, Ohio, Court Street Grill
April 16 – Lancaster, Ohio, Glass City Event Center
April 20 – Bristol, Tenn., Holston River Brewing Co.
April 21 – Spartanburg, S.C., Ground Zero
April 22 – New Port Richey, Fla., Venom Custom Choppers
April 23 – Orlando, Fla., Orlando Amphitheater (WJRR’s Earthday Birthday)
April 29 – Bucyrus, Ohio, Dillinger’s Event Center
April 30 – Huntington, W.Va., V Club
May 5 – West Hollywood, Calif.,  Whisky A Go Go
May 6 – Las Vegas, Nev., LVCS
May 7 – Phoenix, Ariz., Joe’s Grotto Music Venue
May 8 – Gallup, N.M., The Juggernaut
May 9 – Albuquerque, N.M., Launchpad
May 10 – Lubbock, Texas, Jake’s Sports Cafe & Backroom
May 11 – Dallas, Texas, Trees
May 12 – San Antonio, Texas, Fitzgerald’s Bar and Live Music
May 13 – Austin, Texas, Dirty Dog
May 14 – Tyler, Texas, Click’s
May 15 – Houston, Texas, Scout Bar
May 17 – Richmond, Va., Canal Club
May 18 – Rochester, N.Y., The Montage Music Hall
May 19 – Manchester, N.H., Jewel Nightclub
May 20 – Salisbury Beach, Mass., Splash Liquid Lounge
May 21 – Hartford, Conn., Webster Underground
May 22 – Sayreville, N.J., Starland Ballroom
May 24 – Syracuse, N.Y., The Lost Horizon
May 25 – Kent, Ohio, Outpost Lounge
May 26 – Columbus, Ohio, The Summit
May 27 – Waterloo, Iowa, The Reverb
May 28 – Madison, Wis., Alliant Energy Center (Bratfest)
May 29 – Waterloo, Iowa, The Reverb
May 31 – Omaha, Neb., Shamrock’s Pub
June 1 – Springfield, Mo., The Outland Ballroom
June 2 – Janesville, Wis., Back Bar
June 3 – Joliet, Ill., Bada Brew
June 4 – Cudahy, Wis., The Metal Grill
June 5 – Minneapolis, Minn., The Cabooze
June 7 – Des Moines, Iowa, Lefty’s Live Music
June 8 – Waterloo, Iowa, The Reverb
June 9 – St. Louis, Mo., The Ready Room
June 10 – Merriam, Kan., Aftershock Bar & Grill
June 11  Denver, Colo., Herman’s Hideaway
June 12 – Salt Lake City, Utah, Urban Lounge
June 14 – Spokane, Wash., The Palomino Club
June 15 – Vancouver, British Columbia, The Rickshaw Theatre
June 16 – Seattle, Wash., Studio Seven
June 17 – Boise, Idaho, Knitting Factory Concert House
June 18 – Blackfoot, Idaho, East Idaho Auto Auction (SEIRAM Fest)
June 19 – Jerome, Idaho, Diamondz Event Center
June 20 – Portland, Ore., Hawthorne Theatre
June 21 – Reno, Nev., Jub Jub’s Thirst Parlor
June 22 – San Francisco, Calif., DNA Lounge
June 23 – Petaluma, Calif., Phoenix Theater
June 24 – San Diego, Calif., Brick By Brick
June 25 – Santa Ana, Calif., Malone’s
July 13 – Cadott, Wis., Chippewa Valley Festival Grounds (Rock Fest)
July 15 – Lombard, Ill., Brauerhouse
July 16 – Oshkosh, Wis., Ford Festival Park (Rock USA)
July 28 – Braidwood, Ill., Top Fuel Saloon
July 29 – Pekin, Ill., Goodfella’s
July 30 – Beaver Dam, Wis., Dawn & Woody’s Moonlight Bar
July 31 – Chippewa Falls, Wis., Every Buddy’s Bar
Aug. 2 – La Crosse, Wis., La Crosse Queen
Aug. 3 – Mankato, Minn., Busters
Aug. 4 – Fargo, N.D., Rick’s
Aug. 5 – Minot, N.D., Original Bar & Night Club
Aug. 6 – Mandan, N.D., Rock Point
Aug. 7 – Spearfish, S.D., Z Bar
Aug. 10 – Great Falls, Mont., The Do Bar
Aug. 11 – Three Forks, Mont., Rockin’ The Rivers Festival Grounds (Rockin’ The Rivers)
Aug. 13 – Sturgis, S.D., Iron Horse Saloon
Aug. 14 – South Sioux City, Neb., The Chesterfield    

Appearing with Ill Nino May 5-8, May 10-26, May 31-June 17 and June 20-25.

For more information, please visit Bobaflex’s official website, Facebook page, Myspace home, YouTube channel and Twitter feed.