Rob Tilden, the Los Angeles-based musician also known as BOYO, recently spoke with KRTU’s Dominic Anthony about the new “You Don’t See Me” EP.
Tilden said the title of the 4-track EP is intentionally ambiguous.
“It’s really up for interpretation,” Tilden said. “It sounds like something you’d say in an argument to someone. Like, not seeing someone for who they are, not seeing someone for their good qualities — their humanity, their moral compass.”
“Stop lying to yourself,” Tilden sings on “Wake Up,” the EP’s angular, lead guitar-driven opening track. “Stop lying to me.”
“You Don’t See Me” is BOYO’s first release through the Park The Van record label. Previously, Tilden put out three albums and two EPs through Danger Collective. One of Danger Collective’s first releases was a tape from Bobby T and the Slackers — one of Tilden’s oldest bands.
The 2010s held more than just a change in record labels for Tilden. At the age of 20, he experienced major health issues after a year of touring. Since then, the now 23-year old has gone on several tours, including a 2019 national tour with Vansire.
But those previous health struggles still inform his music. The “Sega Genesis Nightmare Sequence” single dropped in the summer of 2019.
“I wrote that one a while ago. That’s just a really sad song,” Tilden said. “It’s a really heavy, sad song about medication and pills and addiction and stuff.”
“I can’t get these colors out my head,” Tilden sings in the opening lines of the song. “Takes me seven pills to go to bed. I don’t want my love to find me dead.”
Asked about his biggest musical influences over the past decade, he mentioned two releases from the 2000s. As a teen during the end of this century’s first decade, Tilden got into early releases from The Strokes and Kanye West’s “Graduation” album.
“[Graduation] was like a cultural shakeup,” Tilden said. “I don’t know if I’m just making this up — if I’m just fabricating memories — but I remember videos of him going head to head with 50 Cent, and they were battling it out over who was going to have the top album, and Kanye was this underdog, and then Graduation came out and outsold Curtis.”
Kanye West’s “Graduation” came out on the same day as 50 Cent’s “Curtis” in 2007. Tilden’s older brother had both records, but “I was like ‘I don’t want the 50 Cent one, I just want the Kanye record,’” Tilden said.
With his first full-length album through Park The Van slated to drop early next year, Tilden continues the prolific release rate of the BOYO project. Since 2016, he has released three albums, three EPs and several singles.
As for the next decade?
“I barely think a week ahead of me,” Tilden said. “But ideally I’d love to keep writing as long as it stays exciting, and I don’t feel like I’m hitting a wall.”
He also hopes to write a screenplay. Maybe a biopic?