OISTER BOY: THE WORST BAND EVER
PHOTOGRAPHY BY OLIVIA SMITH @thelovelystarr
As I’ve begun to integrate myself more and more within the local music scene, I inevitably find myself at what seems to be the hub for DIY musicians— Como Tap. Part U of M-college-bar, part post-live-show-spot. The last time I was there I found myself being served by a friendly face, Seth Hynes-Marquette of the Oister Boy; the Twin Cities “Cheesy-Potatoes-Punk” band with an infectious-cuddly-cozy-camaraderie. One of the few local talents I’ve been lucky to see more than once, and described by First Avenue as “Evoking a frenetic energy and monstrous sound, Oister Boy is a thrashy grunge punk five-piece with a striking feral potency.” I couldn’t resist asking for an interview. Seth invited me to their Pajama Party Show at the Turf Club for a chance to get to know the band that seems like such a close-knit-fun-hang. I am pleased to inform you that my suspicions were proven true. In the green room downstairs we talked musical influences, glue-gals, and punk rock ballet.
@JUNJI GREEDO: I actually saw you guys at the Underground a while back, that was a great set.
SETH: That was a bloody fun show!
DUNCAN: You bled everywhere!
SETH: Oh yeah, the bloody drum head is now hanging, as a little bloody art piece in our practice space.
J: Let’s start Classico-style with introductions!
SETH: I’m Seth Hynes-Marquette, and I play the drums!
MARK: I’m Mark Estephan I play bass, and I do background vocals.
DUNCAN: Duncan MJ I play guitar and I sing.
FRANKIE: I’m Frankie Carlson and I play guitar.
J: And we are missing…
D: We are missing Ava Santangelo our lead vocalist and the glue-gal for the group. Keeps us all moving
F: She handles all the glue.
M: She eats all the glue.
J: What do you mean by glue-gal?
D: So I grew up playing sports and, the glue-guy was the one that kind of kept the team like focused and together. She keeps us focused in a very ADHD way. She keeps the energy light and keeps it all you know, friendly. Which is good, if we have a bad practice or a bad rehearsal or something like that we get in our heads. And then she comes in with the craziest shit you’ll ever hear. And you’re like, “Oh, wow. I can’t have a bad day now!”
S: Just tickling our funny bones in left-field ways.
J: Any glue-gal wisdom you’re willing to share?
[In a weird clairvoyant moment of pure connection between the four of them, they all (unprompted and immediately) began their own impression of how Ava talks to her cat, speaking in a soft-baby voice]: Hi girls! You want girls? You are girls?
D: You’re twinkle magic!
F: If all of us could just wake up every day, and look ourselves in the mirror and say, “You know what? You’re twinkle magic.” That would be… a beautiful thing… because…
M [still in the cat voice]: You’re soo sparkle magic all of the time.
J: What is sparkle magic?
F: Being sparkle magic all the time means that you know your worth, and you know, and you know…
[the band’s giggles erupt into laughter]
F:… and you know that you are loved. And so, I think…
D: It means you’re valid.
F: I think Ava imparts a lot of you know, not taking yourself too seriously, sometimes, and also just uh… a good amount of positivity.
S: Just like, a literal beacon of light.
J: Waahh so beautiful!
M: We love her so much.
J: How would you describe your sound? Invent a genre for me.
F: Cheesy Potatoes.
D [captivated by Frankie’s brilliance]: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
M: We typically go with Alt-Rock or Grunge when we send out emails. But, we all come from different musical backgrounds and have different ways of how we implement our shit in our music, it ends up becoming a mishmash of slop; which I love.
S: Mark and I were talking once about, how we feel like all of us have enough in common, so we all bring… we all listen to enough unique and different stuff that our music becomes this little melting pot. We surprise each other in ways, but also like, “I getchu. I get it.”
J: What are some of those influences?
D: So, I was big on like, grunge and Math Rock when I started to write. So Mark and I bonded a lot over Chon.
M: I love Chon!
D: I grew up listening to soul, and started as a bluegrass country player, so there’s a little bit of influence there. But mostly grunge, Sound Garden, Pearl Jam, and anything like that from the 90s is a pretty big thing for me. And I love it.
M: I grew up on Jazz, and then I started working as a roadie for Funk bands and Reggae bands. I played a lot of Prog-Rock at first, um… a bunch. I really listen to whatever.
S: Like these guys, I love grunge. I grew up on it, it was my thing, but I also really liked New-Wave stuff, and Folk, and Outlaw Country. I’m also in a group called Lavender Daughter, which is kind of like Surf-Rock or Cow-Punk or stuff like that.
D: Lavender Daughter makes Acid Western.
[In unison]: Acid Western!
F: I started playing music in kind of a Dork-Punk genre. DEVO, Talking Heads, that’s Dork-Punk to me. And those are some of my biggest influences! Also The White Stripes, also pretty into Hip-Hop and Rap. Little bit of everything. I’ve played some classical music, I’ve played some Jazz.
J: Have you all played music since you were young?
M: Yeah, pretty much. Middle school or high school music.
D: I know Ava grew up in musical theater, and a lot of her influences come from that. Her dad grew up in New York in the Punk scene, so there’s a lot of that. But her mom did show tunes, her mom would actually go around the country for a while doing Bing-Crosby-type Christmas special shows. So [Ava] has this unique influence of like New York grimy Punk and this super polished show-tunes.
J: She has a very powerful voice.
D: Totally, yeah, and it comes from those influences. She isn’t here, but this is the first band she’s ever been in. All of us had been in bands before, we snagged Frankie from Killed By Kiwis. Or uh- he’s on loan.
F: I’m like, on top of a car… with legs on the side.
J: I have to ask, did the romance or the band come first?
F: Me and Duncan? Oh, well let’s…
[a loud and deep laughter came over the band]
D: It seems like a good time to announce Frankie is with child. Dude, hah, you’re wild for that. It came after. We actually formed this band as part of a punk rock ballet. So the first thing we ever did with was this punk rock ballet! We were practicing for like eight months it felt like…
M: A long ass time
D: …And we set up a whole hour-long punk set where we had like, ten dancers in front of us doing this whole ballet. We did eight shows together in Minnesota and Indiana. And that’s the whole reason this band formed, to begin with.
J: I had no idea, that’s sick.
M: It was a really, super cool project.
D: It was bred out of the need to fill a hole, and we finally figured out, this is something we want to keep doing. The music we are making is good, the chemistry is good. We were forced to work with each other in a different way that wasn’t just band-oriented.
F: I was lucky enough to see that show, I wasn’t even in the band yet.
J: Did it inspire you?
F: I loved it so much. It was one of the best art pieces I’ve ever seen, and when I got the opportunity to join the band I was like, “I get to join one of my favorite groups!” I am so honored, [the punk rock ballet] was truly so sick.
M: I still say it’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my life.
J: What’s something you learned from that experience?
M: I’ve worn a lot of different hats when it comes to music. Whether that’s managerial, or musician, or roadie, or whatever, and with all of those you learn about collaboration. I think [the punk rock ballet] firmly solidified the idea of collaboration. Because, we can all play music you know to the best of our abilities. Being able to let go, and be like “Hey I’m handling my end of this, you’re handling your end, but please teach me how to do that to the best of my abilities.” That collaborative process was super fulfilling and super eye-opening for me… I’ve actually continued to do music accompaniment for dance.
D: Well said, man.
J: I find a very cute camaraderie between you all, your Instagram is quite lovely. I feel like it’s always a slumber party between BFFs! Is this display of tightness and love intentional for your image just as much as it is personal?
S: I mean, we kind of just genuinely enjoy being around each other and spending time together, actually have fun, hang out outside of practice and shows and stuff. I think that totally strengthens up how we write and how we perform.
F: I think there as so many like, creative minds in the band too, and when it comes to like, “how are we going to promote this show?” or “how are we going to get uh, a good audience out for this next gig?” And… oh, Olivia! Olivia Smith. She’s someone we work with a lot.
D: The sixth member of our band. Working in the shadows.
F: She takes photos, she’s directed music videos, she has designed stickers, shirts, just like an all-around, um, jack of all trades. And we’re super lucky to have her. Everyone is able to come together and be like, “Let’s make this fucking stupid, but also really fun video and uh, you know, we’ll see what happens.” And we’ve got some positive feedback so we’re going to keep doing it.
S: We’re all just fucking dorks.
J: I feel like I’m getting a sort of ‘controlled goofiness.’
D: That’s a fair assessment.
M: I call it unmedicated goofiness. Because we’re all so close, we all spend so much time together, it sounds cliche to say but it is very much a family.
J: A camaraderie that comes out of people who have served in war together.
D: How do you know we haven’t?
M: Sometimes, it feels like it. But it also means there’s no judgment.
F: Give me. A Purple Heart. Actually, don’t quote me on that. Stolen valor mode.
M: When someone comes up with a video for an idea or something we’re like “Fuck it. Sure.” Let’s have some fun. We’ve been covered in fake blood in our underwear together. We don’t give a shit.
J: And real blood.
S: I’ve bled for this band! I bled for it!
J: How did the pajama party come to be?
D: It started with Mark, but it was one of those things where we all kind of ran with it. We did [a pajama party] last year at a distillery in St. Paul called 11 Wells, which is kitty-corner to [St. Paul Brewing] where most of us work. We did a good job of filling it out, we were just coming off of kicking out one of our founding members, and so that show was emblematic for us. It was the first show we played without this person and we really went for it and found out what our new chapter was going to look like.
M: And that was before Frankie joined.
D: It was sweet. And we wanted to commemorate that and do it again. It was awesome that we got to play in our pajamas instead of tight and uncomfortable clothes.
S: We’d like to do it again too.
M: I want to make this an annual thing. It was kind of crazy how it came about, 11 Wells couldn’t have us playing music until 9 o’clock at night, and we were like “How the fuck do we get people to come in at 9? We already have enough problems getting people to come out at 7.” So we decided to turn it into a slumber party, pretty much. And that’s how it became a pajama thing! And the fact we got to do it again, at a First Avenue venue is nutty! It’s crazy.
J: Well thank you, this has been Oister Boy. Anything you want to plug?
F: We’re recording new music! It’s going to be coming out soon-ish… eventually… we got a bunch of shows.
M: Check our socials to keep up. A bunch of stuff coming down the pipeline. A crap ton of stuff, and we’re really excited. Super hyped for the future. Our biggest thing is loving making music with people that we love. We love Killed by Kiwis, Scam Likely, all these bands that we kind of gel with so much and have such a strong bond with.
[Their voices began to overlap in unison]: It’s a great scene.
M: It’s a GREAT scene of people! It’s always a very positive experience.
S: We also love all of you! We love you!
F: We love you! We love love! We love oysters! We love boys!
M: Well, actually half of us haven’t had oysters before.
J: What?!
D: We want to do a video trying them.
J: Bar Cart has $1.50 oysters during happy hour, you should go there.
All photography is credited to Olivia Smith (@thelovelystarr). You can catch Oister Boy at Hook and Ladder in Minneapolis on Saturday, March 30th. Check out the music video for their most recent single, “Peel Me,” directed by Olivia Smith here, and @oisterboyband on Instagram for more information on upcoming shows and releases.