The Band With the Bedazzled Baseball Cap

Laney: Do you want to introduce everyone in your band?

Moses: Yeah, totally. I'm Moses, I play guitar and I sing. And Brandon, he's not here. He plays bass, and Harry Hagen is on the drums. 

Ethan: I’m Ethan, I play the violin. 

Laney: Yeah, that was so sick up there. (towards Moses) I also love your hat. I was like, ‘I need one.’ Where’d you get it? 

Moses: I got it on Route 66.

Laney: Oh, really

Moses: Yeah, so random. It was in a gas station. We pulled over to go to the bathroom, and I saw it, and I was like, ‘I gotta have that.’ Everyone was like: ‘That fits you.’

Laney: No, it really does. It looks awesome.

So with your name being Boyfriend Sushi Town, are you guys big sushi fans?

Moses: So, I like sushi. I'm not a huge sushi fan, but it's named after this restaurant called BF Sushi Town … I just thought it was a great name. And it always stuck in my head because it was BF. I think it stood for best friend, but I liked boyfriend more. So, when we first started writing songs together, I was like, ‘How about Boyfriend Sushi Town?’

Laney: So you guys are Salt Lake City-based. Did you grow up there?

Moses: Yeah, I grew up in Millcreek. 

Ethan: MillCreek as well. 

Moses: We actually went to high school together …  We went to Skyline … but I'm three years older than him. We skated together, but we didn't always know each other. We had mutual friends, and then we became friends outside of high school.

Laney: Did you guys start doing music in high school, or did it start earlier?

Moses: So for me, I was in a punk band …  we had this rock and roll Christmas where my parents bought drums, a guitar and a bass because they wanted to start a family band. But no one really took it up, but I loved it. I was super into it. When I was 15, I started a punk band with my best friend Huss, and I played drums. We played for like five years until the guitarist moved to Amsterdam, and then we kind of stopped, and then that's when I started playing guitar and writing songs.

Ethan: Yeah, I grew up classically trained. My whole extended family plays an instrument. So I got into playing music, just like a big classical background started when I was seven years old.

Yeah, just honestly didn't love to play classic: here's your instrument, you've got to practice all the time. But it was fun.

Laney: Was it always violin for you?

Ethan: It was always violin, yeah. I tried to pick up guitar when I was in junior high or something. I got one for Christmas, learned, like, one Green Day cover and that was it. 

Moses: Haha, which one dude?

Ethan: Holiday … And then that was it for guitar. And then I kind of just stopped playing the violin around 16, because I was getting busy with stuff and didn't really want to practice. 

Moses: He got fired from this violin teacher. I love telling people that. It's so funny. 

Laney: How did you get fired?

Ethan: She just knew that I didn't want to practice. And we had a pretty good relationship. My teacher just called me one day and was like, ‘You don't want to practice. I don't really want to teach you anymore, because I can tell you don't want to.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, you're right.’ 

Moses: He got broken up with.

Ethan: That was it. It was a good, mutual conversation.

Laney: So you’re from a classical background and you're from a punk background. How does that bring you to your heavy shoe-gazey sound?

Moses: I don't know. I think we both enjoy that genre of music. I'm speaking for Ethan here, but I think he was always looking for that outlet in music, you know, coming from the classical background. It just wasn't the type of music that he wanted to play. But then BF Sushi… first started as an acoustic band. I started playing a bunch of these songs and just threw them on Instagram.

And then I found out that Ethan played violin. I was like, ‘Dude, let’s play together.’ And then he came over to my house, and we just jammed out. From that moment, it was like, ‘Okay, let's do this, dude.’ It's nice. 

I write very emotional songs, especially at the beginning and I feel like the violin is such an emotional instrument that it adds another layer … Later on, when we started wanting to play more shows after Covid and everything, we were like, ‘I don't want to play acoustic sets up there. we want to be loud.’ And that's when Ethan bought his electric violin, and I switched over to harsher, louder tones. And it just kind of like naturally progressed into that.

We actually took our acoustic songs and just made them into what they are now.

Laney: Is that where your solos come from? Because you had some killer solos up there, too. 

Ethan: A few of the solos we played today they're funny. I think soloing is kind of funny. It's almost, I don't want to say the word corny, but it's got that feeling to it. 

Moses: So it's just like, ‘My turn!’ (imitates shredding the violin)

Ethan: I like to shred. Sometimes it's light-hearted to be kind of funny. I don't know it's a weird way of explaining it, yeah, how it feels sometimes.

Moses: And that's a lot of our music, too. I feel like humor is very tied into some of the songs that I write. Pairing that with the sadness of the violin and shredding. It's a fun mix of emotions. 

We actually think of him now as the lead guitarist of the band. You know, like, in my head, that's how he functions, which I don't think he really wants. But when he shreds, I get so amped.

Laney: That actually leads me to my next question. You were kind of talking about how it's kind of humorous with your music. Your song titles are so pedestrian, so how do you come up with the titles and then just absolutely shred and scream on stage?

Moses: So for our first album, when I started writing songs, I was like, ‘Everybody wants a song named after them, right?’ So, all of the songs on the first album are named after people in my life. My friends, a few of my sisters and just random people who I was, like, ‘This person deserves this one.’ But they have nothing to do with the person. Like, the song Jackson is a character perspective song. It's about a dude who is just evil, pretty much. He doesn't care about anybody's feelings or compassion. I named it after my friend who is the most compassionate, nice person … Both my friend Pete and my friend Jackson were downstairs in my house. I was like, ‘Who wants the next song?’ And [Jackson] was like, ‘Me.’ 

So, they have nothing to do with the people, but there are characters to all the songs. A lot of the songs are character perspectives. So it's putting a name to the characters a little bit, although they have nothing to do with the person. But we're not doing that anymore … Except for Hannah on the last album. That's named after my girlfriend, it's about her, and that's the only one that's about a person. [It’s about] just feeling at home with a person, and that's why that song’s named after Hannah.

Laney: That’s so precious.

Moses: Thank you.

Laney: So then you have two albums, “Player” and “Rufus”, Is there any new music in the works? You kind of talked about an album release on stage. 

Moses: Yes, we have a new album coming out to be turned this winter, probably January, but maybe December. We just want to stay in the studio and keep recording. Harry and Brandon are our amazing producers, along with musicians, so we record in their music space. Pretty much since we put out “Player,” we've been working on this, and I've been writing songs and all that stuff. It's exciting. You heard two of them today.

Laney: I'm excited for that. They were really good, too. 

Moses: Thank you. Thank you

Laney: During your set, your drummer seemed to have some issues. And then there was a moment when the wind blew a cymbal over. 

Moses: Yeah, it's a nightmare.

Laney:  So how do you handle and manage?

Moses: Well, I mean Harry, he has the worst luck when we play big shows. At Kilby Block Party, his monitor was not on the entire set. He couldn't hear anything the whole time, so I was just turned around pretty much the whole time trying to give him cues, like counting down, all of these things. 

But today, we used the backline drums for this stage. What happened in the first song was, the screw that holds the chain for the pedal just popped off. And so, he had no kick. He was trying to get somebody's attention. The stage people were like, ‘Oh, he just stopped playing drums.’ … So he had to run backstage, get his pedal and then put it back together. Thank God, he had his own pedal.

Ethan: He timed it perfectly with the no drums to our drop. I was looking at him, laughing, looking at Moses and behind Brandon. I was like, ‘Oh, holy shit, this is not [happening]’ and then he timed it perfectly. Sprinting back, stopping off the side and sprinting and then getting it. 

Laney: Yeah. As an audience member, it was impressive.

Moses: But when that happens, it's just like, what are you gonna do? It’s live music, right? I messed up a few times, but it's just like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ You just keep going, you know.

Laney: And if you don't make it noticeable, no one's gonna know. 

Moses: And even if people are like, ‘Oh, the drummer. what's up with the drummer?’ Then it's legendary when he comes back in on the drum. He's gotta make the best out of it. 

Laney: Yeah, no, exactly. You have a show on Monday, right? Do you have anything else coming up?

Moses: We're going on tour. Our Instagram got disabled, so you can't look at that information, but we're working on getting it back. I actually put in a thing to get it back, and it should be back by the end of the day, so hopefully it is. But, yeah, the dates are Nov. 1-10, and we're playing Reno, Sacramento, San Francisco, Eugene, a festival in Seattle called Freakout Fest, and then ending the tour in Boise.

Yeah, super excited. That's our first tour. It's gonna be crazy. Gonna be so much fun. If anybody's out there, please come.

Laney: Do you guys want to shout out anything? I know your Instagram is disabled.

Moses: I don’t have anything, but in the meantime, you can follow Ethan Guertler.

That's Ethan spelled, E, T, H, A, N Guertler, G, U, E R, T, L, E R, 

Laney: You're about to become famous.

Moses: Exactly.