Birthday Boxx is a songwriter, producer and 6th generation San Franciscan who grew up playing 12-bar blues piano.
In this interview spotlight, I chat with Birthday Boxx about his music, challenges, technology and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
I was born and raised in San Francisco , and I make what I would call lowercase “b” biblical pop.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?
I took piano lessons from an early age, never practiced, but in 8th grade my piano teacher moved to Minnesota and I started taking lessons from a piano player specializing in blues / rock / improv, and really took to it.
How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?
It’s different in that it’s actually worth sharing with people! Yes – I wanna be Bob Dylan.
Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?
The big challenge is getting paid. In this digital age, with music, the gold medals have gotten gigantic, and the silver medals have shrunk down to almost nothing. But no question, what you can do musically on a computer these days is absolutely mind-blowing, and I’m excited to continue pushing my Mac Pro to the limit.
What was the last song you listened to?
Probably “Down in the river to pray” to cleanse palette after production session. I rarely listen to modern 4-chord music because if I find something I like, I’m seized not with happiness but with need to devour – to take some lesson from it, to find something useful for my own music. Like frontiersman seeing buffalo – its majesty inspires him not to appreciate it passively, but to own it somehow, to kill it.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
Vinyl is great because it’s too much effort to keep switching between songs so there’s not constant question in back of mind “should I keep listening or change up?”
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
Bandcamp has really cool stuff happening, but Spotify’s already colonized my habits.
Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?
