Destroy Boys: “It’s Nice To Be In A Band Where We All Actually Love Each Other.”

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Rambunctious trio Destroy Boys have been making waves with their unique Punk sound, the band is set for a massive summer touring across the festivals of Europe to opening for Blink-182 and Turnstile. We sat down with Violet & Narsai to talk about touring, their new single ‘Beg For The Torture’, and their first tour bus!

Hello, I’m Fraser Kerr and you join me backstage here at Slam Dunk with Destroy Boys.

Violet: Ayyyyyy

Narsai: Hi!

How are you guys?

Violet: Good.

Narsai: Very well. Very well.

So you opened the Kerrang left stage earlier today. How was that for you?

Narsai: It was great.

Violet: It was really awesome.

Narsai: It was probably the earliest we’ve ever played as well as the smallest frame from when waking up to hitting the stage.

Violet: Yeah, we… Alexia woke up, I think 25 minutes before we went on.

Did you manage to get breakfast in that time?

Narsai: Not even.

Violet: Not even close.

Just straight on.

Violet: Yeah, just straight on. I was finishing my coffee as we walked on, I didn’t even finish it, but it was good. I mean, you know, the crowd was way bigger than we anticipated. So, we lucked out in that sense.

I mean, you’ve just complete two warm up shows to this, and you’ve got another one coming on Monday at Lafayette in London.

Narsai: Yeah.

How have they been for you?

Narsai: Oh, great.

Violet: So good.

Narsai: Glasgow was the first one. That was that was great. I love that church venue. And Manchester was great at The Bread Shed. Yeah, the kids. The kids came through.

Violet: Yeah. We have had a great band called Pleasure Center from Leeds playing the shows with us right now. They’re really good and all three of our UK shows are sold out, which is very cool and lucky. So it’s really fun playing those kinds of shows.

It’s always great to be selling out shows.

Narsai: Yeah it’s pretty nice.

Violet: Yeah, it’s nice

Have you noticed a big difference between your UK and US crowds?

Narsai: There is a difference.

Violet: Yeah.

Narsai: It’s kind of hard to pinpoint the exact…

Violet: I actually was just talking about it earlier. I noticed that this is very specific, but the front row operates really differently here. The front row in the US is people like, you know, just thrashing and screaming, which is cool in one sense, but in the front row here, at least at our shows, people are really like focusing on just watching and taking in the music, which is like a cool new thing to see. People also sing louder here, which is really cool.

Narsai: Yeah, they love to chant. That’s very British.

Violet: Yeah, they’re chanting and yelling.

Narsai: That doesn’t happen at home.

So you’ve got various shows coming up and festivals around Europe, how excited are you for them?

Narsai: Oh, so, so yeah, stoked.

Violet: So stoked. I mean, like we just got into festival rotation, which is awesome. And now we’re like, I mean, I’ve only been to, outside the UK, one time I went to Barcelona with them for like three days, but I’ve-we’ve never toured Europe.

Narsai: Yeah.

Violet: So it’s-it’s really, really cool.

Narsai: So fun!

Violet: Outside the UK, I mean.

Are there any that you’re particularly looking forward to?

Narsai: The Slam Dunk Italy is going to be really, really fun. We love to eat really well on-on the road. So you know we love Italian food that’ll be really… that’ll be a treat to be there.

Violet: Huge treat. I want to branzino.

Narsai: Ah… You’ll get one.

I mean I saw on social media the other day that this-this is a special time for you right now, as you’ve just got your first tour bus, how has your tour bus been?

Narsai: Yeah!

Violet: Yessssssss!

Violet: Oh my gosh, thank you for asking!

Narsai: It’s right over there. It’s so awesome. It’s so comfy. It’s life changing.

Violet: Literally, it’s priceless to me. I was actually telling my mom about this last night. Like we have so much more fun. I mean, we’re so lucky, like, you know, And we always like, we’ve toured in a van for seven and a half years, almost eight years. Or I mean, I guess we toured in my car for four years and then we toured in a van and like now we have a bus for the first time. But you know, the amount that we’re able to sleep after shows and then actually rest, and there’s AC in there, and we watched TV together last night. It’s just so cool. I mean um, we love being in close quarters with one another. So like, sometimes we’ll like separate for a little bit. but last night I was just watching TV by myself in the lounge, and one by one my band like, trickled in and then we were just having movie night. It was just… I feel lucky that – this is kind of off topic – but I feel kind of lucky to be in a band where we all actually all really love each other.

Narsai: That’s true. That’s true. Yeah.

I’m curious how you came up with the name Destroy Boys? and if there were any other working names that you had?

Violet: I think we were going to call it Knock Martens at one point, but then we thought that was dumb because it is. So don’t name your band that or I mean, do it, but I’m going to make fun of you online. Destroy Boys… Sorry I’m so jetlagged. We, um. I have this chalk wall in my room when I was 15, and Alexi and I had talked about starting a band. We just didn’t know what we were going to name it. And then I was mad at two guys that I knew. So I wrote Destroy Boys in chalk, and I was staring at it and I was like, Oh my God, that’s our band name. I was ditching school, so I called Alexi. I was like, “This is our band name”. And they were like, “I’m in class right now, I can’t talk.” And I was like, “that’s our band name, I’m so excited” and we kept it.

And what influences have gone into your music?

Narsai: Um, lots. We all like, yeah, we like a lot of the same stuff, but also we all very much like different things. And that like, you know, makes it apparent in the music. I love drawing influence from like, you know, my favourite bands that have great drummers, like, you know, anything that Dave Grohl does Nirvana, Foo Fighters, I love The Police, Stewart Copeland was a big influence on me. Arctic Monkeys, Queens of the Stone Age, just like I don’t know. And any rock that just slaps.

Violet: Slapping rock is a huge one. Um, I’m really into hardcore nowadays, that is like making its way into Destroy Boys more and more, which you see and like ‘Beg For The Torture’ and ‘Muzzle’, But my favourite band of all time is Green Day. I love Blink . We’re opening for them next month, which is like Insane.

Yeah, yeah, how excited are you for that?

Violet: Dude…

Narsai: Yeah, so ridiculously pumped, everyone is.

Them and Turnstile, that’s a great line-up

Violet: So excited!

Narsai: We were just talking about it, like I was saying, like, you know, just opening for Turnstile would be legendary. That would be amazing? That would be like…

Violet: We thought that, that would never happen period.

Narsai: Yeah.

Violet: And then we get to do it with Blink.

Narsai: Yeah.

Violet: Like insane!

It’s for sure going to be a good show. I’m sure. And talking about a single that you just brought up there, how has reaction been to ‘Beg For The Torture’?

Narsai: Great.

Violet: It’s good. We um… I mean, we put it out. I made a little video for it and people… one thing I noticed is a lot more people that I know in real life, that aren’t like fans of the band online, were like hitting me up and being like, “Yo this is like, actually, good”

Narsai: Yeah.

Violet: I was like, “Oh, thank you”. It was originally called ‘Nightmare, Nightmare, Nightmare’ as a reference to the Eric Andre skit because it just… the reason I called it that is because this whole song just like doesn’t stop the entire time. And then we changed it to ‘Beg For The Torture’ ‘cause…

Narsai: It’s in the lyrics.

Violet: Yeah, it’s in the lyrics.

Narsai: It’s really fun to play live. It always gets a great reception. When today or no…

Violet: Yesterday. In Glasgow.

Narsai: Yesterday for the first… Oh yeah, yeah. This tour for the first time, we started doing it so that our tech and close friend Michael plays guitar. So that final, I think he just gos freehand. And that’s really fun to watch from my point of view.

Violet: Really?

Narsai: Oh yeah.

Violet: That’s so sick. We’ve been talking about the end, it’s so fresh. Like it’s something that Alexi and I have always wanted to do, you know, just like do double lead vocal when we’re freehand like this. But starting with this song I think makes so much sense and it’s so cool. Yeah. It’s so fun running around with my friends.

I’m curious what your creative process is like when you’re making a song.

Violet: I mean. You know, usually one of us will come up with a little idea and then we all build on it together.

Narsai: Always different. It’s not, it’s not consistent in any way.

Violet: Yeah.

And have you got any more new music on the way?

Violet: *suspenseful humming* *Beatbox miming* Yeah,

Well…

Violet: Sorry.

Well, thank you very much for talking to me.

Violet: I signed an NDA. I could be killed.

I’m sure. I’m sure fans will find out soon enough.

Narsai: Yeah,

Violet: They already know, they’re all in our business.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for talking to me, for sitting down with me.

Narsai & Violet: Thank you.

And enjoy the rest of your day. I hope it’s not too hot.

Narsai: Thanks so much.

Violet: Thanks for having us.

Thank you very much.

Narsai: Thank you.

Violet: Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.