Alejandro, Fabian, and Daniel Manzano, aka Boyce Avenue have spoke exclusively to us about their upcoming tour. The band gained notoriety by posting videos of their own songs and covers of their favorite bands songs on Youtube. The band quickly gained a large fan base and to date have amassed over 600,000,000 views and 1,000,000 subscribers, making them one of the most watched bands of all time on Youtube. Their upcoming tour follows supporting One Direction on their tour in January and also the release of their debut album "All We Have Left". Catch our interview with them below!!
1. What are you up to at this very moment?
Just got off stage at the Rock Am Ring festival in Germany. Looking forward to seeing a lot of amazing bands again like Tenacious D, Keane, The Hives, Refused, The Maccabees, and Twin Atlantic. But, I don't think anything will top watching Jack Black in his slippers dancing to Skrillex side stage last night.
2. What can fans expect to experience at one of your shows?
We love for everyone to experience a wide range of emotions at our shows. We always hope people are as likely to dance and sing and cheer as they are to cry or share a special moment with a friend or loved one. We don't want people to walk away feeling like the concert just washed over them. We love the dynamic highs and lows of the concert experience. And we always try to share that with our fans.
3. What is your favourite song to perform live?
Lately it's been Every Breath. The level of audience participation and energy toward the end is always a high for us. But we also love watching Alejandro play Dare To Believe by himself on the piano, especially when folks bust out their lighters and cell phones. As older brothers that is always a special moment in the night for us.
4. When you're not performing what do you do to keep yourself busy when you're on tour / on the road?
We all do a good amount of facebooking, twittering, skyping, and emailing. But beyond that we all do different things. Alejandro watches a ton of movies. Fabian likes to skateboard, workout from time to time, and check out local food and drink (aka pubs) :) I like to sightsee, jog when I can, read, and watch movies.
5. What's the best gig you've ever played?
I think our 2011 Belfast EMAs performance at city hall is way up there for us. We'd been to Belfast several times before, so to see the city come to life with thousands and thousands of people coming together in the streets and singing with us like that was magical!
6. What was the first gig you ever went to?
Can't remember. But some of the first shows that made an impression on us were the Goo Goo Dolls, Keith Urban, and Nickelback.
7. Which other artists are you listening to at the moment?
We've all been listening to John Mayer's new album "Born and Raised" a lot lately. Fabian has also really been into First Aid Kit and Beach House. And I keep coming back to Ed Sheeran and Blind Pilot's most recent albums.
8. Which song do you wish you wrote?
The song "Stop This Train" by John Mayer has always blown us all away. It's amazing all around, but especially lyrically. We've also always been in awe of "The Scientist" and "Iris". Timeless tunes! I personally have also had I-wish-I-wrote-this moments in listening to "Small Bump" by Ed Sheeran, "I'm About To Come Alive" by Train, and "Walt Grace's Submarine Test, January 1967" by John Mayer. I'm a huge fan of the lyrics or message of a song. And these songs really move me.
9. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
We'd all love to collaborate at some point with John Mayer, Keith Urban, Katy Perry, or Taylor Swift. All great artists. Mayer and Urban would be fun from a guitar standpoint especially. And Perry and Swift I think would just be cool matches for Alejandro to sing with.
10. Plans for the rest of the year?
We're going to throw ourselves into songwriting again, not only for ourselves, but also for friends of ours and other artists. And toward the end of the year we want to record a new album of originals at our new hometown recording studios. We've learned so much and done so much touring these last couple years that we can't wait to record new music and share with everyone in 2013, and keep the party going! :) But for now we want to go out with a bang with this final tour in June. And we can't think of a better place to end our world tour than the UK and Ireland. When we first played here a couple years ago we were playing to like 200 to 500 people a night. And now it's looking to be 2,000 to 5,000 a night. The love and support we've received has been massive. And we can't wait to see everyone!
Not had enough just yet? Watch the video for their single "Every Breath" here!
