Boston Manor Goes Hollywood – An Interview with vocalist Henry Cox

Boston Manor Goes Hollywood – An Interview with vocalist Henry Cox

It was the final night of the Moose Blood headlining tour featuring Boston Manor from the UK in support.  The cross country trek would be lengthy, commencing at The Glass House in Pomona, CA on February 23rd – and then winding back through to the Golden State for a March 31st gig at The Roxy on the Sunset Strip.  For this last show in the States with Moose Blood, Boston Manor unleashed an absolutely explosive set of emotionally driven rock.  Featuring songs culled from their recent Be Nothing magnum opus on Pure Noise Records, Boston Manor captivated the sold out Roxy crowd with their vibrant anthems.  Prior to the set, we caught up Boston Manor’s charismatic lead vocalist Henry Cox in the back alley of The Roxy to to find out more about the story behind Be Nothing and a few of the songs, his thoughts on the Moose Blood tour coming to an end, impressions of Hollywood, their upcoming adventure on the Vans Warped Tour, singing for the Queen of England, and a whole lot more. Read on…

Introduce yourself and tell me what you do in Boston Manor.
My name is Henry and I’m the singer.

How’s this tour been going so far and what have been some of the highlights?
Amazing. Honestly, far better than we could have expected. The reaction has been insane. The package has been brilliant, a bunch of friends hanging out every day. It’s been a dream, really. Highlights, apart from all the shows, we went to the Grand Canyon. That was sick. We went around NYC for a few days. We went to the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday in San Francisco. That was cool. A bit of tourist shit, you know. We finally made time to do it. Sacrificed sleep for adventure.

Is this your first time in Hollywood and if so, what are you impressions?
H: Just what I thought it’d be really. It’s cool. Obviously there’s the film stuff, but just passed The Whisky A Go Go down the street which is obviously a legendary venue. The Roxy is also quite famous, so all the music biographies I’ve read, I’m like, ah that was there. It’s awesome. A very exciting place, I think.

Is there any overall story or concept behind the title of the new album Be Nothing?
It’s about apathy for sure – it’s quite a nihilistic name. But it’s not a hopeless record about nothing matters, it’s kind of like nothing matters so do something. That’s the general message behind it, I suppose. There’s no one kind of inspiration or one big picture, it’s just that really.

Select any two songs off the album, what inspired the lyrics?
There’s a song called “Broken Glass.” It’s about a friend of mine who nearly died about two years ago now, in a car crash. There’s a song called “Lead Feet,” which is about a guy I went to school with. He just didn’t come into school one day and I never saw him again. Then he called me ten years later and was like, all this crazy shit happened in my life. About how we were sort of on the same trajectory and then sort of split ways, I suppose.

What are you looking forward to the most about doing Warped Tour this year?
The sunshine. I say that now, but I’m sure I’ll be cursing it. Just playing gigs every day, man. Just traveling around, getting to hang out with all of my friend bands and yeah – just it’s the dream, isn’t it? Everyone grew up hearing and watching videos of Blink 182 playing Warped Tour. Being able to experience that first hand is an exciting prospect.

I was going to ask, how do you think you’ll combat the intense heat this summer? [laughs]
I’m English so not very well.

If Boston Manor could open up for anyone either now or from the past, who and why?
Paranoid-era Black Sabbath would be cool. That’d be sick. Or, I don’t know. Pink Floyd when they were releasing Wish You Were Here and Dark Side Of The Moon. Big fan of that. Also seeing some of the old Punk bands in their prime would have been sick. Like Black Flag, they’re from here. Knowing what they were like in 1981, to be able to be at one of those shows would be sick. I guess if we supported them we’d get to go to one of those.

The Queen of England invites Boston Manor to do a Royal command performance. You can play one song for the Queen and her guests. What song would you play and why?
I don’t know. Probably like Broken Glass, it’s a bit of a slow jam but she might want something a bit more raging. So maybe the first track on the album, Burn You Up. Getting into the head banging. So, I don’t know.

What goes through your mind when a tour like this is coming to an end?
It’s a shame tonight because it’s LA and everybody’s here. Labels, a lot of friends and that sort of thing. It always happens because in the UK, it always ends in London. The same thing happens. You end up speaking to so many people and you don’t actually spend that much time hanging out with the people that you practically lived with for the last month. And then it’s like, oh, see ya later. I’m bummed, I kind of wished the tour ended in a bit more of a quiet place so that we could have just sort of spent more time as a group of people and friends just shooting the shit and chilling out. Stoked to be here, don’t get me wrong. LA is amazing. Really glad that we get to be on the west coast when the tour ends, but yeah, I guess I’m just gonna miss all the really good people.

What’s up next for you guys between now and Warped Tour?
We got some headlining shows in the UK, then some festivals, and then Warped Tour. We’re doing it, we’re on our way.

(Interview and Candid Photo by Ken Morton – Live Photo by Jack Lue)

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