INTERVIEW: BOI on music, losing herself and her breakthrough single. 'Boys will be boys, but BOI will be better'

Interview: Jett Tattersall

Newcastle’s BOI (real name Anna Buckingham) started her career in music in 2013 as a singer in the band Nova & The Experience. The band won a number of awards and achieved critical acclaim, with their 2014 single ‘Paper Mache Planes’ gaining over 1 million streams on Spotify. After breaking out on her own, Buckingham has performed with artists such as LDRU at Splendour in the Grass, The Chainsmokers, Alex Lahey and Xavier Dunn. Earlier this year she released her debut solo single ‘Imaginary Boys’, she followed it up in September with the single ‘Sick of Loving You’. An outstandingly example of almost perfect pop music - and one of our picks for best releases of 2019 - it is the type of polished pop music you expect from an international superstar as opposed to a young singer on her second solo single. As she prepares to release more music, we recently sat down with BOI to find out more about her career, her music and her future plans.

Congratulations on the release of ‘Sick of Loving You’, it is really such a great track. How are you feeling?
I'm feeling very good. I'm a bit overwhelmed to be honest about how well and how quick everything has just taken off. It’s been really nice even just the fact that I have over a million streams collectively on Apple and Spotify and I've only released two songs. I am definitely not sick of loving the song yet, thank god. That was a great pun and I thought about it for about 10 minutes before I got here!

Is that really exciting? Do you like to imagine people individually listening to your song - what are they doing? Are they walking the dog?
I think and I hope that the reason that so many people are loving it is because they can relate to whatever it is that I’m talking about. I’m talking about being so sick of loving somebody so much that it makes you sick. I think that the allure of love can be something that everyone can relate to - it's why we stay in relationships that aren't very good for us.

There's so much swagger to ‘Sick of Loving You’, and then you've got these layers of childhood noises. We've got the girl shout clap, that clocking noise you used to do when you played horses, there's the whistle. Because the lyrics are so gut wrenching, was it intentional to make us feel like we're riding a unicorn through the clouds?
Yes, I love that so much. A lot of my music is me singing about some brutal, dark things and yet the music that's accompanying it is like you're on a merry-go-round or a unicorn as you said, and I think it was intentional because a lot of the songs I write are quite nostalgic or they draw nostalgia. That song in particular was written about my very first relationship I had. I dated him for 6 years at a crucial point in my life growing up. We moved to Sydney and he was getting into the wrong crowd with the wrong people and I chose to stay with him because I just loved him so much but it made me really sick as a person by the end of it. I think that ultimately what has helped me survive in my darkness is the fact that I do still have an imagination and I can sort of take myself away and dream about a prince charming or being on a unicorn or something like that. So I feel like that is the key to my music. It's the good and the bad, the yin and the yang. It was intentional to have like the xylophones, but with a really heavy hard-hitting bass. I think that as a person that's of who I am. I pack a punch if I need to but from a distance I’m like this angelic thing of fairy floss. 

I love how honest your first single ‘Imaginary Boys’. Speaking from the female perspective, I think we all had our imaginary boyfriends who were so amazing and so good and they got you through things. 
That song actually came about because I toured with four guys for years. The reason I call myself BOI was because I've always just been one of the boys. I've never really been like a lady - when I've gone to galas or something I've rocked up in pants. ‘Imaginary Boys’ and the title Boi came from the fact that my brother used to say I always fall in love with the imaginary boys and not the real ones and no guy that I dated was good enough for me because in my mind I'm in love with whoever I think them to be and not what they are, which I guess is kind of true. I'm definitely a dreamer. All these people all these fairy-tales and all these happy happy endings but are they even true? In the end, I just take off with the ones in my head because they're 20 times better than the ones on this earth. 

I want to talk about your musical style. Obviously we got to know you through the collaborations you did, what was interesting particularly with ‘Imaginary Boys’ and ‘Sick of Loving You’ is that we suddenly know who you are. We know how young you are all of a sudden. Was it intentional to reveal a different side of yourself now as a solo artist to avoid being pigeonholed?
To be honest it was like I had an identity and my identity was Anna, James's sister in Nova & The Experience who was basically going to do great things with her brother. Then in the space of a week - not physically lost - I lost my band, my brother and my boyfriend of three and a half years. All my foundations had fallen from underneath me and that’s when I had to admit that I wasn't well enough to deal with this by myself. It was almost the second that I wasn't in a band that I was no longer desired. It wasn't intentional, it was just my journey to be honest. I think genres are a really great thing to have in music, but I also think that as an artist you need to find your sound, but you shouldn't be boxed in by that. That also goes with my whole mentality - don’t sit down, stand up, don't be quiet, yell out loud. I was always somebody that went against the grain and learnt the hard way. I wouldn't have been able to get where I am today if I hadn't had the pain. Last year when I was playing at Splendour, I was about to give up. I felt like I was doing great because that's something I dreamed to do but at the same time it was like ‘what am I going to do when I go home after this?’ The same day my grandma died and after the gig finished I didn’t go to the party and went home but there was some sort of force that came to me in my room that was like ‘you need to go to the party tonight.’ I still think it was my grandma. Then a producer called Xavier Dunn walked into the party. I showed him one song. He sent it to his manager and three days after I got back from Splendour, Mark Richardson, who is now my manager, called me up and asked me to fly to Melbourne to meet with him. I was just like ‘okay let me put you on hold…!’

You’ve been song-writing for a long time, you were writing songs throughout high school while the rest of us were writing horrible dream journals and making terrible collages. When was that moment for you that you went ‘yeah that’s a poem, or maybe that could be a song’? What was it that drove you?
I think that honestly the despair. It’s so sad to say that. I was writing songs with my brother for six or seven years and we had some really great achievements as a band, but the thing with Australia is you’re either Triple J or you’re commercial and if you exist in between and you’re not one or the other then sometimes you just get lost amongst the mess. We were one of those bands. When I stopped performing in the band I felt like a huge part of myself had just been taken away from me. What gave me the drive was the fact that I kept on getting little starbursts here or there like touring with the Chainsmokers, and then the Splendour thing. But at the same time that was also really damaging for me because everyone was like ‘You’re doing so well’ and in my head I was like ‘Yeah but what am I actually going to do?' I’ve always felt like I have been the black sheep and I was always misunderstood. Which is slowly and truly dissipating. I am always seeking approval. It’s not until you actually just stop trying to seek it that you accept yourself.

Growing up, who were the important musical role models in your life?
That’s a really good question because my mum and my father are tone deaf. Both of them. And they’re both professional hockey players. It’s so funny that they’ve given birth to three offspring that literally hate sport and love performing. I was always a performer, I loved acting. I can remember so vividly myself with my hairbrush singing in the mirror to Tina arena, Celine Dion and Mariah Carey’s ‘Hero’ and Music Box album. My mum used to play that all the time throughout the house. I loved singing Tina Arena and she would just hit the highest notes and I wanted to be able to hold as much air in and try and copy her. My favourite bands as I was growing up were Killing Heidi, Bachelor Girl and No Doubt.

Being a female solo artist what are your thoughts on sexism in the music industry?

People say why do I call myself Boi? The question that I answer back to them is why is blue a boy’s colour? I didn’t necessarily call myself Boi to make a statement, but why not? As women in any industry we have a disadvantage already from the past and all the unfairness that’s happened. It is hard to be in the public eye as a woman. You’re either looked at as a sex icon or you’re criticised for what you say - you’re not intelligent enough or you don’t make the right statement. That’s why I called myself Boi because I want to challenge stereotypes and to push the boundaries a little bit. It’s almost like I created Boi because I needed a superhero for myself and it’s almost like when I am singing as Boi or when I am here interviewing as Boi, yes, I’m talking from Anna’s perspective but Boi is almost like the power that I need to say fuck you to the world. I’m going to call myself Boi, but I’m a girl. I’m going to wear blue. I’m going to wear pink. I’m going to challenge what you think and I’m going to not sit down and be quiet. I’m going to stand up and shout.

That’s beautiful. Can I just ask one last thing - what’s up next for Boi?
Superhero alert, here we go! I’m going to LA in November to write an album with Justin Stanley, who is Prince’s producer, in his house. We’ve already written a song called ‘Woman’ which is a punk arse song. It was really nice to meet somebody who is just so talented, fucking incredibly talented. For the first time I walked into a session and somebody had decided to write a beat, or a song based on how they saw me. It was amazing. I cannot wait to write that album and hopefully, onto bigger and better things. I just want to be able to perform as much as I can, keep writing and I think the most important thing for me is like just to keep meeting new people, because like I’m so affected by my environment. If I’m in a bungalow hut in the beach, I’ll write something that’s completely different to being in the snow next to a fire. So my goal is to keep writing, keep being Boi. Boys will be boys, but Boi will be better.

‘Sick of Loving You’ is out now via Ditto Music. You can download it on iTunes or stream on Apple Music and Spotify.

To keep up with all things Boi you can follow her on Facebook and Instagram