From Lion King ballads to Miley Cyrus singles, Boyce Avenue knows how to make a song their own.
The American pop-rock band, made up of three brothers from Sarasota, Florida, has been going strong for over 15 years. Boyce Avenue formed in 2004, and since then their signature, acoustic covers have made them a force on YouTube with over 4.8 billion views to-date. Boyce Avenue has three studio albums with original songs and several EPs featuring their cover work. The band tours all over the world, likely to some of their over 13 million YouTube subscribers or nearly 5 million Spotify listeners. Some of their music has been featured on TV shows like The Hills, America’s Got Talent, and The Village. They’ve also collaborated with major artists like Fifth Harmony, Sarah Hyland, and Bea Miller. Check our conversation with one of the coolest bands we know: Boyce Avenue.
Songtradr: The name “Boyce Avenue” is based on two streets from your Florida hometown of Sarasota. What does it mean to you to represent your home as you travel the world with your music?
Boyce Avenue: Sarasota, Florida is very much home for us, it’s where we grew up and it’s where we still live with our families. We do tour a lot during the year and it’s pretty cool to think that every time our band name is mentioned that a little piece of Sarasota is shared with our fans.
Boyce Avenue has been going strong now for over 15 years. That’s amazing for any band, and even more so since you’re family. What’s it like working as brothers in the music industry? How does it affect the business aspect of being musicians?
Like with any family we disagree sometimes, but honestly we really enjoy being in a band together. I think most people think it might be difficult sometimes, but we always wanted to do something as brothers when we were older, so the fact that we get to play music together is just amazing. We each have our different strengths as well, whether that be graphic design, video editing, songwriting, or business, so that’s definitely helped over the years.
You’re close to 5 billion views on YouTube. When you initially joined YouTube in 2007, did you have any idea you would reach so many people? Was there a particular video that helped things take off?
I don’t think anybody could have guessed that our channel would take off or how big YouTube as a platform has become. When we first started we were just doing it for fun, we all enjoyed playing music together and so we thought, “why not upload it to YouTube and see what happens?” Very early on we released a cover of Rihanna’s “Umbrella” and the video really took off. We’d sit around a computer and watch the views keep going up which was just the most amazing feeling, knowing that people were watching and liking our cover.
You’re well-known for your creative covers of popular hits, but it’s especially interesting to explore your original music catalog to discover more about your sound. Your songs vary in style and sometimes aren’t easily placed into any one genre. Could you tell us a little bit about your songwriting process and how you decide what elements to channel depending on the song?
Well, writing original music is one of our favorite things to do and we tend to begin the process individually. Each of us will go off and write a melody or lyrics and then come back and see what the rest of the band thinks. Then we’ll work on these individual pieces as a band and see where it takes us. That’s probably why our music tends to drift across genres like you say.
Your Ellie Goulding cover of “Love Me Like You Do” was recently featured on America’s Got Talent as an accompaniment to a beautiful dance by Verba Shadow. The performance inspired a standing ovation from the judges and the clip got over 4 million views on YouTube. Can you tell us how that sync came about and your thoughts on its final result?
AGT reached out and asked if they could use the song for Verba and we instantly said yes. The performance was incredible and to see our cover used in such a creative way was very humbling. We absolutely love when people use our music for creative projects, and over the years we’ve been fortunate enough to have our covers used on programs like (MTV) The Hills, So You Think You Can Dance (NBC) The Voice, to name a few.
You’ll be closing out 2019 with a Brazil tour. What are some things you’re looking forward to beyond this year?
Yes, 2019 is ending with a big tour in Brazil for us. We also just released our Christmas cover of Silent Night, on Youtube, Apple and Spotify. In 2020, we’ll be starting with more touring in Asia which we are really excited about! Beyond touring, we are really looking forward to creating more music for our fans, we are at the point in our careers where we are lucky enough to be able to share new music with our fans two or three times per month and we aim on doing so in 2020!
Gr8