Blue Boy: Northwestern’s Newest Band

MARGOT: On the third floor of Willard, a group of students formed a band.

ESTEBAN: Our band name is Blue Boy. It came about because we were influenced by Mac DeMarco’s song Blue Boy. 

MARGOT: The band is made up of Lucas Okaty, guitarist and vocalist; Etaban Ortiz-Villacortez; Austin Alrich, bassist; and Daniel Zimmerman, drummer.

MARGOT: Today for the WNUR News Arts and Entertainment segment, we will be hearing about the story of talented musicians Esteban, Daniel, Lucas and Austin. 

MARGOT: Estaban started playing music at 7-years-old.

ESTABAN: My dad taught me acoustic guitar. It was just lessons with him. We would play once a week and that then led to me getting group sessions with my friend. So we played together and we took lessons with my dad up until I was about like 12.

MARGOT: Then, after a brief stint with coral music, Estaban wanted to try out the rock and roll scene by middle school.

ESTABAN: I’ve always loved rock and roll and indie rock and alternative rock … and I was like, I want to do that because I think as a kid, especially as a theater kid, there is a sense of like, it’s so cool to have the attention on me and like to have like a spotlight on me. But there’s also this, this, this like fantastical nature of like, what a rock star is, you know, and in the fame quote, unquote, that comes with it and as a kid, like, just to grasp on to that it’d be like, I’m gonna form my own band and do that here where no one else is doing it. That’s what I wanted to do.

MARGOT: In middle school, Esteban started forging friendships with other musicians. Soon after, they formed a band by 8th grade. 

ESTABAN: We jammed together and it was really fun. We sounded terrible. I think there’s a recording from the first day we ever played together, and we played a cover of grain stew in the garage, but the vibe was amazing. We loved being able to play with each other and this amazing sense of community.

MARGOT: And, the band persisted.

ESTABAN: We played for five years playing shows, writing music, playing covers, and we ended up recording an album which was like the peak of my music career so far. And it’s been released for a while. It’s called sleeping instead of sleeping.

MARGOT: And, Estaban’s motivation for being in a band also evolved as grew up.

ESTABAN: I think, I think a part of it definitely was. But as I grew up, it became more of just that I really enjoy telling stories through songs, but not just that I find it very therapeutic. I find most of the time that the best songs that I write are the most fulfilling songs that I write are ones that I sit down, I write in one take, just because it’s purely when I’m feeling in that moment. And then people can connect to that as well. So as I matured, the ideas for why I was doing it changed. But when you’re 1213 it definitely is more like image based for me.

MARGOT: By the time Estaban came to Northwestern, he really focused on musical theater, but he missed the electric feeling of playing for an audience. Luckily, Estaban’s roommate, Lucas Oktay, a theater and computer science student, also wanted to start performing again. 

LUCAS: I kind of have been singing forever. I honestly don’t think there’s a start date to that, but I didn’t really start taking it seriously until I started taking guitar lessons … I started doing musical theater too, and permoring. 

MARGOT: Lucas also had a band in high school called Night Loops. He met his bandmates at a summer arts camp in Seattle.

LUCAS: I honestly think that it was just such a wonderful experience for me, bonding with these four friends of mine over music. And I think that I’m  not a musician for any sort of philosophical reason. That’s not really the word I am looking for. But I don’t really do music because I get something out of it or want to express myself. I honestly genuinely am a musician because it’s really fun. 

MARGOT: And, Estaban and Lucas knew each other from childhood in Seattle. They even performed in two theater productions together.

ESTABAN: We spent a whole seven months seeing each other almost every single day.

LUCAS: So, we were very close, and I was like living through it. But I was also like, well, if someone gets in, obviously, I’m gonna be his roommate. And he called me and I was like, I was like, Uh, let me know what I was at some event or something. And I like to walk off and I like to take the vote. Oh, let’s go. 

[music transition]

MARGOT: Then, Lucas and Estaban teamed up with Daniel Zimmerman, a drummer.

ESTABAN: We have been talking with Daniel Zimmerman since June-July. I knew Daniel before Lucas just through social media with his songwriting partner back home. I remember texting Lucas he is an amazing drummer. He studies jazz drumming. And like so insanely good. He’s insanely talented and skilled and writes really good rock music or indie music. Um, we should tell him about our band. And because we’re super on board, and like, that was honestly like one of the goals that we had upon coming here.

MARGOT: And then Austin Alrich, a bassist.

ESTEBAN + LUCAS: He’s also really quick. Yeah, he also plays really fast and will often even like to work with us to help us figure out where we’re playing keys for half the time. I’m like Austin, one of the chords I’ve no idea what I’m doing.

MARGOT: And, in just two weeks of forming, Blue Boy secured their first gig – for WNUR Music, the other branch of this radio station. At this show, they performed their first and only original song to date as well as cover. The song they wrote is called Doorway. 

ESTEBAN + LUCAS: I’ve had the chord in my pocket … And Lucas started picking it up too, and I started humming a melody, etc. 

MARGOT: The song is about feeling trapped, but it does not necessarily stem from personal experience.

LUCAS: I think that everyone has felt trapped before in some way. You know what I mean? And I think like, taking just some universal like human concept and like taking creative license with that and going somewhere new with it. It’s like how good songs are made.

MARGOT: What’s next? More music.

ESTEBAN + LUCAS:  Yeah, like I hope by the time that we at least in the spring quarter, we have like, at least four to five songs kind of under our belt that like we’re proud about we’re done our polish. I also think finding our sound is like something that will eventually inevitably obviously happen. And we don’t want to force a sound we just want to like kind of eventually come to it.