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Aug 13, 2019 Web Exclusive By Mark Redfern

My Firsts is our email interview series where we ask musicians to tell us about their first life experiences, be it early childhood ones (first word, first concert, etc.) or their first tastes of being a musician (first band, first tour, etc.). For this My Firsts we talk to Boy Scouts, aka Oakland, CA-based songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Taylor Vick.

Boy Scouts’ new album, Free Company, is due out August 30 via ANTI- (it’s her first for the label). Vick recorded the album with her friend Stephen Steinbrink in a small studio set up inside a rented shipping container, of all places. “It’s a windowless little room, but that made me feel really comfortable,” said Vick in a press release announcing the album. “We did it in the comfort of a weird, atypical recording space.”

Steinbrink also played drums, synth, and bass and sung backup vocals throughout Free Company. The album also features other friends—Rose Droll, Nikolas Soelter, and Chase Kamp—making it the first time Vick has included others in the Boy Scouts recording process.

Free Company‘s latest single is “Hate Ya 2,” which we have the pleasure of premiering both below and in our news section, via an animated video for the song.

“‘Hate Ya 2’ is about trying to grapple with conflicting feelings. When you still have love for someone who can also make you feel undervalued and hurt, and how confusing that experience can be,” Vick says about the single. “The process of recording this song felt very cathartic. Often, instead of tracking to a metronome, Stephen [Steinbrink] would come up with a programmed beat on his computer and I’d record to that instead of a click. We ended up really liking how the electronic drums sounded with this song and decided to keep them. Stephen and I drove out to my parent’s house with my friend Rose Droll to have her record piano on a few songs from the record, and when she played along to this one we tracked a few takes of her improvising. It added such a beautiful melancholic element, in true Rose Droll fashion.”

Read on as Vick talks about her first best friend, the purple dinosaur compatriot she had a crush on, the boy-bands she loved as a child, getting buzzed on lemonade, and finding money in the trash.

First best friend?

Jacqueline, my preschool bestie.

First pet?

My parents had a cocker spaniel named Dutchess and a calico cat named Barfie when I was born (R.I.P.).

First broken bone?

My left wrist, I tripped over a tree root while playing football in fourth grade.

First time you fell in love?

First time I thought I was in love was in seventh grade at youth group, I swear it was the only reason I went. Real love thing didn’t happen until much later.

First TV show you were obsessed with?

Gullah Gullah Island rocked my world as a three-year-old.

First record your parents played for you?

I don’t recall the first, my parents played a lot of music when we were growing up. Probably Aretha Franklin’s Greatest Hits or a Willie Nelson album or something.

First favorite band?

*NSYNC if we’re counting boy bands. Then Coldplay.

First actor or actress you had a crush on?

There was this kid who was on Barney that I had a massive crush on

First concert you went to?

I went to an All That (the Nickelodeon TV show) concert in Sacramento in 1999, I think? B*Witched, 98 Degrees, and Monica performed, completely blew my mind.

First music festival you went to?

Outside Lands in 2011. Saw Arcade Fire! And The Shins but from very far away. While standing next to the garbage/recycling/compost bins because I was volunteering as trash advisor that year. Someone threw away a five-dollar bill!

First time you got drunk?

My friend Devon and I shared two Mike’s Hard Lemonades one night during the summer after eighth grade, and we definitely thought we were drunker than we were. After that the next time was probably not until my sophomore year of high school at an orchard party (exactly what it sounds like).

First job you had?

A coffee shop called Java Makers in Manteca, California.

First time you got fired?

Never! I’ve been laid off twice though.

First email address?

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

First social media account?

Xanga-the wonderful blogging platform very well suited for seventh graders who just discovered the Internet.

First book you read outside of one assigned for school?

I read a lot when I was younger, lots of books about dogs or wolves. I don’t remember which was my first but it probably was animal themed.

First major disappointment?

Santa Claus.

First instrument?

Took piano lessons first, eventually started playing flute in the school band when I was in fourth grade.

First band you were in?

My brother and I had a “band” called F.R.O.G. when we were really young but I don’t think we ever actually made a song. Then in junior high my friend Devon and I had two “bands” called No Kickball Tucker and Beatrice the Lamb. We exclusively did Michelle Branch, Vanessa Carlton, and Lillix covers.

First recording device?

My brother’s 8-track Tascam, I didn’t have my own recording device until I got a laptop when I was 16 or so and went hard on GarageBand.

First time you performed in public?

I think it was when my brother was playing a show at a Borders bookstore in Modesto, CA. He was probably 16 or 17 and I was probably 14 or 15, singing harmonies on a couple songs of his when he totally put me on the spot and suggested I played one of my own songs. I was incredibly nervous and it was probably awful.

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