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Nov 18, 2016 By Mark Redfern Photography by Wendy Lynch Redfern (for Under the Radar) Web Exclusive

To end out the week, we ask producer/musician Oli Bayston of Boxed In, the London-based four-piece that’s the project of Bayston, some questions about endings and death. Boxed In’s sophomore album, Melt, came out back in September via Nettwerk. It’s the follow-up to 2015’s self-titled debut. Read on Bayston talks about the unique way he’d like to die, as well as his favorite endings to movies, books, and albums, and his personal versions of heaven and hell.

How would you like to die and what age would you like to be?

I’d like to be placed inside the Large Hadron Collider and exploded in to a billion parts at the exact point that they manage to prove how the universe was invented. Ideally that would be in the year 2666 when I’m still alive and well.

What song would you like to be playing at your deathbed?

The Beatles: “Tomorrow Never Knows.” The background sounds in the track are like particles colliding and flying through the air all around you.

What song would you like to be performed at your funeral and who would you like to sing it?

This Mortal Coil: “Song to the Siren.”

What’s your favorite ending to a movie?

True Romance. It’s possibly my favorite film of all time. If a film screenplay could be the subject matter for the perfect pop song, True Romance would undoubtedly be the one. It’s beautiful and tragic in in equal measure. Like all the best pop songs.

What’s your favorite last line in a book?

Catcher In the Rye — “Don’t tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”

What’s your favorite series finale last ever episode of a TV show?

The Wire: still the best TV series to date in my view.

What’s your favorite last song on an album?

Radiohead: “Motion Picture Soundtrack.” When I first heard Kid A, I was immensely stoned lying at the end of the bed with two other mates in the room. We sat there and listened to the album four times in a row. It’s one of the all times greats.

What’s your favorite last album by a band who then broke up?

It would have been This Is Happening by LCD Soundsystem until they decided to ceremoniously reform only five years after they ceremoniously decided to split up. I have mixed opinions about a band who make such a song and dance about a gracious bowing out combined with a lucrative final show. Only to then cash in on a reform five years later. How cynical the reform was only James Murphy will know. Still, This Is Happening is a great “nearly” last album.

What’s your favorite way a band broke up?

Brian Jonestown Massacre broke up loads. I liked the massive punch up at the Viper Room when they had loads of A&R’s there to sign them. It’s on the film DIG. Pretty punk.

Whose passing has most affected you?

My mother. It’s a subject I’ve never been comfortable writing songs above until recently. I’ve actively tried to bury the subject in my mind, but I’m feeling more comfortable with expressing my feelings about her death. At least to myself, for now.

If you were on death row, what would you like your last meal to be?

Crispy duck and spring rolls.

What’s your concept of the afterlife?

An infinite vacuum where nothing happens or exists. We truly do need to live for the moment as there probably won’t be anything to live for when we die.

What would be your own personal version of heaven if it exists?

A place in which the only available human trait was benevolence.

What would be the worst punishment the devil could devise for you in hell, if he exists?

Listening to The Killers for eternity.

If reincarnation exists, who or what would you like to be reincarnated as?

A chameleon.

What role or achievement would you most like to be remembered for?

For moving people with my music.

What would you like your last words to be?

Be nice to each other.

www.boxedinmusic.com