Pro•té•gé: noun. A person who is guided and supported by an older and more experienced or influential person. As in, “Boston Bun is an extremely talented French producer, and also once a treasured protégé of Busy P.”
To be associated with Ed Banger is basically having the trademark “Cool” come after your name always. Creating music under the same name that birthed Justice, Busy P, Mr. Oizo, Mr. Flash, Breakbot and many more pretty much guarantees that you’re talented.
Boston Bun is no different; as you would expect from anything Ed Banger, his sound is dirty, raw, and it makes you sweat. From his heavily bass driven sound, layered with shocking synths, killer vocals and the occasional sex sound, he leaves us fulfilled of musical desires we never even knew we had. If you aren’t acquainted, get acquainted.
One of his EPs, entitled Flasher, has stuck with me for life, and he also just released his newest EP Just For Freaks Vol. I, which you can get on iTunes right now.
We caught up with Boston Bun (or Thibaud Noyer as he’s known in real life) and got into his head a bit.
Hi Thibaud, where are you and what are you doing right now?
Hi, I’m in my bed… it’s really late (early?). And I’m browsing discogs looking for new music.
How did you and Busy P connect, and how has it been being a part of the Ed Banger family?
It was more than two years ago. My manager at this time sent him my demos and remixes that I had done. We quickly met, had lunch, and about one month later we were sharing a studio.
Everything went pretty fast and my first EP came out the same year. I started touring with the other artists of the label and I got the warmest welcome ever.
Congratulations on your new video for “Time Bomb,” we’re big fans of it here in the office. Did you have creative input with it? How did the making of the video come about?
Well, I usually do my videos myself, but for “Time Bomb” I wanted a fresh look on my work (music and visual). Pedro (Busy P) introduced me to Laura Paclet’s work and we started working together.
We shared ideas and JPEGs, and she came out with this strong TV distortion thing. It fit perfectly with the track; something clean that someone broke at some point. She really did an amazing job.
How did you originally connect with Piu Piu?
I think we met in a club a couple of years ago. We played in the same parties in Paris, she’s also a pretty good DJ. Naturally, we started working on club tracks and little by little more vocal tracks.
You’re set to release Just For Freaks Vol. 1 soon, talk to us a bit about that, are the volumes going to be released incrementally?
Just For Freaks is a series of three EPs for the darkest club in your town. I wanted to compile various tracks I did for my DJ sets, more tool-ish, more radical. This is actually the music I’m listening to every day. I just read an article talking about it saying it’s the right balance between deep and ghetto. I think that’s pretty true.
Is that the majority of what you’re working on right now?
Yes, definitely. I want to release more records in the future. That’s why I keep working on an EP format. I can experiment more, care less about a release plan and promo, etc… just music. I’ll think about an album later on.
I looked up what a Boston Bun is… Speaking of that, your music has a strong sexual underlying element to it (“Grindin”, “Flasher”, “We Got 2 Be”). Can you elaborate a bit on what the inspiration is to connect the two?
Well the name Boston Bun is both a sexual position and food. I chose it to pay homage to Detroit Grand Pubahs. They used to have this track called “Sandwiches.” All the lyrics were about sex and food. It changed my life. The sex factor is so important in music, it’s what makes a track good or not.
Compare the music scene right now in France and then in America, what are some major differences you notice—in the music that is popular, and the differences you see when you play in different countries?
Europe has a really strong club culture, that’s why I love being here right now. I feel like America has a little bit lost this club culture, but they still have amazing club producers and DJs.
I have so much respect for people like Seven Davis Jr, Body High Guys, Mister Saturday Night, or Tim Sweeney. They’re doing big things for the scene, even if they’re not playing in big festivals.
Who is somebody, artist, singer, producer, etc. that you think we should keep our eyes and ears out for?
Check stuff from my homie Coni. He’s got some pretty sick tunes.
