Billy_Boy_on_Poison

Ironworks Music:

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Billy Boy on Poison

“Oh you pretty things/Don’t you know you’re driving your mamas and papas insane?”

– David Bowie, Hunky Dory, 1971

If you ask Davis – charismatic lead singer and principal troublemaker of Billy Boy on Poison – the question postulated by his inspirational rock hero-- he’d answer with a resounding, “Fuck yeah!” Bowie never gave two quid what people thought. He moved the culture with his celestial songs and repeatedly freaked out the rank and file with his courageous, chameleon sense of fashion and image. In other words, he was an authentic artist, beholding to no one and nothing but his own demanding sense of expression. Bowie knew he was a star the first time he looked in the mirror as a troubled teen and said, ‘I think I’ll dye it orange today.’ Davis got the calling when he was seven years old, not from any heavenly father but from his own 70s-bred rock ‘n roll dad.

“I remember vividly me and my older brother sitting on the living room floor,” recalls the 16-year-old L.A. native. “My dad comes in the room, tells us to pay attention, puts on Led Zeppelin’s “The Immigrant Song,’ and starts air-guitaring his brains out. I guess it made a lasting impression.” Copy that. Less than a decade later, a rock band was born.

The members of Billy Boy are not old enough to legally drink but their songs, their energy, their personality and their purpose are undeniably intoxicating. Ryan Wallengren plays guitar. He met Davis in sixth grade, a matter of months after caressing his virgin six-string. Laid back like Joe Perry’s bastard stepson, Ryan’s rock n’ roll soul was ignited at age 11 by the opening riff to “Walk This Way.” “It changed my life,” confesses the baby-faced brunette. “My first concert was Aerosmith and Kid Rock. Blew my mind. I saw myself on that stage someday.”

Julian Borrego’s fingers are still developing but he slams the four-string with a sophisticated sense of groove becoming his idol, Chris Squire from Yes. Julian speaks softly but carries a badass beat. “Davis and I are best friends since pre-school,” he says. “I’m new to the band but it was just a matter of time. We’re like a family.”

From bloodline came the backbone of Billy Boy, drummer Jessi Calcaterra. “She’s my cousin,” boasts Davis proudly. “When we started to form the band in early 2006, I called Jessi. She was living in this bum-fuck town in Colorado and I said, ‘Get your ass to L.A., girl!’” Citing the legendary jazz skin-smasher, Buddy Rich, as a prime influence, Jessi hits hard, rarely smiles, and has no problem kicking her cousin’s ass if he gets a little too fabulous. “I love him, diva and all.”

Rounding out the quintet on guitar is the group’s elder statesman, 18-year-old Greg West. Cut from vintage Beck/Page fabric, the blues conscious axe-wielder found Billy Boy through My Space. Twenty minutes into his audition, Davis stopped the jam and asked the southpaw to join the band, casting adrift his scholarship to the Berklee School of Music. “Hey, it’s like that Tom Cruise line from Risky Business,” muses Greg. “‘Sometimes you just have to say, what the fuck?’”

How does a bunch of unknown teenagers playing local gigs for friends at backyard parties and all-ages clubs around town land a recording contract with Ironworks Music, the independent label founded by Emmy-award winning actor Kiefer Sutherland and veteran singer/songwriter /producer, Jude Cole? “A local radio station program director invited me to see them play live,” says Jude Cole. “I was floored by the performance. Truly blown away. When I heard other companies whom Billy Boy had showcased for felt it best to let them develop for another two or three years, I said ‘I’m signing them now!’ I'll put it out as-is and let them develop the old fashioned way, over a few records if that's what it takes.' Their arrival was serendipitous. I feel blessed. I will never be as cool as Davis. We’re going to make the record and that’s it. The kids will do the rest. Door to door, show-to-show, fan to fan.”

“I can’t wait to get in a shitty van and travel the country!” exudes Davis. “Play our songs, speak our truth to audiences who can relate to our sense of frustration with this troubled world. Yeah we’ve got songs about getting laid and blowing shit up but it’s more than that. It’s teenage rebellion, trying-to-be-heard stuff. Nobody listens to teenagers or gives a shit about what’s on our minds. People say we’re the future. We have to save the planet. If that’s true, doesn’t it make sense to listen to us while we’re young, while we’re learning, instead of when its too late and we’ve gotten all cynical and lost our youthful perspective, not to mention our faith?”

The alchemy of rock n’ roll, be it classic, alternative, punk, prog --choose your (excuse the expression) poison – is a great song delivered by ecstatic performers and the effect that combination has on the fan. When you listen to tracks like the New York Dolls’ infused “Sweet , Gone, Saturday’s Child," mature, introspective ballads like “Another Lonely Start,” and "4 Leaf Clover," the Yardbirds-esque "Dirty Bomb," or the Alice Cooper bludgeoned angst anthem, “Falling in Love with a Higher Power,” ... any listener worth his musicological salt will be taken aback by Billy Boy’s obvious reverence for the masters. But it’s how they interpret and re-imagine what was into what is that sets them apart from the umpteen other teens desperately searching for the brave new groove.

What did you expect from a band whose name was inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s anti-establishment cinematic masterpiece, A Clockwork Orange? Same old, same old? Think again, pretty things.

--Lonn Friend