10 Questions with The Cave Boys

Yesterday I posted a couple of videos of UNH's own The Cave Boys. After seeing positive responses and downloading their mix tape, which really impressed me, I sent them an email to set up a quick 10 questions Q&A. They decided to answer separately.
NH = New Hampshirite, T = Tony and E = Elliot.

NH: You guys have been making a lot of noise around campus lately and your YouTube videos already have thousands of hits. Did you expect gain so much attention so quickly and have you been recognized around campus?

T: I actually expected we’d get a little bit of attention just because of the fact that we were new kids on campus who made music but I didn’t know it was going to happen as quickly as it actually did. And surprisingly, yes, people do recognize us walking around sometimes haha its definitely happened a lot more this second semester since we’ve been back.

E: I really had no idea what to expect, we never really thought that it would all take off like it did, we knew that there was potential for exposure, but you never know how something will go over with your peers, it was definitely nice getting to a new school where people didn't know Tony and Elliot and only knew us through the music.


NH: What do you enjoy most about making music and performing live?

T: The thing I enjoy most about it is it helps me get away from everything else going on in the world, I like to take advantage of that. Performing live is the same way, but when we’re up on stage, there’s definitely nothing better than seeing other people enjoy the music we make, that’s pretty cool to me.

E: There's nothing better than literally locking yourself in a studio and having your whole world be inside that one room, for that moment nothing else is bothering me and i can just loose myself in a couple beats and for that instance music is all that matters to me.


NH: Do you guys have a song you are most proud of or enjoy performing the most?

T: The song I’m most proud of is definitely ‘Change the World’ because it’s one that we recorded down at a studio in Boston and spent a lot of time on. And my favorite to perform so far is probably ‘Like That’, that one’s always pretty fun.

E: I definitely love Change the World as well, it's the song that kind of changed people's opinions of our work. But I think the song that I've listened to the most is "Come Find Me" it just kind of makes me think of the care-free good old days haha


NH: Do you guys make your own beats, if so what program do you use? If not, how do you access them?

T: It all depends on the beat. Some of our instrumentals we buy online but a lot of them come from our friends that we’ve met through our music that like helping us out. There’s been a couple that we actually ran into on youtube (such as the Rugrats beat we used for ‘Life’s Good’) that we knew would have some potential.


NH: What musicians do you guys listen to or draw influence from?


T: I listen to a lot of Wiz Khalifa right now, watching his whole ‘come-up’ in the music world has influenced me quite a bit, I feel like I’ve learned a lot about ‘creating a lane’ through it all. Also a lot of Bob Marley, Wale, and Curren$y get played on the pod.

E: I love Eminem, I think he's the best to ever do it by far. Nas' Illmatic I can say honestly changed the way I listen to music, and it's probably what made me a fan of hip hop not just a guy who listens to it.


NH: Where did the name "The Cave Boys" come from?

T: I’ll let Tous take that one haha

E: Haha we used to record in a room my mom called "The Man Cave" and then it became The Cave, and now we're The Cave Boys haha. Man Cave for life haha.

NH: You released a mix tape (Now Boarding) back in August as a free download and a 5 song EP under the same name on Itunes in September. Are you working on a full length album with a full release for the future?

T: Actually yeah, we’re working on getting our second tape done sometime in the near future with the name being "This or That". There’s not a final date set yet, but when the timing’s right it’ll happen. It’s a lot more than just a date.

E: When the time is right! We're trying to keep expanding while recording new music its a difficult thing to balance.


NH: You started a campaign to open for Mac Miller and Wiz Khalifa here at UNH. What is the latest word on that?

T: We actually didn’t even start that page believe it or not, haha. Someone else made it for us and it actually ended up helping us out a lot exposure wise. There’s been a good buzz about it on campus, people are curious – including ourselves haha we’re still waiting on the final say with it too, nothing’s finalized yet. Fingers are definitely crossed though, that’d be a pretty big step for us.

E: A huge step! we're also in a few "competitions" where we could win a trip to LA to meet with 1st round records, and another where we could get the opportunity to open for K'Naan


NH: This one is from blog readers: Your video for "Change the World" features a third kid following you around with headphones. Is he a third unlisted member?

T: Haha that’s actually my roommate, Nelson Brown. He’s been one of our good friends through high school and still is today so I mean he’s obviously in the ‘Cave Crew’ but doesn’t actually make music. He was helping out with the video and we thought there was no reason to keep him out of it haha


NH: Any future shows you guys would like to plug?

E: We could be opening for K'Naan, we are opening for Inspectah deck from the Wu Tang Clan and we're going to keep doing colleges around New England!

There you have it. Keep spreading the word and maybe one day SCOPE will be paying The Cave Boys to headline a homecoming show.

Stay classy, not UMassy.