Talk to enough bands and you’ll notice a trend: Most of them hate being pigeonholed by genre. Chalk it up to ego, perhaps. Everybody wants to believe that the music they make is so inventive and multi-dimensional that it could never be summed up with be a restrictive label like “rock” or “electronic.”
Bassist Bo Triplex has been in quite a few bands that proudly colored outside of genre lines, including Kane Place Record Club, which built a solid local following with their festive, circus-like pastiche of soul, indie, pop and hip-hop. And he’s currently a backbone of New Age Narcissism, the scene-leading collective that boasts a number of the city’s most exciting rappers and singers. But when Triplex started leading his own group, Bo Triplex and His Beautiful Band, he had no ambitions of transcending genres. He just wanted a funk band.
“A lot of cats like me grow up listening to different kinds of music, and they try to fuse it all together,” Triplex says. “You pick up one sound then you pick up something else, and then when you make music you just channel everything you’ve learned. But to me, it’s much more difficult and impressive to do just one thing. A really good version of one style of music is better than a whole mix of styles.”
Focusing on one genre can also help simplify things, Triplex says. “With all these other groups I’m in, there’s always a debate about whether we should put out this song or that song, or whether it fits what we’re trying to do,” he says. “With this group it’s just an easy yes or no answer: ‘Is it funky?’ Because if it’s not, we’re not playing it.”
The quartet draws heavily from the music Triplex grew up with—Cameo, Prince, Earth Wind & Fire—and takes particular inspiration from Parliament. “That was the band that really blew my mind,” Triplex says. “Parliament created this whole storyline and this funk trilogy out of all of these characters that they weave in and out of their songs. You know, they had that song ‘Motor-Booty Affair,’ and from there they could spin it out into a million different musical universes on their following albums.”
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Triplex is taking a similarly expansive approach to his own songwriting—his songs exist in their own similarly quirky reality with reoccurring characters—but so far, if you want to hear those songs you’ll have to catch the group live. The band has posted just one finished song online, a bass-driven roof-raiser called “Thump-Tastic,” and though they’ve got enough material for a record, Triplex says he doesn’t want to rush it. He’s not a fan of the SoundCloud model that lets artists post their work before it’s fully complete. He’d rather take his time and get all the details right, spending what it takes to get the band’s debut mixed and mastered properly.
“I’ve seen it too many times—artists blow that opportunity to make the best first impression they can,” Triplex says. “It’s all about that first album; that’s the album that defines you, so I want to get it right.”
In the meantime, the group has positioned themselves as a live act first and foremost, a strategy that seems to be paying off, to judge by the enthusiastic response to their set at North Avenue’s Summer Soulstice festival last month.
“From what I’m hearing, it seems like people really like my music and are responding to it,” Triplex says. “I think I provide one of the most entertaining shows in the city. It doesn’t matter if you like dancing. Regardless of whether you like to dance or not, you’re going to end up dancing.”
Bo Triplex and His Beautiful Band share a 9 p.m. show at the Cactus Club on Friday, July 15 with Little Tybee, Shoot Down the Moon and Rocket Paloma.
