UPDATE: May 2010

TOUR NEWS!!

Just got back from our Northwest Tour!! Big thanks to all the bands who played with us, the venues we played, and everyone that came out!!!

We will be playing 2-3 shows with THE DWARVES in July!! keep your eyes out for the dates, they will be announced soon!

And we will be touring through Texas again this August but this time we are taking THE ENLOWS with us!!! so be on the look out for all the dates and come out!!

RECORD NEWS!!

The Enlows / Boats! Split 7" is almost out of print!! get one now before your sorry!!!

Found our rare SUMMER VACATION 7" for sale!! Talk to our friend Hiroyuki at Hyper Enough Records about ordering one: Info@Hyper-Enough-Records.com

And Finally!! Our first LP TOTALLY JAWSOME is being pressed and released! On Gold colored vinyl!! you Can get the LP here from Nate at MCD Records: HERE or! you can get the Cassette version (different mixes) here from Hans at PS Cassettes: HERE. The LP Release show will be Tuesday June 29th @ Shire Road Club w/ THE ADICTS, MOTO, Sharp Objects and Snot-Cocks.

Skinny Magazine Article

An interview with David Hayden of BOATS! By Tanya Harding

Boats! are a Sacramento power pop punk band, brother band to The Enlows and typically could fit nicely with the Tranzmitors, and I am sure have before on tour but here and now they are coming to town, right at the start of PUNK WEEK playing with our punk princes and princesses The Jolts and White Lung on May the 15th at the New Brandiz.

Boats! are fresh faced young lads and I met David before at the Alf House when he played there with his other band the sugary swweeeeet Enlows, so I am going to ask him a few questions....

TH: How old are you now, David, and what do you want to be when you grow up? How old is Boats! as a band?

DH: I’m 23 years old. I have no clue what I wanna be when I grow up. When are you considered grown up? Right now, all I have on my plate is touring, booking a music venue here in Sacramento and bar-tending during the day...Definitely, not what I want to do all my life. The band part I wouldn't mind so much, but even being on tour all the time can be exhausting.

TH: What's the difference in sound between your two bands? And which one do you like better to tour with?

DH: Boats! is more of a punkish band. More Clorox girls/The Briefs influenced. Our musical ability is less since Matt (guitar/vocals) is mainly a drummer - an excellent one at that. So, guitar solos are usually him faking it, and the chords, well they are all power chords lol. The Enlows have more of that younger Lookout! Records Queers/Screeching Weasel sound.

TH: Would you ever move to Vancouver?? In other words, just tell us that it sucks here and tell us how there is a venue on every corner and an audience any day of the week in Sacramento.

DH: I'd way, way love to live in Vancouver if it wasn't so cold. Or any where in the north west to be honest. We do better up north than anywhere else. Sacramento isn't the best place for a music scene. Kids here are very slow at coming out and supporting. It’s really based on favouritism. We used to play several times a month, which less and less kids came out to. Now we're a once a month or every other month band in Sacramento. We've had nothing but good experiences in Vancouver. Who knows though, maybe we've just played with the right bands every time we've come up and we're secretly disliked – lol!

TH: Have you ever water-skiied? Or why call yourself Boats! besides the ‘making waves’ reference.

DH: I have indeed water-skiied, I was pretty damn decent. My mom’s ex-husband Kyle Kidder (Yes, "KIDDER" is real last name) owned a boat. In spite of him being an asshole, I'd go every now and then. Took me a while to get up on the skis, but once I did, I was scared of falling down. Though, the name Boats! came from having no other ideas for a name, we wanted something simple. Our friend Jaz Brown (formerly Helper Monkeys) suggested it, we went with it. It’s a really a dumb name, but who ever really likes their band’s name? Secretly, I wouldn't mind having our name be "Tranzmitors" but that’s kinda taken now isn't it, lol?

TH: Do you guys smoke a lot of weed in Sacramento?

DH: Matt and I are "EDGE" – lol - not really, but neither of us do drugs. He drinks maybe one beer and that’s it. I drink none, as I can’t hold much, one beer gets me wasted, and one time while in San Francisco playing with Seattle's "THE GIRLS"
I shit my pants, though, no do do was in my pants? It was a wild night. Jef though is the pot smoker of the band. Let’s just say he's the butt of the joke for the band! "SMOKE WEED EVERYDAY!"

TH: How hard is it to cross the border for you?

DH: Last time when The Enlows came up, it was a big ordeal. They stopped us, searched us, questioned us. I ended up admitting we were a band coming to play a show. Since we did an early house show, that was considered non-profit and ‘cause of my honesty, they let us in. If we had told them we were playing The Rickshaw after, I think we'd have been turned around. Hopefully, hopefully this time around, we don’t get stopped.

TH: What bands could you give a shout out to right now that you like and why?
DH: Haha I’m bad at "Shouting out" as I am really tiny and my vocal chords don’t allow me to "Shout" too loud but I'd have to holla holla to Tranzmitors, Zip Guns, Prima Donna, Clorox Girls, Autistic Youth, Rough Kids, Greatest Hits, The Pranks, Boss Martians and The Cute Lepers, just ‘cause all the bands are super rad, great people and always are super accommodating to us with sharing gear/playing the shows and promoting them with/for us! Kind of a silly punk rock family to some extent! ;p

LINK TO ARTICLE: HERE

BeatRoute Magazine Article

BOATS!
coming to a major lame city near you!

By Sebastian Buzzalino

Despite its heyday being long gone, 924 Gilman is still the holiest of destinations for aspiring punk bands in Southern California. At its height in the late '80s and early '90s, the legendary all-ages venue saw bands like Operation Ivy, Green Day and Bad Religion grace its stage. While the venue may no longer have the same importance today, the weight of history still remains. Not for nothing, then, that when David Hayden, bassist for Sacramento, CA, powerpop/punk band Boats!, first played there, he got a nose bleed.

"Playing Gilman for the first time was super outrageously exciting. I got a bloody nose just based off being so anxious to be playing the Gilman where Green Day used to always play. It just had that feeling of them being there in the air," enthuses Hayden, "though it's not something you openly speak about at the Gilman (because of their policy to not book major-label acts). Though times have changed and faces and bands are all new, the scene and shows are still rad there."

But, being based in Southern California does not automatically mean that a pop punk group like Boats! will have an easy time recruiting a fan base. If anything, the scene is saturated, making it difficult for the almost three-year-old band to "sell out," as is so often complained about a scene that saw a huge commercial rise in the late '90s and early '00s.

"At least for Sacramento, if you play on a weekday, forget it. You're lucky if 5-10 kids show up," he explains. "Weekends are good, if there aren't a billion other good shows in Sacramento. Sacramento is a pretty favouritism kind of town: the kids follow the main punk bands, and if you have a show the same night as them, it's pretty much practice, which is why we prefer touring. It's just a whole lot more fun and exciting.

"We love coming to Canada," he continues, speaking of their upcoming west coast tour that will see them wind their way up in to the Pacific Northwest before coming to Alberta. "It's very exciting being in Canada. The people are way super nice and super supportive. All of the northwest is really good for us. Just from always touring up that way with Boats! and previous bands, it's a win/win: our shows have rarely ever had a bad turnout up there."

Hayden's bubbly excitement comes through in equal amounts regardless of the medium: over email, his responses are written in a flurry, as if he cannot wait to talk about Boats! or any other topic. His band's music, similarly, is a two-minute blast of powerpop/punk that exudes a young and almost innocent energy. It is the sound of possibility, of fun, of playing music because it is the best way to go through life. Their first video, for "My Mother Was Right," an impromptu project filmed entirely on an iPod Nano, is a perfect example of Boats!'s personality.

"It's very important we come off as a fun band. We don't want to come off as a cheesy band like blink-182 and talk about poopy diapers or something stupid like that. We just like to have fun and joke around, but we do mean business when it comes to releasing records and touring."

For now, though, there is no danger of Boats! becoming the next blink-182. While the young three-piece does spend most of their time touring and increasing their fan base, they still face significant challenges, especially in "some major lame cities," as Hayden puts it. Their next major goal, then, is to just hop on to bills with bigger bands and to play bigger venues, polishing their live chops. Until then, though, they will continue to wish, as their MySpace puts it, to tour with Hall and Oates.

LINK TO ARTICLE: HERE