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Six Dumb Questions with Boss 302

They’re named after a Mustang engine, they rock like the ’00s never happened and their album cover is a shockingly attractive shade of orange — how could I not want to hit up Deptford, NJ, power trio Boss 302 with Six Dumb Questions about who they are and what they do? Their self-titled album (review here) was chock full of riff rock for the choir and, until I get to see them live, this is as close as I’m going to get to understanding where they come from.

Fortunately, drummer Mike Lerro was accommodating in his answers and forthcoming about the relatively recent inception of the band, their involvement with Kasper Racing, Toil Records and his goals for the band. As they’re a group of dudes clearly writing songs because they love the sound and the style, I’m more than happy to give them the space and hopefully get them introduced to some friendly ears.

Mike Lerro is joined in Boss 302 by his twin brother Larry Lerro on bass/vocals and guitarist/vocalist John Modugno. Please enjoy the following Six Dumb Questions:

How did Boss 302 get together? Is being in a rhythm section with your own brother a pain in the ass or easier than working with someone else? What inspired you to form the band?

Boss 302 got together about two years ago. Larry had some demos he had and wanted to record them at a friend’s studio (NVRWR Studio). Me and John went in basically as session guys just putting down basic tracks with John adding solos and some backing vocals. The three of us were in a band with another lead singer years ago so it was just natural to pick up where we left off effortlessly. It went so well after so many years of not playing together — the chemistry was obviously there — we’d be foolish to not take it further and do it more as a band as an equal effort approach and see where this could go. We instantly started writing all new material and it just took off. “Falls Apart” is the only thing that has remained from those sessions. Playing with my twin brother does make it easy. It’s so easy and a lot of the time very unspoken what we’re supposed to do — we just fall into the rhythm naturally. As brothers and people we’re all very low drama and easy to get along with so thankfully no Oasis brother-type fights have erupted within the band. It’s been smooth sailing so far.

Talk about the songwriting process. It seems like there are a couple different influences in the tracks on the self-titled. Does one person come up with all the material, or is it more of a shared responsibility?

We have a few ways to go about our writing. A lot of the time Larry demos a lot at home and presents it to us in practice and we all mold it into a proper Boss song. Or John or I write a riff or two and bring it to the table and see what we got from there. And our favorite way and where I feel we do our best work is ”on the spot” stuff. Where John or Larry will play a riff and one of us will say “What was that?!” and it turns into a monster. The newer stuff, not on the album, we’re doing now has taken an interesting turn where we’ve never gone before. Heavier, darker, groovier, maybe a little slower — very cool.

I thought I heard a lot of Helmet in the riffs and vocals on the album. Are they an influence at all?

Helmet is absolutely a huge influence obviously. We hear that a lot. Larry‘s vocal style reminds people of Ozzy (and Page Hamilton too). We definitely do not shy away from our influences. We wear them proudly on our sleeves. But we definitely do not try to sound like anyone ever — never will. The stoner rock genre best fits us if I had to pick one. With Queens, Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Sasquatch, etc. as bands we obsess over — so it’s hard not to have some of that stuff spill over into what we’re doing. But Motörhead and Sabbath are big influences also along with so many others. I don’t think there is anyone the three of us admire more than Lemmy. The guy just has so much integrity and refused to bend to trends or sound like anyone. It’s incredible how consistent all of his albums are to this day.

How much playing out are you planning on doing? Do you see yourselves being able to hit the road at all to support the self-titled?

With families it’s hard to do a long tour across country. It’s not out of the question that we would do it. If the right opportunity presented itself we would jump at the chance. We do a lot of shows in our area. Our live shows are what represents us best we feel. We tried to capture a live feel for our CD. We have some big shows coming up too at the Hangar 84 in Vineland, NJ, The Note in West Chester, Dobbs, the M Room and the Millcreek Tavern in Philly (with Clamfight).

How are you guys involved with Kasper Racing? I saw the picture of your logo on the car. Have any of you raced before?

We’ve never raced before. Larry and John both had Mustangs as kids and we all love those cars. The idea of the band’s name came from us comparing our sound to the intensity of an old BOSS 302 Mustang (story here). The Kaspers are friends of ours who all race — the brothers and even one of their sons do too. They’re really great at what they do. And we have a lot in common with them in regards to both of us are doing something that we truly love instead of doing it for money or ego. If something big comes of it — great. But definitely not our goal. It was a natural fit to be involved with them first because of our band’s name but a lot of our songs could be looked at as being “car related.” “Highway” and “Speedfeak” (while it is about Lemmy) we are making a video of it with some of the Kasper‘s racing footage.

The album came out in September. What do you have planned for the rest of this year? Will you do more writing or recording before the world ends in 2012?

We are definitely writing now while playing out at the same time. We just want to keep doing what we’re doing at our own pace, on our own terms. Thankfully, we’re with a great label [Toil Records; website here] who really supports us and just lets us roam free creatively and totally trusts us in what we’re doing. We’d like to do more shows with bands we respect and love on the national level while at the same time playing the fun, cool shows in our little scene of bands and friends.

Boss 302 on Facebook

Toil Records

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2 Responses to “Six Dumb Questions with Boss 302”

  1. paulg says:

    these guys are BOSS as fuck!

  2. Jim says:

    these guys suck

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