This afternoon, UK alt-rock outfit bôa – who headlined The Foundry at The Fillmore last September amidst their sold-out North American reunion tour – are playing possibly their biggest show ever at this year’s Lollapalooza, 2:30-3:30 on the Bud Light Stage. Last year, the trio – consisting of vocalist/guitarist Jasmine Rodgers, bassist Alex Caird, and drummer Lee Sullivan – got back together after nearly two decades, following their 1998 hit “Duvet” going viral on TikTok after it found fandom as the opening theme of Japanese anime series Serial Experiments Lain.
Instead of opting to simply relearn the tracks off of 1998’s The Race of a Thousand Camels (reissued in 2001 as Twilight) and 2005’s Get There, which they did do, bôa hit the studio to record a brand-new LP prior to their 2024 fall tours of North America, UK, and Ireland. Following the release of five singles, Whiplash dropped on October 18th, courtesy of Nettwerk Music Group. Since then, they’ve embarked on additional tours of Australia and Europe, before returning to both the US and UK. Their current run of Stateside dates concludes this coming Friday, August 8th, at Union Transfer. And earlier this week I got a chance to chat with bôa frontwoman Jasmine Rodgers about the band’s second go-round.
*Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Izzy Cihak: First of all, what was it like to have “Duvet” go viral on TikTok more than two decades after it was released?
Jasmine Rodgers: It was really amazing, obviously! But it was kind of gradual, so it was kind of like, “Oh, that’s happening…” and then it was like, “Oh!” and now you hear it in something and you’re like, “Oh, there it is… [laughs].” I think it became amazing when we started to do live shows, because numbers are numbers, and that’s great, but when you see actual people, you’re like, “Okay!” and it’s cool. And our audience are the kind of people that I’d like to have a cup of tea with; it’s nice, it’s really good.
Izzy: On that note, you’ve been touring kind of all over the world ever since getting back together. What have been some of the standout moments and highlights from all of that time on the road?
Jasmine: Me, Alex, and Lee really enjoyed the difference of being in Australia. It was like nothing we’d been to before, which was kind of cool, but it was, because in the UK, you grow up watching Australian soap operas and things [laughs]. The landscape is so different, as well, so I think we were all, individually, consuming what we were seeing in a kind of, “Ahhh,” way. Sharing my birthday with our band and crew and the audience in Ybor in Florida was one of those, “Wow! That’s amazing!” moments. All of them have been great, though.
Izzy: What have the audiences looked like? You’ve sold-out a ton of the shows, including your entire North American tour. Have there been a lot of these younger people that discovered you on TikTok?
Jasmine: Definitely! TikTok and social media, generally. Also maybe the Lain anime. Some people have said, “We found you through that!” So, it’s quite a broad display of different people that are connecting with the music, which is pretty cool.
Izzy: You also released your first new album in around 20 years, Whiplash. What was it that inspired you to actually get back into the studio and make more music? There are a lot of artists who have a resurgence with their music, but just kind of tour off of the old material.
Jasmine: That was the lovely thing, because the record label, Nettwerk, could see how things were going and approached us like, “Would you like to do a new album, or do you want to just release unreleased music, demos and stuff?” Me, Alex, and Lee were like, “We’d love to do new music!” Alex especially had had ideas poodling around in his mind. So, we got back in the studio, and we just started writing immediately and it was a really lovely experience.
Izzy: How do you feel like Whiplash compares to the original albums? Was it just like picking up where you left off? I imagine at least the recording process was quite different, just because of the technologies.
Jasmine: Yeah, absolutely. I think when we recorded Get There, that’s when Pro Tools started and we started doing that [laughs], but I think it’s a completely different experience. You can copy and paste [laughs], and you can do lots of different things. We didn’t do that much, though, actually. We kind of live overlaid guitars and vocals and things like that. I’m sure Chris Zane, our producer, would be like, “I did a lot of editing,” [laughs]. But it was definitely a different experience.
I’d done solo stuff before, so I was a little familiar, but this was a much bigger fish. Obviously, sonically, we don’t have the three other band members that we used to have, so we didn’t have that instrumentation. I’m not nearly as good a pianist as Paul Turrell was, but we were really heavily involved and added things and tried to keep the string arrangements similar. Because I used to write my vocals along the lines of Paul’s keyboards and strings and things, it felt like some of that was there. Also, it was just an opportunity to delve deeper into the things us three were into. It’s a little bit, slightly, slightly punkier. We count off Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure and that lot we were listening to.
Izzy: Have you had any favorite reactions to the new music?
Jasmine: “Beautiful & Broken” was quite a sweet one. A girl had “Beautiful & Broken” written on her arms, and when we played it, she burst into tears, and I could see her! “Strange Few” has been really fun to play live, because it’s quite heavy and we have kind of been playing with it. We performed it at Kentish Town in London recently with a string quartet and that was kind of cool. The other day the PA was an issue, so we did a live acoustic version of “Walk With Me,” and the audience were just singing for the long of it, so that was pretty lovely.
Izzy: I’m guessing that in preparing for all this touring, you spent a lot of time revisiting and relearning a lot of your original material, so I’m curious if that surprised you in any way, if you liked any of it more than you remembered, or maybe didn’t like it as much as you remembered [laughs]?
Jasmine: Definitely! One of the biggest things for me is that perhaps when I was younger, my range was quite big, and I think I felt like I really needed to go for it. I was listening to lots of different music, and it was all very new to me, and I was experimenting a lot with that and with the vocals of that. For me, that was part of it. So, I love her, but she’s very challenging [laughs]. I don’t think when I was younger, I was thinking that I’d be doing like five show in a row or something [laughs]. So, thanks, earlier, younger Jasmine, for that [laughs].
Izzy: You have two super huge festivals coming up, with your next show being at Lollapalooza and then a performance at Corona Capital in Mexico City in November. How do you like playing these massive festivals, compared to the headlining shows?
Jasmine: We haven’t done them yet! I have no idea [laughs]. We played Latitude last weekend and that was brilliant, really good fun. But I don’t know, this is all new… We played Glastonbury like many, many years ago, but that was a much smaller stage and different setup.
Izzy: Are you excited about them? I mean, I’m guessing they’re abbreviated performances on a much larger scale.
Jasmine: Yes, yes! We played Austin Psych Fest, actually, and that was wicked! But yeah, I don’t know what to expect. I know Austin Psych Fest and Latitude were fantastic, but these are bigger ones, aren’t they? Sometimes I try not to know, because otherwise I’m like, “Oh my god! I can’t do it!”
Izzy: Are there any acts you’re especially excited to check out while you’re at Lollapalooza or Corona Capital, if you’ve even looked?
Jasmine: I’m kind of trying, again, not to, so I don’t panic [laughs]. I did see that Deftones were playing at Corona, so I was like, “I definitely have to see that!” There’s so many cool acts in both festivals… Also, ya know that thing of like, “Which one shall I watch?” That’s also a thing…
Izzy: Your final show of this current run will be right here in Philadelphia at Union Transfer, which is actually close to three times the size of the room you played the last time you were in town. What can be expected of the live show? I was really bummed to have to miss the last time, but I was at Nilüfer Yanya, who’s actually playing Corona Capital the same day as you!
Jasmine: Oh, wow! I’ll have to check her out… I think Philadelphia’s gonna be higher energy than it was last time, because we’d done five shows in a row last time [laughs]. It should be very, very cool, we should be very hyped up… And that was September, so I think we’re gonna be a lot tighter, hopefully [laughs]. We’ve got Robin Diaz playing drums with us, ‘cause Lee couldn’t get his visa [laughs]. It should be pretty cool and pretty vibrant, and it’ll definitely be fun.
Izzy: We actually call the neighborhood that Union Transfer’s in Eraserhood, because it’s the neighborhood that inspired David Lynch’s Eraserhead, because it’s like the neighborhood he went to college in in the late ‘60s/early’70s, so I’m curious if you’re a fan of David Lynch or Eraserhead?
Jasmine: I was obviously a Twin Peaks person, and Blue Velvet, but I don’t think I’ve seen Eraserhead… I’ll have to watch it! That’s gonna be my research!
Izzy: What’s next for the band? Are you planning to continue making new music and touring?
Jasmine: We are releasing acoustic versions of our music that we recorded in a studio in London that was like backed onto a cemetery, so it was quite a gothic vibe [laughs]. We had a string quartet that played with us in Kentish Town, so we kind of reworked some of the songs from Whiplash, so we’re just kind of releasing that as we’re going along. One of the biggest things we want to do is tour in other parts of the world, because we’ve played The States and UK now a fair bit. We’ve always wanted to be an international band in the sense that we want to go to lots of other places and try lots of different food, basically [laughs].
*Get your tickets here.
