PARENTAL GUIDANCE DOWNTOWN BOYS
“For a couple of years I would use my sick days for touring, or I would not tell anyone that I was in this band. And now it’s like I can’t even do that. Right now, at one of my other jobs, my boss is actually a Downtown Boys fan.”
– Victoria Ruiz
In this new series, Parental Guidance,
Under the Radar
listens in as a musician’s parent interviews them. For the inaugural edition, Lupe Aguinaga interviews her daughter, Downtown Boys’ vocalist Victoria Ruiz, along with the band’s guitarist, Joey La Neve DeFrancesco, about how the life of a band changes as they reach bigger stages, and how they would change the music business, if they could.
Downtown Boys’ new album, Cost of Living (their first for Sub Pop), asserts itself boldly as an important voice in the current national political and media landscape, with more rallying vocals from Ruiz, jagged guitar work from DeFrancesco, and the band’s trademark sax accompaniment.
Victoria and Joey, Downtown Boys have been together for more than five years now, and I’d like to know if there’s anything that you would do—you’ve been touring a lot—if there was one thing that you could change about the Downtown Boys, Victoria what would
