Twofer Crush: Gray Bouchard
Gray is a Boston-born and -bred singer, songwriter, singer-songwriter (apparently a separate thing) and sonic raconteur now living in Providence.
Here we go! It’s your Friday band crush. This one is a twofer because Gray Bouchard (no relation) is in two bands right now. What fun! Twice the rock as normal! Check it out below, and I’m running low on these so if you’re a band, artist, music adjacent person, etc. hit me up and let’s get you crushed.
Let's start at the beginning. Can you give us some background on your journey so far?
Music has always been a part of my life. I come from a compulsively musical family (if you google "Bouchard" and "music" together, I'm blood relatives with most of the results) and started singing before I could talk. Singing was always easier than talking for me - which is the kind of woo-woo thing people say to sound profound and effortlessly iconoclastic, but in reality, I have a pretty persistent stutter so this is literal. Singing helped get the words out. In high school, I fronted local bands whose names are lost to time, playing North Shore VFW halls and weird little venues like ARTSPACE (R.I.P.) to pissed off hardcore kids who just wanted Ice Nine Kills to go on. By college, I was living in Allston and doing the Sunday All Asia Matinee circuit and looking enviously at bands like the Mules, Clickers and Blood & Roses who got to play sick basement and backyard BBQ shows.
I spent a couple of years of the wilderness. After college, I lived in NYC, Altoon PA, LA before settling down in Ann Arbor, Michigan for a stretch of almost 3 years. I played music the entire time, sometimes folk, sometimes power pop, sometimes punk. The midwest can be a strange place for a salty New England fella, so 2014 so I came back to Massachusettes to settle down somewhere familiar. Shortly after that, I founded Salem Wolves with my brother Mo-Rice and a mutual friend Harrison Swyter and we hit the ground running. That first year, we played pretty much every gig we could get our hands on, though spent most of our time bouncing up and down between Allston and (where else?) Salem. The next year, we were in the Rock & Roll Rumble and made it to the semi-finals. Later that summer, we were nominated for a Boston Music Award, got in the Boston Herald, put out our first full length, and recorded with Dave Minehan at Converse Rubber Tracks. Something about the Wolves allowed me to live out some of my wildest musical dreams around town: Some of my fondest memories are playing sold-out shows with bands like Diarrhea Planet, Crocodiles, Death Valley Girls and the late, great Roky Erickson.
Meanwhile, even as Salem Wolves was charging ahead full steam ahead, I was working on a more singer-songwriter project with my collaborators Erik Von Geldern and Don Schwiehofer. It was never intended to be a live band - I had excess songs that didn't fit with what SW was doing and they had a studio and big ideas. After years of working quietly on this other set of tunes, we put out Dedication Songs in 2018, assembled a crack band to play the songs live and kicked off my musical solo career. From there, it's been just joyfully juggling the two outlets, while occasionally playing solo acoustic gigs and moonlighting in other projects where the opportunity arrises.
Aside from just the players, what are the differences between Salem Wolves and the Dedications? What led you to branch out?
There's a few key differences between SW and the Deds - probably the most obvious is the aesthetics and genre. SW was started with a very particular vision in mind: I wanted to create a loud, insistent rock band with hooky songs that came screaming from hell (this literally manifested in the first song we ever wrote, "I Saw Hell"). There was going to be a whole complicated mythos with the Wolves: The story was that we were this backwoods New England family fallen into the hands of darkness and conducting unholy rituals with our tunes - think The Dunwich Horror meets Rock n' Roll High School. Much of that fell away quickly, but the vibe really became a loadstone for us. We wanted to make dark, unforgiving music and play it loud and recklessly. It felt super cathartic to do that, which I think is how we picked up steam so quickly. The vision for the Wolves also fed into how we would work together: SW is always very collaborative, we write songs as a band and everyone contributes in their own way. Generally first thought with SW proves out, which is a great way to stay moving forward at a steady pace.
Even as I was doing SW, I was writing songs I knew would be a stretch for us to perform: too soft, too complicated, too emotionally nuanced. I write songs non-stop and don't put much thought into what they'll be in the end. The Dedications give me an opportunity to collaborate differently with musicians I respect. Rather than getting sweaty in a rehearsal room and grinding out parts, I can front-load the songwriting effort and hand them off for interpretation. It's much more in line with my (somewhat limited) attention span.
So usually what happens with the Dedications is I'll write a song front to back in some simplified form (acoustic guitar, piano), send it to Don and Erik and let them have their way with it. They build the arrangement and set the tone, the three of us argue and swear at each other about what we like and what we don't like, and through various iterations, we come out with something shiny and pure. In a sense, the Dedications process is less collaborative in the songwriting than Salem Wolves but much, much more collaborative in the arrangement and assembly.
You've got carte blanche to put together a show in Boston. Who else is on it with you and where are you playing?
A truly deadly question, Richard! The temptation is to complete the "Bouchard vs Bouchard" prophecy and just have it be myself and Sidewalk Driver. That said, the world doesn't need more destabilization, so that showdown will wait.
I've always enjoyed the local showcases at the Sinclair - for my money, the best venue in the city when it comes to sound and comfort. For other bands, I would assemble some friends and heavy hitters: myself (possibly pulling tunes from both GB&D and SW), Duck & Cover, Zip-Tie Handcuffs and Stars Like Ours - all culminating in a co-headlining set of the reunited Doomriders and Damone. Your ears would be ringing for weeks, but boy would that be fun.
Alternatively, I'd also love to do a "Boston freak folk scene of yesteryear" bill. Pack out the Lizard Lounge with Christians & Lions, Reverend Glasseye (now of the equally great but more plaintive Gun Mother), Walter Sickert and his crew, Tigerman WOAH and Dirty Bangs. Maybe this is the show you go to when you're recovering from the carnage at the Sinclair.
What other Boston artists are you crushing on?
Aside from the folks I mentioned above, I'd add Ed Balloon, The Maxims, Oompa, Beeef, Baabes, Labor Hex, Duck & Cover, our old friends the Devils Twins, Graneros, Three at Home, Black Beach, the Downhauls and Nice Guys. If we're expanding it just beyond the Boston Metro, Salem is home to Bad Larrys, which I think is one of the most exciting bands I've seen in a while.
You can find Gray Bouchard with Salem Wolves at their website, and you can find him with the Dedications at this other website.