How boygenius Built Their Gunnersbury Park Triumph
On a normal, grey Thursday, CLASH is speaking to legends of the music industry. These are the brains who have helped define several careers: in 2017, they designed Stormzy’s iconic 2017 Glastonbury headline set, and engineered Dave’s unique square piano for his 2020s BRITs performance. Now, they’re bringing the world of boygenius to life at their biggest show to date, as 35,000 fans will congregate in Gunnersbury Park to watch the indie supergroup of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker.
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We’re speaking to Amber Rimell and Bronski, otherwise known as TAWBOX. They’re creative directors who have worked closely with some of the biggest names in the industry, and are still continuing that relationship today – when we speak to them, they’ve been up until 4am rehearsing Stormzy’s latest appearance at All Points East. But today, they’re here to talk all about boygenius: “They’re fucking cool as fuck,” Bronski practically grins. “We love them.”
TAWBOX have been operating for quite a while now, but for boygenius, it was their back-to-basics brief that creatively invigorated the pair. The pair dug back into rock shows from the 70s and 80s to see what they could unearth. “That was one thing that felt refreshing for us – we could just go back to some rock and roll grooves,” Bronski explains. “We could really think about what we can do more out of less lighting, how we actually embrace rock and roll culture, how we pick up on that iconography of big rock.”
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boygenius? Big Rock? That seems slightly jarring for a band who’ve uttered lyrics from the hysterically hilarious (On ‘Leonard Cohen’: “I am not an old man having an existential crisis/At a Buddhist monastery writing horny poetry”) to the downright devastating: (“You think you’re a good person/Because you won’t punch me in the stomach”).
For Rimell, this was exactly the point. “Listening to how beautiful the music was yet how the lyrics cut so deep definitely inspired me with how the set looked,” she explains. “The album lends itself to how raw and gritty it is, yet you’re looking at these three boys that are singing so beautifully.”
“After speaking with the boys as well, it was really evident that they are real rock stars,” Bronski agrees.
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For TAWBOX, this meant contrast, both in lighting and mood. The set opens with ‘Without You Without Them’, performed backstage between the three boys with a singular light encasing the group. In person, it sounds like a hymn, or a covenant made intimately between the three boys and the audience. That is, until they rocket launch into ‘$20’, where big lights flash and the gritty guitars come in.
That demonstrates the tension between maximalist and minimalist design principles that TAWBOX loves to play with, going back to Bronski’s early days as a performer and live event producer.
“It’s easy to get lost in a world where there’s this new tech, or this new thing, or what industry peers might say or think”, he says. “Ultimately, there are some amazing beautiful, philosophies that will never get old – and they’re so simple. That element of actually seeing that backstage also feels really true to like many iconic walks to stage.”
Naturally, the pair spent a lot of time with the trio in rehearsal. They discovered that they were all giant guitar nerds: “Julien would come to rehearsals every day and work on her pedalboard because she wanted her guitar sound to get even better.” Upon discovering this, they decided to physically highlight every guitar change in the set, rather than shroud it in darkness.
They also had to do some unusual preparation for the stage design. True to the big rock philosophy, the duo wanted to create grit, grime, and dirt, and that meant thoroughly beating up the props: the metal supports were attacked with scratch pads as they looked ‘too good’, and the pair purposely searched for old, vintage mics. “Normally you don’t take the plastic wrapping off until the first night,” says Bronski. “On this one, we were definitely doing a few passes of getting some brushes and roughing things up. It really adds an extra depth to it”
“I think that’s the first time we’ve ever done that!” Rimell adds.
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Many rock shows fall into the dangerous territory of performers being static: the boys wanted to avoid that. Owing to Amber’s background as a dancer, TAWBOX turned the stage into a giant playground and made the guitars wireless so the boys could roam around as they pleased. “We built a set design which had different levels to it, different areas of the stage, which they were really intrigued about from our first few calls with them,” Rimell explains.
For TAWBOX, connection to the artist is paramount to creating their iconic stage designs, and it’s why they’ve achieved such creative and influential designs with Dave and Stormzy, too. “We really do feel that our relationship with not just the artist, but with the music, is something that really is important to make something that actually does resonate. Because when you watch it as an audience, you are engrossed in it because you actually connect with it.”
According to the duo, the boys were excited to return to the UK, and were eager to celebrate their landmark date at Gunnersbury Park.
“It means the world to the boys,” Bronski explains. “The UK have shown how much they love boygenius and made the album number one, which meant the world to them. Gunnersbury Park sold out in a day, basically, which is an amazing feat. The boys are excited to be here… and there might be a bit of celebration at the end!”
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Words: Alex Rigotti
