Boomkat is the result of so many different influences, everything from The Beatles to A Tribe Called Quest to Motown to Depeche Mode to Oasis,” says Kellin Manning, who conceives the group’s multi-layered beats, samples and copious live sounds. “Our record reflects all the music we grew up on, and that’s why you can’t really pinpoint our style.” Hip-hop – particularly the old-school breaks – is a key part of the mix, but so is pop, soul, electronica and the downright mystical bond between siblings. “ Because we grew up together, we’re in each other’s heads – musically and spiritually,” attests Kellin’s sister, Taryn, whose throaty, blues-driven vocals and don’t-mess-with-me attitude are the fire that sears their debut album, boomkatalog one (set for release April 8, 2003, on DreamWorks Records). “That has always been there and is always going to be there. As a result, we have songs for days, songs that represent everything we’ve been through. This album is a journey through our lives, both what we’ve seen as individuals and what we share.”
That trip winds its way from raw-and-ready club bangers to heart-on-the-sleeve ballads, from the dare-you-not-to-shake-it rhythms of first radio track “The Wreckoning” – a #1 hit on Billboard’s Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart – and the introspective affirmation of “Look At All The People,” to the lilting, frustrated “Wastin’ My Time,” the deeply personal reminiscence “Daydreamin’” and the scratch-happy shout-out “Crazylove.”
“ With everything we’ve experienced, I think Kellin and I have been able to create music that will make people feel something,” Taryn ventures. Kellin adds: “We create a mood, whether it’s happy or sad or some of those harder to define emotions in between.”
Taryn and Kellin were born in the small town of Falls Church, Va. After their folks split up, however, they moved to Tucson, Ariz., with their mother. They’d return to the East Coast to visit their father as much as possible, and despite the distance, the two clearly absorbed plenty from him: A highly respected musician, Dad sang and played keyboards and drums in various well-known Washington, D.C.-area bands while managing hotels by day.
“ I remember visiting my dad during summer and Christmas breaks at all these different hotels up and down the East Coast, wherever he was transferred,” Kellin says. “It was so much fun living in four-star resort hotels! Taryn would be folding laundry and I’d deliver the room service, carry luggage or something.” Taryn recollects: “And we’d always be singing along with him in the hotel rooms. He was really into Motown. If it didn’t have soul, he didn’t have time for it. He had a great voice, an amazing ear for harmonies, and he could play just about any instrument he picked up.”
Back in Arizona, Taryn and Kellin’s mother held down administrative and secretarial jobs to make ends meet. “She even worked as a waitress at a strip club,” Taryn reports. “I remember her coming into our room before she went to work, and she was so pretty. She’d have on one of those amazing ‘70s outfits, something really tight! Her style and how she carried herself have really influenced me.”
After Kellin graduated from high school, he took an internship with Tucson’s NBC TV affiliate. While he stayed in Tucson to attend college, Taryn and her mother moved to San Diego for a better life. There Taryn gravitated toward the performing arts. (She was initially a karate enthusiast and was state champion in her age group at 11, repeating that feat a year later. In San Diego, she rose to national champion in dance at 16. ) “I had to be active,” she affirms. “What I really wanted was to be onstage all the time.”
Then, in 1993, the sudden and unexpected death of their father gave Kellin and Taryn a lasting lesson in life’s impermanence and became the catalyst for their musical bond. As they confronted their grief, Kellin began to think seriously about music, hoping to perhaps carry on his father’s legacy. “Before my father died, he bought me a Ringo-style Ludwig drum set, and drums had become my official love,” Kellin says. “I had this band with my friends, but as time went on I wasn’t satisfied just playing drums; I found myself wanting to control what they were playing and wanted to write the music, so I used my rent money and bought a guitar.”
Taryn, too, found herself more driven than ever. She auditioned for (and was one of few selected) as a dance student at the prestigious Orange County High School Of The Arts.
But while she was excelling at dance, Kellin was put on academic probation. “I wasn’t being productive,” he confides. “It was perfect timing for me to come home – someone had to watch over Taryn!”
The next few years would prove extremely formative for the siblings. Taryn attended acting and voice classes after school (commuting from her school in Los Alamitos, Calif., to Burbank and Encino), while Kellin made music. “ I’d gotten fired from three jobs,” he recalls. “Finally, I realized that music was what I wanted to do with my life. I’d gotten this sampler and a four-track and an effects box, and I started laying down these grooves and getting Taryn to rap and sing over them. I knew if I got her onstage with me, she’d really be able to roll with it.”
But Taryn’s acting career was taking off, and after countless auditions and rejections, she scored a role on “The Practice,” followed by recurring parts on “Get Real” and “Boston Public.” In fact, David E. Kelley, creator of “The Practice” and “Boston Public” (as well as “Ally McBeal”), had heard Boomkat’s demo tapes and created an entire episode of “Boston Public” around Taryn, also licensing two Boomkat tracks for the show (“Daydreamin’” and “Now Understand This”).
Taryn earned widespread critical notice for playing Kirsten Dunst’s drug-addicted friend in the film “crazy/beautiful,” then co-starred in “Crossroads” with Britney Spears. (She can currently be seen in “White Oleander,” with Michelle Pfeiffer, and will soon appear in “8 Mile,” with Eminem and Kim Basinger. Taryn is also presently featured in a high-profile Gap advertising campaign, in which she covers the Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There” with Marianne Faithfull and Tweet.)
“ I had worked so hard at acting,” she says. “You have to really want it and finally, it was paying off. But I had the exact same feeling about our music and didn’t see why I couldn’t do both.”
After numerous impromptu performances and meetings with label execs, the duo scored a demo deal. But when it fell through, they found themselves back at square one. “I was so depressed – I didn’t leave my room for two months!” Kellin insists.
Things began to look up, however, with Boomkat’s first real live show, at The Mint, in Los Angeles. “We’d invited so many people out to the show, and it seemed like everyone loved it,” Taryn remembers. In fact, the owner of The Mint, Chris Contogouris, was so impressed with their music that he installed them in his recording studio so they could hone their songs.
Not long after that, news of Boomkat reached DreamWorks Records executive Robbie Robertson. Recognizing immediately that Taryn and Kellin had managed to seize a creative space no one else seemed to occupy, Robertson signed them to DreamWorks Records. Contogouris then introduced them to Martin Pradler, an Austrian-born, L.A.-based Pro Tools wizard. Taryn, Kellin and Pradler quickly grasped their mutual musical and personal chemistry, and the three began work on boomkatalog one, with Boomkat and Pradler co-producing.
“ We’d figured out how to write songs from the years we’d just been doing it for fun,” Kellin points out. “Now it was a matter of going into the studio and perfecting what we had.” Says Taryn: “Kellin and I can be competitive with each other, and while we were working on the album, I kind of challenged him by saying, ‘You write some great songs and some great, great songs – let’s only put out the great, great ones.’ And that’s what we did.”
“ Wastin’ My Time” – with its cello riffs and melancholy guitar supporting a wrenching performance from Taryn – was so great that Eminem selected it for the soundtrack to “8 Mile” (similarly, “Crazylove” was heard in “Crossroads”).
“ We took a lot of creative chances with this record, and I think it worked out really well,” concludes Kellin. “I hope it will show that pop music doesn’t have to be formulaic to entertain you.”
But Taryn gets the last word: “At the end of the day, we think our music has the power to move people, to provoke emotion. And that’s what’s most important.”
