Boy Romeo

***JOHN STEINER started BOY ROMEO with drummer PATRICK SHELLEY in 2015. Hoping to turn John's bedroom demos into stadium anthems, John and Patrick workshopped songs for countless hours with multiple bassists. They pooled together their money and made a record with DYLAN WALL (Craft Spells) at Sacramento recording studio The Dock in Fall 2016. The result of that four-day session was the Boy Romeo LP, a lean collection of massive power pop statement songs. Just as Boy Romeo seemed to be on the upswing, everything fell apart. Right before their first tour, and amidst increasing hype, the group dissolved. Without a band and surrounded by a chaotic living situation, John buried himself in home recording. Using a cheap condenser mic and a basic laptop interface, John wrote and recorded a grip of new tracks. He whittled the sessions down into "Shorts," a tight six-song collection made with painstaking attention to sonics. On "Shorts," Boy Romeo takes inspiration from '60's pop and R&B, as well as from a diverse net of songwriters, ranging from Ray Davies to Erykah Badu to Eddie Floyd. Its six songs provide a short journey that feels more expansive than its runtime. Though it runs short of 15 minutes in length, its concept is fully realized.