After nearly a decade and four albums, Destroy Boys find themselves at an interesting point in the band’s career. The founding duo of vocalist/guitarist Alexia Roditis and guitarist/vocalist Violet Mayugba have led the bilingual LGBTQ+ punk rock group since they were teenagers, touring the world multiple times, playing major stadiums and festivals with their heroes, and hosting a handful of annual events called Destroy Fest that feature all of their friends.
At the same time, however, it has only been since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic that the band has hit its stride.
It all started with the addition of the rhythm section when bassist David Orozco joined for the release of “Open Mouth, Open Heart” in 2021 and continued with the band landing coveted festival slots like Chicago’s Riot Fest and Lollapalooza and opening for Blink-182 on the pop punk heroes’ massive comeback tour. Last year, Roditis and Mayugba even relocated to Los Angeles from their native Sacramento in part to have easier access to industry friends and resources for the growing band.
Of course, the quartet, which includes drummer Narsai Malik, has also come a long way musically since the days of Mayugba’s simple chords and Roditis’ almost spoken-word growl on their first hit, “I Threw Glass at My Friend’s Eyes and Now I’m on Probation.” “Open Mouth, Open Heart” showcased a massive leap in their range with tracks like “Escape,” “Ruins” and “All This Love,” a foundation the band builds on even further with new release “Funeral Soundtrack #4.”
“We don’t necessarily have an agenda when we go in and write stuff, it’s more like what happens, happens,” said Mayugba, sitting around a classic dining room table with the rest of the band at Cindy’s in Eagle Rock. “Carlos [de la Garza, producer] “It made it easier because it has a very specific sound and a pop sensibility. I also like to think that as we get older, we listen to other bands instead of listening to Green Day all the time.”
“I’ve been listening to a lot of Latin folk music to the point where there are times when I don’t want to listen to anything else,” adds Roditis, huddled in the corner between guitarist and drummer Malik. “Sometimes I’ll get into bossa nova, but then I’ll listen to Chappell Roan and female pop music.”
While his love of bossa nova may not be immediately apparent on “Funeral Soundtrack #4,” Roditis’ growth as a singer and songwriter can easily be traced from album to album, as can Mayugba’s own singing and guitar work, as well as the birth of his new rhythm section.
All of this comes together to give Destroy Boys' new album a more varied and complex sound and feel than their previous work and demonstrates why lead single “Shadow (I'm Breaking Down)” was their first song to ever chart on Billboard.
With the exception of their most anticipated collaboration, “You Hear Yes,” featuring vocals from Mannequin Pussy’s Marisa Dabice and Scowl’s Kat Moss, nearly half of the album came out in a steady stream of singles leading up to the August 9 release, giving fans a chance to hear the new version of Destroy Boys days, weeks, and months before Hopeless Records released the full LP.
As the band heads out on tour in Europe this month and then across North America later this fall, they're already looking forward to seeing how those fans react to some of those tracks.
“I’m curious to see how people will react to the songs, because we have a couple of fast songs (‘Muzzle’ is one of them) that make people go crazy,” Orozco says between bites of his sandwich. “I think ‘Should’ve Been Me’ will be one of them.”
“It has a lot of scary sounds and stuff like that, so we programmed a bunch of sirens and people talking nonsense and stuff like that into a little MIDI drum so we could use it live,” Mayugba adds. “I think it’s going to be a really creepy song to play live.”
“I’m looking forward to playing ‘Boyfeel’ and seeing how it turns out,” Roditis says. “I can’t wait to play around with it and see what I can do. I hope to see people cry. They’ll be sobbing.”
“Funeral Soundtrack #4” also marks a new positive moment for many of the band members as individuals. Whereas “Open Mouth, Open Heart” was largely constructed during a 1920s period of uncertainty about who they were and what Destroy Boys were all about (not to mention the whole pandemic going on at the time), the new album arrives with the certainty and authority that comes with each of them becoming more comfortable in their own skin.
While there may not be that Unlike many other punk bands fronted by non-binary singers who write lyrics in both English and Spanish, the scene and industry at large seems to be growing more diverse and welcoming by the hour. Eventually, they hope the music world as a whole will stop comparing them to all the other alternative bands with non-male singers and guitarists, but for now, they’re happy to build their own world with like-minded bands through events like their Los Angeles-based Destroy Fest, which took place at the Bellwether in downtown Los Angeles this past March.
“It’s an interesting movement in alternative music that’s happening right now and we want to facilitate that through shows like Destroy Fest,” says Mayugba. “That show was a lot of fun.”
“When we were doing soundcheck, all the bands had already arrived and everywhere you looked, it was a really good group,” said Malik, the quietest member of the group, between bites of a breakfast sandwich.
“Backstage, we were all friends,” Roditis concludes. “Every time I left the green room, I ended up hanging out for five minutes with someone I knew. We love our friends. As we get more successful, we can bring our friends with us and keep doing that kind of stuff. It’s a lot more fun to play shows with people you know. It makes it a lot better. The energy is really good.”
