We experience cultural awakenings for musicians cycling every few months where everyone gets turned onto a new artist at the same time and the rest is history. Recently it’s happened with Megan Thee Stallion, Dominic Fike, and 070 Shake to name a few. There are certain artists who we get a certain itch about, where we know that in a certain moment, we are sitting in the preface to their superstardom. That’s how we feel about Los Angeles artist, Sally Boy. The project was started by Erez Potok-Holmes, a senior at the University of Southern California, and has been years in the making. After years of success as a band member, he was ready to introduce the world to his alter-ego, Sally Boy.
The Philadelphia-native introduced his solo project to the masses in July and has been embraced by widespread praise throughout the industry. Self-titled debut single, ‘Sally Boy,’ is the opening monologue that invites listeners into the inner workings of his mind on the debut EP EREZ, which is being released as a pre-election treat on Monday. The project spans from alternative R&B to emo-pop and channels the Sally Boy persona to eccentric heights as the project innovates and transforms. The follow-up singles, ‘Stormy’ and ‘Sippy Cup’ dabble into a more synth-pop alternative sound and keeps heads bobbing along as we become more versed in the singer’s identity.
Once you get the opportunity to dissect EREZ on Monday, you’ll understand what all the hype is about. The centerpieces are exhibited on two new tracks, ‘I Wonder’ and ‘To You’. Both songs imprint different impressions yet emulate one another to fit the all-compassing cohesion of the project. ‘I Wonder’ is a groovy bop that amplifies at times and at others subdues until the songs electric end. The song that I kept coming back to, and have listened to over twenty times now, is ‘To You.’ The new-wave ballad showcases his ability to write an inescapable hook that will latch and engrain into your head for days, maybe even weeks. The stums and riffs leading into the first chorus proclamations, “you’ve been on my mind,” dazzles and spellbinds listened to put this track on repeat.
EREZ is just the beginning of what once was called Beatle-mania and will now be called Sally-mania. Sally Boy is one of the many talented artists apart Ourros, a management and creative collected started by a group of USC students. Other artists to take a deeper dive into on their roster are Joe Avio, Hong Kong Boyfriend, and Contradash, who was recently signed to Interscope. Join the hype train early and be a part of experiencing their blow-ups.
We had the chance to sit down with Sally Boy to learn how the project was created, highlights of his career thus far, and insight into the project EREZ.
As someone who’s been musical your whole life, when was the initial idea for your solo project Sally Boy planted, when did the stars begin to align and when did the project begin to tangibly come to fruition?
I’ve always wanted to an extent to do my own solo music. I was in a band for a long time and I loved working with them, but I also had my own vision for what I wanted to do with my music and sound. With the Sally Boy projects, the stars started to align in the middle of last year. I had this notion that I wanted to release music like Sophomore year (Senior now), I came to my current managers and look I’m releasing this, you’re either with me or against me. They were like “look Erez you have two songs that you’ve written for yourself, take a minute, and build up a catalog” so I worked hard and worked on that. Then beginning of Junior year everything started to come together, I had a strong catalog and we got music ready and got underway with preparing everything.
The decision to introduce the project with a self-titled debut single was a fresh take I haven’t seen executed much prior, what prompted the decision to introduce the project in this way?
The song actually came first. I had this song like before I came up with the name for myself. When I was trying to come up with a name for myself the first thing I thought of was this song I was like why not just name myself Sally Boy. It wasn’t necessarily this intentional thing where I thought way in advance that I was going to name my first song what my name would end up being called but it really left an impact. Once I had the name I wasn’t going to change it in this song, I loved the indications of the song being your first name it felt like a double whammy. Sort of introducing yourself and you can’t avoid the name of the person.
The music video for ‘Sally Boy’ features old home videos of your childhood, how did you decide to commemorate the birth of Sally Boy with these clips?
These clips felt like a way of me moving on to an extent of that version of myself. The use of old childhood clips and look-backs into my childhood, although it was related to the song and what it talks about, it also in a sense a letting go of that time of my life and moving on to this new period. I have a really bad memory and I don’t remember much because I got a concussion so it seeing that footage was a reminder of everything that happened in my life and things I’ve forgotten about and the pets I had so it was also an exercise of remembrance for me.
Each single is accompanied by different, distinctive sets of visual content. Do you think about the full sensory experience while making your music or does the imagery come afterward?
It varies, sometimes I’ll make a song and have a strong visual concept accompany it. Other times my creative director and I will sit down after the fact and work on the visual. More so lately have I been coming up with them in tandem because I’ve been more experienced in that world of visual media and branding myself so now it’s more of at the forefront than it was previously.
Walk us through your creative process in making these songs. Do you go into sessions and collaborate with other producers/writers or are you a one-man show?
For pretty much every song on the record it started with me writing the song at the beginning then bringing it to someone else to either produce or hear thoughts on what we could change writing-wise. I live with my friends so it’s like they’d hear me working on stuff and they will be like “what if we do this or this” like small shit like that. Also, I flush out all ideas with my friend Cole, so he basically worked on that part of it with me. These seven songs on the project all started with me writing it in my room then bringing it to someone else.
You’ve had a lot of early successes like being featured on the cover of Fresh Finds, premiering on Zane Lowe, and gaining appraisal from Complex. What was the first “oh shit” moment that you remember experiencing?
The two craziest are Fresh Finds and Zane Lowe. The Fresh Finds one (getting on the cover) was more surreal because I literally woke up to my manager John coming into my room and showing me and I asked, “Is this real”? For Zane Lowe, I was already up and about so hearing him say Sally Boy on the radio was the most “oh shit”. John and I were on our way to get breakfast burritos and we were in the car and hearing Zane say “in a few minutes we’re gonna hear from Sally Boy” and I was like “Woah what the fuck” then hearing him playing it live and keep playing the outro on loop for five minutes. That was ridiculous.
If Sally Boy was birthed by two artists, dead or alive, who would they be?
I would say, John Lennon and Prince. If I could add a third I would say Arthur, he’s a part of this band called Joy Again but he also has a solo project.
Let’s talk about your new EP EREZ, it almost seems like inception that you introduced yourself with a self-titled single “Sally Boy” but named the project after your real name. How are Sally Boy and Erez alike and how are they different?
The way that I first started the Sally Boy persona, I was like this is going to be my Magic Johnson and Erez is going to be my Urban Johnson. In reality, the way that I think about Sally Boy is a vehicle for me to be the person that doesn’t give a fuck about what people think about me which in my life I’ve had problems doing. I just need to give a fuck less because it’s not that important, but I still do it for some reason. I’d say I use Sally Boy to like get close to that but I haven’t had the opportunity to do that extensively because I haven’t been able to play shows and haven’t been too much of a public figure like Sally Boy hasn’t been on display except for live streams. All in all, Sally Boy is the version of me that I’m striving to be, I’m always striving to be more of what I think Sally Boy would be like. Erez is Erez and that’s me.
Which song on the EREZ did you record first? Did that shape how you wrote the rest of the project or did you just keep writing and the final product was naturally assembled?
I wrote “Sally Boy” first and that was the first song I ever wrote and was like ‘this is for me’. I don’t think it affected the sonics of the record as a whole. I don’t try to make two songs that sound alike ever so when I wrote Sally Boy it wasn’t like ‘this is the sound this is what I got to stick to’. It was more like ‘alright that was cool, I like how I mixed these two genres so let's do that for everything’. If anything, it didn’t sonically make me want to follow a mold but it conceptional helped me follow a mold.
The whole project is a bit of an emotional roller coaster taking listeners through growing pains, highs of youth, and questions surrounding love/heartbreak. Were all these tracks written at different periods of your life or were they all a product of different feelings through one long period?
Every song was written in an 8-month period before the pandemic besides Marie which was written before. It was a perfect cap on the record because it’s all-encompassing of the thoughts of Sally Boy and the heartbreak and romance of the rest of the project. Those six songs that I wrote in that 8-month period encompass the thoughts during this one part of my life because there is a lot of change going on. Marie is the fucking bookend, the summary at the end of it all and it’s a concoction of every thought, voice, and feeling I had and it’s always me at the end. I’ve written a lot during the pandemic so this period will definitely shape my next project.
What is your personal favorite song on the project and why?
My favorite is the song I listen to the least because I have listened to these songs so many times that I kind of get sick of them but then I always come back around. For a long time, I’ve always gone to bat for “Kane” because I wrote that song and nobody really fucked with it when I first wrote it except for my producer. I was like ‘we can make this shit sick’ and we did. At this point, I’m happiest with “I Wonder,” that’s a fun song.
Let’s get all Vanity Fair up in this bitch: on October 21st, 2021, one year from now, where will the Sally Boy project be and what is one thing you hope to achieve?
One thing I hope to achieve is to have a number-one single by then which I think is possible. The Sally Boy project will be exactly where I want it to be like listening to it and paying attention and not having the choice of being like we are going to listen to this or not. My goal is to have it be one of those projects that everyone is talking about like ‘have you heard the new album’ and they’re ‘fuck this is sick’. I was thinking about this yesterday and people were bringing up the Omar Apollo album, every three months everyone starts talking about a record and you listen to it and fall in love with it. I want the Sally Boy project to be that word of mouth record and talking about purely for it is very good.
Check out the music video for Sippy Cup and be on the lookout for EREZ, out on Monday.
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