Today marks the release of Threesome, the debut album from Baby Boys. The band heralded its impending arrival earlier this week with a gob smacker of a video for the song “Maggot Water.” And yes, this video – like many from our Boys – gets pretty weird. But underneath that gross-out facade lies a beating heart, and in a lot of ways the loin cloth silliness is a perfect encapsulation of everything Threesome stands for. Indeed, the album is a celebration of fearlessness, of confidence in your own weirdness. And, releasing into this moment of tentative optimism, Threesome feels like exactly the kind of record that can strengthen our resolve and remind us all to enjoy every single minute as we head back out into this new world.

Longtime Star Tribune writer Chris Riemenschneider, who has charted the rise of the Baby Boys other projects like Hippo Campus, Lupin and The Happy Children, sat down with the band for a chat about the origins of Threesome – its marathon, overnight, 9-day creation and the joy it brought the band. It’s a great feature, one that shines a light on how a record that can occasionally feel so sonically unhinged can be rooted in that joy. And now, at long last, it’s some joy you can hold in your hands, as the album is available, in limited yellow, pink and unlimited black variants, all over. 

And as if that wasn’t enough, the band is gearing up for a virtual album release special: “Live from the Mall of America,” a full-length set shot on multiple cameras showcasing Threesome’s cutting edge sonics and Baby Boys’ playful, ‘Don’t let ‘em take your fun’ attitude. The stream, free with RSVP HERE, will go live on March 25th, 2021 at 7pm ET/6pm CT.

Our Boys are back with “Desperado,” the latest single from their forthcoming debut album, Threesome, out on March 12th. “This one’s from an old session of Nathan’s that he intended to finish for a different project,” say the band of the standout track’s inverted, math-y guitar loop that twists and unfurls into glitchy pop bliss. “It’s about having a crush on a friend’s grandmother amidst the luxury of Santa Barbara, California, and trying to charm her by playing The Eagles’ ‘Desperado’ on her living room piano. It tackles the bizarre lengths we go to in order to win a stranger’s favor, despite the possibility of damaging a friendship in the process.”

In other equally-exciting news, the Saint Paul, MN-based trio today also announced a virtual album release show Live at the The Mall of America, a full-length set shot on multiple cameras showcasing Threesome’s cutting edge sonics and Baby Boys’ playful, ‘Don’t let ‘em take your fun’ attitude. The stream, free with RSVP HERE, will go live on March 25th, 2021 at 7pm ET/6pm CT.

“Desperado” follows album singles “Gone” and December’s one-two punch “Cannonball” & “Duke & The Cash,” which collectively earned early praise and support from Spotify’s New Music Friday, All New Indie, and Lorem, and also NPR Music (#NMF Spotify playlist), DIY, KCMP’s The Current, BBC Radio 1, and more. Threesome is available for pre-order & pre-save right HERE.

Baby Boys—the trio of producers & multi-instrumentalists Caleb Hinz, Jake Luppen, and Nathan Stocker—will release their debut album, Threesome, on March 12th, 2021!

The album’s latest single “Gone,” out today alongside a video directed by Isaac Gale (Bon Iver, Poliça, Swamp Dogg), could be considered the thesis of Threesome: a coalescence of disparate parts, a zig-zag of the irreverent and the cerebral, unified by deft, maximalist production that showcases the freedom of Baby Boys’ ‘Don’t let ‘em take your fun!’ attitude.

“This song is all about not getting caught up in the game. It’s not worth it to kill yourself over winning. Ambition can get the best of us and we are no strangers to that as people,” says Hinz of the song, which follows December’s one-two punch singles “Cannonball” & “Duke and the Cash.”

“If you find yourself in the middle of a raging pandemic, three days before a nail-biting election, and you haven’t left Minneapolis in 10 months, I highly recommend driving to the country with some friends to party with some goats, pigs and fuzzy cows for an evening,” says Gale of the video’s origins. ”Instant anxiety release, necessary, even if it only lasted a few hours. Thank you Baby Boys.” 

Tanya Villano, the owner of the farm seen in the “Gone” video, adds, “We loved having Baby Boys out at the Villano homestead! No cows, goats, pigs, hens or pups were harmed when shooting the video. They loved gettin’ down with their new friends and totally soaked up all the love, treats and pats!“

Threesome is now available for pre-order HERE. It’s available in three color variants as well, neon yellow over on Bandcamp, bubblegum pink at your local record store, and standard black pretty much everywhere. Pick your poison. 

On Threesome, Baby Boys’ enduring “yes to everything” mantra yields a snapshot of anarchic studio improvisation distilled into just ten tracks. Recorded at BJ Burton’s (Charli XCX, Bon Iver) Minneapolis studio after Burton left for Los Angeles, the entirety of Threesome came together in one week of 2pm to 6am studio sessions. The chemistry between the three in the studio has been well-documented outside of the band, too–Hinz, Luppen, and Stocker were the production team behind some of 2020’s most iconic breakout albums, including Samia’s The Baby and Miloe’s Greenhouse EP. But Threesome marked the first time Baby Boys had free reign of a professional studio for their own use, allowing the trio to be fully immersed in assembling its world.

Baby Boys is just the essence, then: a drama-free distillation of ideas. Luppen and Hinz handle nearly all of the programming, while Stocker is the main go-to for the analog instruments (guitars, banjos, and keys), and Hinz then sculpts it all together. They trade vocal duties off the cuff and in the moment; all of them sharing one microphone, typically whoever’s able to spit out a melody idea or vocal part the fastest gets control. The result is genre-bending mischief-pop: an amalgamation of busted-up iPhone memos and nonlinear lyrics colliding with erratic sonic landscapes.  

“Being able to put aside everything else for a second and appreciating what you have is so freeing,” says Hinz, summing up Threesome succinctly. “And so Baby Boys.”

EXCUSE ME @babyboyssucks pic.twitter.com/3cwPOBb7tA

— sydney liz (@seaofsplitpeas) January 11, 2021

Check your mailbox. Earlier this week Baby Boys postcards started landing all over the world. Words of encouragement were scrawled across the back in sharpie. Tucked in the corner of the card was a simple QR code. When the lucky recipients scanned it, they were treated to a brand new Baby Boys song.

Yes, after a near two year hiatus, the Twin City weirdo pop group is back and they’re sending you music in the mail. Earlier this week they offered up “Cannonball,” a demented nursery rhyme meets muzak tropicália romp. Video for the song is below, in which a purple-clad rollerblader brandishes their big beard, a flag and quite a bit of cheer throughout the heart of suburbia. It is sufficiently strange.

Today they’ve offered up a second new song in the form of “Duke and the Cash,” a frantic burst of neon lights and future pop bombast. Like “Cannonball,” the song comes with a fittingly irreverent video, this time presented with an ecstatic dance performance filmed by YouTube star Buff Correll. 

Today Baby Boys released the new music vide for I’m Set standout “Wannabe.” Directed by Ethan Nelson, who helmed the “Kinky Toe” video as well, it features hip hop dancer Rachel Wilson and was shot on location in Holy Land USA up in Waterbury, CT.

Baby Boys are back with “Beatdown,” the second song released from the upcoming EP, I’m Set, due out March 1st. Watch the self-directed video above, and head over to Bandcamp to pre-order one of those sweet green cassettes before they run out.

Meet Baby Boys.

The Minneapolis trio finds the sweet spot between pop abstraction, introspective folk, revved up freak outs, and everything in between. Their debut EP, I’m Set, is coming March 1st and you can hear the first single, “Kinky Toe,” right now. The video, a study in alien triumph, was directed by Ethan Nelson. The EP will be available on cassette or digital. The cassette is limited to 500 copies, and comes in a pretty awesome green shell tape. Snag it over on their Bandcamp right now.

If you’re from Minneapolis, you probably know the individual members of the band already. Caleb Hinz is the mind behind Happy Children (…and Normal Parents). Jake Luppen & Nathan Stocker are both members of our very own Hippo Campus.

More soon.