Courtesy of Publish Brand

Last Wednesday, as D.C. hunkered down for the impending snowstorm, I sat down with Austin-based artist Roger Sellers to talk about his project Bayonne. He performed his minimalist electronic set at Black Cat later that night. Mom+Pop will release his debut album this upcoming year.

Q: In the past you‰’ve said you‰’re not a DJ, how would you describe the music you‰’re currently making?

A: It‰’s kind of a blend of a lot of influences. I really like good melody and good pop music. I guess if I had to describe it as a genre to tell people it‰’s a minimalist avant pop, at least for the Bayonne, electronic show.

Q: Is there anyone you would compare it to or do you consider your sound its own thing?

A: I hope it’s its own thing (laughs). But if there‰’s anyone that I had to compare it to it‰’s like Animal Collective, it‰’s very influenced by them. I listened to them very early and I still do.

Q: How did you get your stage name?

A: It came from the street that I grew up on in Spring, Texas, which is right outside of Houston. I still go there all the time, my parents still live there, and I still record there all the time. It‰’s not too far from Austin so it‰’s a reason to get out of Austin and focus. I wanted to change the name with the electronic type of stuff for a long time, but I really didn‰’t have an idea of what I wanted to do. So I was at home one time and I saw it and thought [Bayonne] was a really pretty word actually and it still feels like me and it still feels like home. It feels authentic, like I‰’m not cheating anything.

Q: What can people expect from your album coming out this year?

A: The songs all kind of transition into each other and it feels like one piece, but the songs are all very different from one another. They organically move together. Much like the live set, there‰’s a lot of transitions and longer songs…a lot of it is based off of loops. All of the ideas that I wrote, they all came from a series of loops and then layering and building…so it‰’s repetitive, but in a good way. There‰’s a lot of change and dynamics, but within the repetition.

Q: Have you always done both minimalist electronic music and folk music or did one transition into the other?

A: It was mainly acoustic based music at first when it came to recording and performing and it transitioned into [electronic music] in college when I bought the looper. But it all comes from the same place…like the same energy it‰’s just a different method of doing it.

Q: Who are some of your major influences and who are the people producing music that you admire right now?

A: One of my biggest influences as a child and when I was getting into music, in general, was Phil Collins. I just thought he was so cool and I like a lot of minimalist composers like Phil Glass and Steve Wright…Things that are going on right now…the new Beirut record it great! I‰’ve been listening to that a lot. Tame Impala, too, like everyone else has been listening to right now. I like Little Dragon a lot. Real Estate is super nostalgic for me, all of that 90s type simple rock. Wye Oak is probably my favorite band right now.

Q: You released an album under your name in 2014 and you‰’re rereleasing it now. Is there anything you changed in the process or were there any challenges in producing the album itself?

A: I had written these songs as a live set for years and when I got the looper when I was in college I started doing this other new weird thing and it developed. So I started playing a lot of shows that way and I was also playing a lot of folk shows, so I had to find a way to separate it, which is where the name change comes from. When I was creating the album I never thought I would put this record out, it was just a collection of songs that I did live just for fun, but then I decided I should probably make a record of it if I‰’m performing it.

Q: How did Spectrolite become the first single on the album?

A: I don‰’t know exactly how that happened, but the radio station in Austin started playing it a lot and I think it picked up on the Spotify playlist so it was already kind of out there.

Q: What was the inspiration for the music video?

A: I kind of try and leave the interpretation up to the viewer…The song itself is about a stone that one of my ex-girlfriends had gotten for me from out of town. She was actually in another country… The woman who made the video, we talked a lot about it and she also had this idea of travel and having it come from my perspective.

Q: Is there anything coming up besides the album release in March?

A: There‰’s going to be a lot of touring this year and I‰’m playing Levitation, which is an Austin psych festival. I‰’ll be doing South By South West and Sasquatch as well.