BOY SODA ON DEBUT ALBUM SOULSTAR

Boy Soda’s debut album soulstar is finally here, and it’s a masterclass in vulnerability, sonic exploration, and personal storytelling. Having grown up on the Central Coast before finding his creative community in Sydney, Boy Soda has spent years perfecting his craft, navigating heartbreak, self-discovery, and the complex terrain of emotional and artistic growth.

In this exclusive Q&A with Temper Magazine, he takes us behind the scenes of his debut, sharing the highs, lows, and intimate moments of creating an album that is as personal as it is universally resonant.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Juno Shean

Temper: A debut album is such an exciting time and kind of a mix of emotions. How are you feeling about the release?

Boy Soda: It's kind of everything at once, to be honest. Like, it's a lot of... things feel like right timing and full circle moments and a lot of cliches that people tell you coming true, a lot about the process and trusting the process. And all those things are true.

And it's that verse, the emotional journey you go on as well. At least for me, making this album was writing songs that I was scared to write about previously, like stuff that’s closer to the truth, or certain topics I just wasn’t ready to write songs about yet. I was able to write about quite a few of those topics on the album, so yeah, it’s a really beautiful experience. I can only describe it as an experience because it’s so intense on all levels of the spectrum, thrilling, amazing, emotional. You're reliving a lot of stuff that you were writing about when it comes out. So yeah, it's everything I thought making and putting an album out would be, to be honest.

Temper: Oh, that's great. You hear people talk about it, so it's nice when it’s the way that you expect it to be.

Boy Soda: It’s just like hunting through the dark for this thing, you know it exists, but you have no idea what it looks like or the full picture. I’m just relieved that we found it.

Temper: Did you find it quite freeing to be able to write about things that you hadn’t been able to before?

Boy Soda: It was freeing because I could recognise the change in my willingness to write about it. It brought to light a lot of things that had changed in me emotionally. When I wrote about them, that was the first time I was understanding that I was processing things differently.

There are a lot of songs on the album that I cried a lot writing just because they were so close to home. Some of them still have those vocals in there. It’s a funny thing trying to dig deep, but I felt a lot of relief just getting to the point to do it. As soon as I started, I was like, “I’m here. The scariest part’s over. Now I just have to write it and feel whatever comes up,” which I was finally prepared to do.

Temper: That's amazing. That's such a crazy experience to have to be able to take it all and then put it into an album.

Boy Soda: When I think about the kid version of myself and picking jobs or careers and how it just... it's always been music for me. I've always wanted to do this. It's the idea of not having days like this or processes where I'm chasing that particular dragon's tail. I just can't imagine doing anything else, you know?

Temper: You talked about there being a communal feeling around writing the album or some of the songs. Did you feel like that was kind of the crux of the album, or just something that happened in the recording/writing process?

Boy Soda: I think it was an alignment of multiple pinnacles of things. The community thing was really the pinnacle for me, moving out of my rural hometown on the Central Coast in Terrigal and coming to Sydney, really finding my people in Sydney: musicians, people who liked R&B. They're harder to find on the Central Coast; it’s just different tastes down there.

It’s been a big process of really finding people that I feel very seen by and that, you know, I was saying to someone the other day, I just have a bunch of musical problem solvers. When we need something, we have someone for everything. That's such a luxury for someone who wants to make things all the time.

It’s also the pinnacle of my emotional maturity and my relationship with self-awareness and my masculinity. I enjoyed exploring masculine/feminine energy on this album. I felt like I’d lost a bit of my backbone, and making this album helped me reconnect with assertiveness, and self-trust.

A lot of the backing vocals are the same three people. They were the feminine energy I wanted in the album. That’s why some backing vocals were recorded by different people and not me it’s about balance, this representation of the process I went through over a year or two while making the album. I feel like I’ve left my emotional fingerprint for whoever I am now at 27. I’ll be able to listen back and see where I was at.

Temper: It sounds like the recording process was quite layered with having many different people doing their kind of parts. Were there any unusual recording techniques that you used for this album that maybe you hadn't tried before or were experimental?

Boy Soda: We're pretty free in the studio in terms of mics. I fell in love with kind of roomy reverbs, particularly shorter reverbs. Traditionally, in my past music, I think I lacked wetter mixes and more space. But being space-specific in this project was really important. Recording in the Blue Mountains gave the same room sound, and using the same mics in that room adds to the sonic identity.

The last song on the album, “Platonic & Sacred”, I wrote with Ruby Jackson at my house. Then we went to my parents' house on the Central Coast. I brought everything from my studio except my XLR cord. Ruby came all the way to record. I went into the bathroom, recorded the guitar on iPhone voice memos, and the vocal in one take on iPhone voice memos. That vocal became the final vocal in the song. It’s intimate, personal, like a phone call you shouldn’t be listening to, but it worked perfectly.

Temper: That’s amazing. Kind of nice that it was at your parents' house as well to kind of finish it all back in Terrigal.

At the magazine, we've been talking about lost art recently, things that get lost in the creative process or you come back to. Were there any songs you had to rework from a few years ago or previously unfinished?

Boy Soda: Yeah, it’s a range. One song I made in London two or three years ago stood the test of time. I re-recorded the first verse to sound like I do now, it sounded like a little boy in comparison to back then.

I made a lot of songs before we got to the album tracks. I live with my producer, Finbar Stewart, which was convenient. I was going through a tumultuous breakup, and we made songs that weren’t for the album, just for me, to process things. That process led to the final album tracks, finding softer vocals, live instruments, and dynamic performances.

Temper: Do you feel like the locations you recorded in shaped the album?

Boy Soda: Absolutely, though it’s more about where they were finished. The Blue Mountains was where cohesion happened. Being in the mountains is a luxury, a spiritual place to make music. I could disconnect, have my phone off, and focus fully. Even if the album never came out, those two weeks were the best musical weeks of my life.

Temper: Was being able to disconnect like this a first-time experience for your creative process?

Boy Soda: Probably the first time to this extent. Albums feel decisive, you have to flag the project, decide, trust your intuition. Mixtapes and EPs feel more like part of a journey. For this album, every decision, songs, visuals, everything, came back to trusting myself. And it’s paid off. I have undeniable evidence that I’m good at following my intuition.

Temper: You touched on visuals just then. How did you find the visual storytelling of the album?

Boy Soda: It’s been the funnest part of my year. I’ve really enjoyed exercising that part of my brain. I wanted a uniform look, styling, creative direction. I found the right creative people in Sydney, Adam Saunders, for example, who are willing to work hard for less and really push the visuals.

Social media became enjoyable too, we film lots of content, have heaps of material, and I’m no longer stressing about posting. It all came together seamlessly.

Temper: Did you have any non-negotiables in the studio?

Boy Soda: Not strict non-negotiables, but I had extreme urgency. If an idea came, I needed to act immediately. My producer is used to dropping everything to record the vocal. My secret non-negotiables were personal, making sure my gut and intuition were happy with the decisions.

I even made a “SOULSTAR Bible” for the label, where my music lives, where it doesn’t, and how I wanted to present it. It’s early times for R&B in Australia; it’s delicate. Keeping the album aligned with that vision was crucial.

Temper: It sounds like the whole process has been amazing, and it’s so exciting that it’s coming out in October.

Boy Soda: Can’t wait.