Carolina Soul: A Look Inside By George

Meeting the up-and-coming college rock band, By George, was an interesting experience. I drove out to a rural part of Western North Carolina, right outside of Charlotte, to Tyler Ford’s family’s farm. The land was beautiful with rolling pastures for the horses to roam about. Tyler is the lead singer and guitarist of the band By George. I met with him, Chaandmon Croft (the drummer), and new member Evan (guitarist). Will Henshaw is the bassist and vocalist.

Interviewer:  Tell me a bit about the band. How you guys formed and knew each other.

Tyler: Timely question because we're in the biggest, I think transformational phase that we've gone through in a long time. So, if you want the full history, so we used to be called Mighty Mango, in Charlotte. I'm the only original member of the band from all six, seven years ago.

Chaandmon: Eight almost.

Tyler: Then, after going through a drummer and a bassist who just decided they wanted to do something different with their lives, I hooked up with Chaandamon through Instagram. He went to my high school, but we didn't know each other at the time. We started playing a lot, with the guy who was from another band, and we played our original stuff, more indie. Like I wouldn't even say anything pop, I would just say alternative and indie mixed type of thing.

Interviewer: I saw that you released some content with the original band.

Tyler: Yeah, two EPs. One called “Kim”. Another “Work the Weight” in 2016 and 2018. And then we rebranded to By George. We combined those two EPs into an album called “Mighty Mango”. And there were more songs, but we shortened it to what we thought were the best for the EPs.  So that’s the early history. And then we made “The Life of Guy” which was a rock concept album that we had been working on for a while. And we started recorded that in 2019. We were about to release it, but COVID happened.

By George sat on their album “The Life of Guy” until October of ’21. They ultimately wanted to wait to release the record at a time where the band could do a small tour for the album, a circuit that focused on the college towns in North Carolina. Evan is the newest member of the band and seems to fit perfectly with the band’s dynamic and personality.

Chaandmon: I’m a whole two and a half years younger than you. And well, we all went to the same high school in Charlotte.

Interviewer: So y’all already knew each other?

Chaandmon: Tyler was old enough that I didn't know him, but I knew the band Mighty Mango. And as I was a senior and Evan was a senior, we were playing in other bands. We were just, you know, we were recording and writing music together, just sort of casually, not anything serious. And we all knew we were going separate ways for college. Evan goes to App State, I go to NC State. I took the offer with Mighty Mango to play with them that summer. And Evan and I just kind of kept in touch over the years and recently going through some member changes and just kind of reconfiguring the group, I reached out to Evan. It’s worked out over the last few months with this new setup. Evan’s been one of my musical friends all through high school and then Tyler found me on Instagram.

The band has gone through several member changes, something that’s natural in the process of a band finding the right members to take their music to the next level. Tyler notes that past members haven’t worked out from musical differences and direction of messaging.

Tyler: We had a drummer named Eli and he wanted the music to be a little more political than I think we did. There wasn't any sort of like rifts or anything. We just decided that we were probably going to go different directions and he moved on for academic pursuits instead. We reached out to Chaandmon, and it's just worked out really well.

By George’s rebranding was a crucial moment for the band. Tyler and the other members point out their different influences and how they want their sound to extend beyond the modern indie rock sound.

Tyler: We're taking the time out to just write and we're probably going to spend a lot of different weekends here. We're in the process of discovering a whole new type of music that we want to play. And I mean, there's a lot to do, but it's going a lot more towards like Kings of Leon. A little John Mayer. Some Band Camino. A lot of different stuff.

Chaandmon: A lot more poppy than what’s on Spotify.

Tyler:  We're in that discovery process.

Interviewer: I noticed that new direction when I listened to “The Life of Guy” It’s louder. Are you going to be staying in that direction as well?

Tyler: Yeah. “The Life of Guy” was a concept album. All the songs instrumentally, especially, but also lyrically flowed into each other. And there was a strong uniqueness and production aspects to it. It was entirely self-produced. I think the new direction, and correct me if I'm wrong, but something of were really trying to focus on more than anything else is basing ideas around certain melodic lines with a vocal focus. We're really trying to focus the new music on vocals and make that center stage because we've done the chorus reverb on vocals. Almost to the point where you can't really hear what they're saying.  I'm a big fan of artists that sing, loud, clear, and it's a lot of emotion. So that's what we're working on to be centered around that with particular melodic lines.

By George’s LP, “The Life of Guy”, is a twelve-song album that tells the story about a man growing up and experiencing life. Tyler and Chaandmon touch upon the complications and complexities around creating a concept album. The concept album is the big beast many artists think about doing but don’t attempt since the process can be daunting. But these albums have given us some of the greatest rock records like “Wish You Were Here” and “Pet Sounds”.

Interviewer: What was the experience of making “The Life of Guy” like

Chaandmon: Complicated.

Tyler: There's a few different pieces to this one. It was strange to finish it and release it more than a year and a half later. You typically write music, and you don't release it immediately. You work with your management label, whatever to figure out the best promotion strategy. But this was just absurd, a year and a half. And so, when we released it and we were like, “Yup, we have known about this for a year and a half”. We had this idea to make a concept album. We didn't know exactly what it was going to look like, but it was roughly about some combination of our lives, like some rough image of a man growing up in modern society, which is a very broad concept. What one of our old band members wrote about lyrically tended to be more on the relationship side. It was a little edgier and I don't think that's a bad thing, Like romantic relationships and like parent relationship. A wanting to get out type of mentality. And the stuff I was writing about was more focused on anxiety and mental health. It transitioned well I think, to go from youthful pursuits in the beginning of the album to the anxiety of wanting to be younger or wishing you did this or that differently.

The band did the production of the album on their own, avoiding any additional fees that would come from hiring a producer. The process was about three weeks long, taking place in Chaandmon’s father’s house in Charlotte, NC.

Chaandmon: We didn’t have all the time in the world to record it. But it took absolutely forever to release it. And that made it bittersweet. We’re on a new chapter now, heading into a new direction.

The tour that the band did during the fall of 2021 consisted of playing in college towns like Chapel Hill and Wilmington. The band has a large following around the state like near NC State, where Chaandamon attends.

Interviewer: What was the tour like?

Tyler: I went into school in Northern Virginia. And we were not physically close at all. I would go out for a weekend, and we would have a day or two to play. But we've never, up until a couple of months ago, had a living and playing situation where we were always together, always working on something. So, we couldn't tour. Now I'm down in Raleigh and the band lives in the same house. We were able to tour our music, figure out a lot of new covers, play for a lot of people and focus on the Raleigh crowd. It’s the most fun I’ve had in my life. Night after night playing shows.

Chaandmon: Starting mid-summer, it was every weekend until October 31st. Two to three shows a weekend. Most of the guys in the band are working full time. I’m a part time student. Evan should be doing something.

Tyler: (laughs) We don’t know what Evan does.

Interviewer: A mystery man.

Chaandmon: It was the craziest period of my life, no doubt. I remember vividly weekends where Thursday night is some bar in Raleigh from 10-2am. And then getting up the next day to go to work or class, then going to a fraternity party to play another gig. We did that for months and months, it was a lot of fun.

Tyler: There was a weekend where we played a show Thursday night, then drove to Boone to play Friday. And then I drove directly home, got four hours of sleep, and then played a show in Chapel Hill that day. Left straight from that gig to do a show at Western Carolina. It was play, drive, play, drive.

Chaandmon: There was a few periods where we had to play three shows in 24 hours.

Evan: Yeah, I think one of them was in Boone and then we had to go to ECU.

The band notes some of the memorable shows of the tour, one of them being a massive Halloween house party in Raleigh.

Chaandmon: We finished the tour on October 31st. We played our last show the day before in Chapel Hill. We planned this house show in Raleigh. I got in touch with other local bands, and we planned it out to be in a backyard. We got a stage, lights, and brought wristbands. We themed it as a By George Halloween event and it was risky with the cops in Raleigh. It ended up being the case where the second band was coming on and they ran out of wristbands. We bought like 500 and were selling them 5 dollars apiece. It was just crazy because we planned all of it ourselves and we sold a ridiculous number of shirts, wristbands and so many people were there.

Tyler: The other band at the show actually sold our shirts for us. And that speaks about the community because we only have a small number of people to help us out. And we were like “Oh shit, we forgot to sell shirts.” And we saw that they all got sold and the band, Rubber Dog, sold them for us. They made us a lot of money.

Chaandmon: It was like 900 people in the backyard. It was chaotic.

Interviewer: I bet that was nerve-wracking. Do you do anything to chill out before hand? Maybe a few beers?

Tyler: (laughs) A few beers is really step 1.

Chaandmon: Before that show, we were in the basement arguing with this guy who is filming a documentary. One of our friends from high school went to NYU for film. He dropped out but he’s kinda making this documentary about us. He’s been coming to a lot of the shows and getting some interesting stuff. But we were arguing with him about our costumes, what we were going to wear.

Tyler: Classic artist stuff. People would keep bringing us beers during the shows. And I was like “Can someone just bring me a tuna sandwich?” Like I need a water!

Chaandmon: Coons, our manager, kept bringing me IPAs during this one show. Like this isn’t helpful, not helpful!

By George has made a name for themselves amongst the college crowd in North Carolina. They often will fill up venues and play gigs at packed fraternity houses. The band also receives a ton of support from their fans and has a loyal group of roadies that will assist the band at their gigs.

Interviewer: What’s it like being a college band, playing in an environment that is mostly focused on that group of young adults?

Tyler: I think that it’s perfect, splitting our time between the college scene and our own music. The expectation is obviously covers that you would recognize. We haven’t solely been working on our original music. We’ve also been learning so many other artist’s music and practicing getting tight through that. Like four songs will be country songs and then it will be some indie rock. And the back to country or John Mayer. So, we combine all of our influences with that. Cover shows are great too because we use these small cover shows to build a small audience. And then we have that audience, and we play original songs. And it’s like “Oh wow, these guys can write too.”

Chaandmon: I think we had a really good balance towards the end, how we made the set list. We had a good balance of covers and original music.

Tyler: the last tour was more locally focused with bars and fraternities but because of the name we made for ourselves in the last few months, the next tour is going to be heavily in the corner of actual music venues, legitimate. We're not going to be doing as many covers anymore, which is great to finally get that time to get our name out there. And now we can really start focusing on original music.

By George plans to go on tour again during ‘22, having ten shows planned and many pending. The band wants to focus on expanding throughout the southeast, including colleges like Clemson and UVA. The band also hopes to play shows in bigger cities throughout the East coast for the tour, including DC, New York City, Nashville, and Savannah. By George plans on still including many shows in North Carolina since they have built “On the back of NC State and Chapel Hill.”

The band features a memorable logo, a green frog. Logos for bands are important, especially nowadays with social media and the vast number of bands in the country.

Chaandmon: I think (the frog) has really worked well.

Tyler: It’s pretty recognizable.

Interviewer: What’s with that frog?

Tyler: We've always liked the idea. None of us are huge Grateful Dead fans. I appreciate it from afar. And I think we all do, and they have an incredible amount of talent. We liked the logos or mascot of the dancing bears. And not even just that, I mean, there are plenty of bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers that have that type of thing. And to have some sort of image that your band is associated with the second you see it.

Chaandmon: Having a mascot type of image is like having a sports team, something people can get behind. I was unsure about it at the beginning, but I’ve come to really like it.

Tyler: As we started playing more shows, we had more and more people make the decision to follow us around and help with equipment and just be a part of the group. And so, we bought them all these By George staff shirts. In the whole triangle, there started to be this sort of team going on and a lot of people started following, hanging out. We try to make everybody feel like “We're all George.” We don’t like the idea that you get on stage and there’s the band, a barrier, and then the crowd. We’ve always felt like it’s their songs too.

Chaandmon: We’re doing this because we enjoy it. And that’s kinda this new phase. We want to make music that people want to listen to.  And with the brand, it’s also been difficult with social media. None of us are extroverted. So, with Tik Tok and Instagram, having a personality online has been something we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about because it’s so important.

The members of By George are business minded, thinking about different ways to get their music and brand out through platforms like social media and using artwork that represents the band. Promotion online has become such a crucial aspect for musicians because of not only getting your brand out there, but keeping people engaged with a consistent stream of content.

The band also notes the importance of singles and small EPs since they provide audiences with constant music, rather than LPs that require a long gap period between music releases. However, like their recent album, the band is open to returning to longer, more experimental type of rock.

Tyler: It reminds me of something John Meyer said. I might not be completely right. But he wrote “Room for Squares” so that he could keep playing blues. Because he’s a blues guitarist and likes the blues. I think if he had it his way, he would not be making pop but backroad blues. But he knew that wasn’t going to sell and that wasn’t going to get him the platform. So, I think we’ve actually found a way to enjoy making the more-pop like melodies and songs. And maybe once we have that audience, we can return to a version of things that we would want to do.

Evan: It’s good to get some good singles out and get a good gauge of where it’s going. I think one thing that we're really focusing on with the new writing is instrumentation. It's like creating good lines using voice as an instrument and having that be in the forefront of everything, but also just focusing on playing the right things, playing them right.

By George’s music is heavily focused on the use of instruments and vocals to bring back a simpler sound without too much productional layers.

Tyler: Our melodies are guitar driven and vocal driven. I think that that's going to be really interesting is that Chaandmon doesn't just play straight beats. Like there's gotta be a syncopation. The kick drums gotta be doing all sorts of weird stuff, which is really cool. It's just a cool combination.

Evan: It’s also nice that me and Chaandmon have so much experience writing together throughout high school. We’ve written hundreds of really weird songs that no one would ever want to listen to.

Chaandmon: I remember we embarked on a project to write an eight-minute song.

Evan: It had two key changes. Eight times the tempo change.

Chaandmon: Since we’ve had so much time writing together, writing new music has been really fluid.

The band notes that outside of their original music, they play a lot of country covers. This is unavoidable in a state like North Carolina where many people grow up listening to the genre.

Evan: It’s one of my favorite types of music to play in Boone. I played a bunch of bluegrass gigs at open jams and breweries. You can go and play with some big names just cause Boone has such a big bluegrass scene. That has transferred over into our music, I think.

Interviewer: Have you ever considered making some country songs?

Tyler: We have an older song called “Better in My Head”. I always thought of it as an alternative rock song, but we had a lot of people say it’s the country song we wrote. It’s very old country. We recorded the lead lines with a tele, and it was pretty nice country vibes. But going off what Evan said, everyone played bluegrass. I’ve always been more of a blues central player. We just have a lot of different influences. And I think that’s where music is going, it’s not so cut and dry anymore. A lot of our music is different. You see it on “Life of Guy”. It goes from a really indie song to an acoustic ballad, to a straight rock song.

The band has been able to work with other artists to create their image for the band through the relationships they have built around the North Carolina area.

Tyler: For “Life of Guy”, we tried to paint the guy older for every one (single). There's larger brush, less strokes in the early ones. Then as it goes on, the brushes get smaller, there's more colors and it's more intricate. And it's just a metaphor for him growing up and becoming more complex lyrically and instrumentally. We’re pretty content on making the artwork lining up with the meaning of the music.

The band seems to have a strong trajectory and aims to continue their path of spreading their sound and growing their fanbase.

Interviewer: What are y’all hoping for in the future?

Tyler: I think it’s two things really. To match the message we’re trying to tell through the lyrics and that it’s conveyed through the music. I would like to be at a place in five years where someone might remember the lyrics to a song and be like “Oh, I remember this one.” I tend to write about relatable issues. Everyone’s got anxiety, everyone gets sad, and I try to write about that relatable stuff as much as possible. I think my perspective on the band is just to have fun on stage. To keep looking into the crowd and sharing our music to the most amount of people as possible. We’d really like to go all around the world at some point. I mean, at the end of the day, what’s better than going around everywhere with your closest friends, playing music, and getting that message out.

Chaandmon: Something I’ll add too, is to keep building a community. Because this isn’t about anyone or the band necessarily. It’s about having a group of people that can also help you out.

Evan: And just to get somewhere where everyone is doing the thing that they are the best at. Whether that’s Chaandmon with his drums or the guy we have for social media.

By George plans to do a tour of the Southeast in late spring/early summer of ’22. Check out the most recent LP, “The Life of Guy” on all major streaming platforms.