Shy Boys go from roommates to labelmates with their debut album

Huddled around a warped booth table at Gilhouly’s, Konnor Ervin and brothers Kyle and Collin Rausch sip from cans of PBR. Someone has wasted a few dollars setting up all the Led Zeppelin songs on the bar’s jukebox, and “Whole Lotta Love” blares overhead. Doing their best to ignore this, these three men — who make up Shy Boys — go on talking about their upcoming debut album, due out January 21 on local label High Dive Records.

It has been about two years since this trio played its first show together. Becoming a band was a slow, gradual process. Ervin, who plays guitar with the ACBs, got to know Kyle a few years ago when Kyle joined that group as its drummer.

“Once Kyle got into the ACBs, I started hanging out with both him and Collin, getting stone-y and listening to tunes and stuff,” Ervin says. “We found out we had a lot in common. Musically, we liked the same things. Collin started showing us some demos, and I was like, ‘holy shit.’ I mean, I knew he was really good from his old band [the Abracadabras], but the new jams were just right on point.”

“I think there was a mutual respect that drew us together,” Kyle Rausch adds.

It took living together to really bring out the music, though. For the past three years, the Rausches and Ervin have shared a house in the Volker neighborhood.

“Our entire bottom floor of our house now is dedicated just to holding gear,” Collin Rausch says. “It’s a matter of walking out of our rooms and walking down 12 steps to start that creative process.”

The thing about Shy Boys is that they aren’t shy, not exactly. Questions are met first with confused silence and some shared chuckles before one of the band members lands on some kind of self-deprecating answer. They aren’t being coy. The Rausches and Ervin simply don’t quite understand what all the fuss is about when it comes to their band.

And there is quite a fuss being made. In early December, Pitchfork snapped up the single “Is This Who You Are?” off Shy Boys’ upcoming self-titled album. Comparisons with the Beach Boys have come up when people have talked about this young band, with its three-part harmonies and surf-pop vibes.

But Shy Boys is something else: a 10-track study in lo-fi that runs less than 25 minutes and sounds as though it came together in a garage during a night off. Collin’s tender, choirboy voice peeks out from under undulating guitar chords and a hazy mix, and some songs are like rough demos: a little imprecise, a little off-key.

There’s good reason for the sonic bumps and bruises. When the band first started, the three men decided to switch instruments. Ervin, a guitarist, sat down at the drums. Kyle moved from drums to bass, and Collin substituted electric guitar for his usual bass guitar. The idea, they say, was to keep things interesting — fumbling through familiar notes on foreign instruments made practice fun.

Not that the album sounds half-baked. The music has a specific charm, as though Shy Boys escaped from the pop factory with a few chinks in their armor and decided to take what they know about solid hooks — which is quite a lot — and do their own thing.

“We don’t spend too much time writing,” Collin says. “It’s a very simple process. We try to keep things as minimal as possible. And, basically, we were trying to cut costs in the studio. We’re getting better at our instruments, but at that point, when we were recording, we had just picked up those instruments and we were still figuring out how to play them.”

It’s a rare pop band that’s this DIY, but most of the shows that Shy Boys have played so far have been in basements or living rooms (including the ones at their shared residence). When they go on tour later this month, most of their gigs are slated to be house shows, alongside a smattering of official venues.

“How we really started feeling good about our music was from playing those intimate venues and feeding off of what the people standing in front of us were giving us,” Collin says. “We don’t get that when we’re at a bar. When it’s a house show, everyone is so focused on the music. It’s a collective energy that everyone is absorbed in.”

Kyle adds: “KC is way excluded from the more mainstream markets. Especially as a pop band, we’re DIY out of necessity. That’s literally what we are, but I wouldn’t say that’s been our intent. We have to do it ourselves because no one else really cares.”

People seem likely to start caring about Shy Boys, but the Rausch brothers and Ervin seem unfazed by the attention they’ve received so far.

“It’s cool that people are talking about us, and hopefully they’ll do it more, but that’s never been our expectation,” Kyle says. “This band has totally been for fun, and anything besides that has been like an added bonus.”

The conversation is winding down — along with a third round of “Stairway to Heaven” whining from the bar’s speakers — and the men are feeling contemplative. “Nothing’s changed,” Ervin says. “We’re still hanging out, doing the same old shit.” He laughs.

“To us, it’s only about how good your content is and how good your songs and your music are,” Collin says. “We’re really proud of this record, and that feeling has met all of our expectations in the project. It’s been really exciting and really fun, but even if it doesn’t get past the walls of Mills Records or something, I’m still gonna be really proud of it and that it’s happened.”