Diandra Interviews Valley Boy: Two Emotional Guys

When you admire your fellow bandmate, you don’t mind getting emotional. Valley Boy they embrace their sensitivity as key to their creativity, and it is something they have admired, in each other, since high school. Music, by all means, makes people vulnerable, but becoming a musician means you have chosen vulnerability as your purpose. In our interview, Valley Boy’s James Alan Ghaleb and Ian Meltzer making music their life and, in turn, turning their life into song. 

Diandra: What are the aspects of your personality you feel come out in your music and you hope people connect with? 

Ian: James and I are generally pretty emotional and try to be in touch with what we are feeling or have felt about things in our life, but we also have an unrelenting sense of humor. I don’t know if it is necessarily perceivable in the music, but our tendency to approach depicting things, that are important to us, with a sense of humor is definitely apparent (I hope) in our film.

James: I second that statement. We’ve put a lot of ourselves into our music; so it’s hard to pinpoint what specific aspects we hope are evident. We named ourselves Valley Boy because it’s meant to be a true distillation of our lives and not a fabrication or character that we have slipped into like an actor slipping into a Noh mask. We’re two boys born and raised in the Valley, just a couple miles apart from each other, and this music is nothing more than exactly who we are and what we’ve lived. I guess I hope people connect with us in the same way I hope people and friends can accept me and enjoy my company when I meet them for the first time. 

Diandra: What are the things you do, beyond music, to keep your joy? 

Ian: Listening to podcasts about filmmaking while cooking or cleaning is all it really seems like I do when I’m not working with James. I’ve really enjoyed making our film that accompanies our first ep, “Thursday/Friday”. 

James: Having a consistent rhythm in my daily routine really helps me keep all that juicy joy around. Even better still, if that consistent rhythm works in some healthy activities like exercising and getting outside and appreciating my very fantastic fiance. Also, when not making music with Ian, I like to also spend time with Ian. He is a very funny person and I recommend anyone currently not spending time with Ian, on a daily basis, to consider adding him into your routine. Also, if you can add our friend director Zachary Johnston into your daily routine in some way (through his musical project called Sonntag, through the videos he’s directed for us, or through playing cornhole and badminton), I guarantee it will help you to keep your joy. 

Diandra: You have said Valley Boy is cathartic. What have you most learned about yourself through Valley Boy.

Ian: Both James and I spent so many years catering  our musical sensibilities to other artists, so on one hand it feels great and cathartic to just do whatever we want. On the other hand, it is sometimes a challenge to restrict ourselves and be disciplined with our production choices because we just have so much fun playing and recording whatever we feel like. 

James: Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. I spent most of the past 6 (or 7?!) years writing songs with and for other artists and while that experience is very rewarding and helps me grow as a writer and artist myself, it is more chiefly a process aimed at helping the artist I’m working with find that cathartic release. Getting the chance to make music with Ian as Valley Boy is far more self-centric, and being able to tell our own stories exactly how we want is really challenging and fantastic. Something I’ve learned about myself is that I’m hard to pin down. I’m really resistant to revealing myself. I think a lot of our process involves stripping away our layers and defenses to get to the emotional roots we have and feel most vulnerable about. 

Diandra: If Valley Boy was an actual entity or person, what would be his origin story? Think like a myth or comic book. 

James: Born in 91’ in the San Fernando Valley into a soon to be broken home. Gains the power at a young age to play an instrument and eventually uses that power to change his circumstances. Eats burritos. 

Diandra: What is your favorite memory of playing in James mom’s garage? 

Ian: The first memory that comes to mind is from some time in high school. We invited some horn player friends of ours over for the first time and started trying to make horn arrangements for our band. I remember feeling very professional and advanced. 

James: The first memory (maybe not favorite, but funny) that comes to mind is when my neighbor, from a couple blocks away, walked by the garage while, we were rehearsing, and asked, in as neighborly a way as possible, when we were going to learn some new songs. He felt like it was time for the set to change. 

Diandra: What do you most admire in each other as friends that you feel transfer into art? 

Ian: I have to say that James has alway been absolutely fearless when it comes to writing and singing songs with exceptionally straight forward and vulnerable lyrics. I remember being kids and seeing how he would write these brutally honest and incredible songs about his parents and sing them right to their faces. He and I would spend hours rehearsing and playing them in the house every single day. I still get that feeling, to this day, when James shows me an idea for a new song, and it still thrills me. 

James: Awwww. That’s very sweet and I’m touched. Well, I admire many things about Ian as a friend. He has always been the one to bring humor into even the darkest situations and is generally a very positive and confident yin to my often negative and neurotic yang. There have been many times when I begin to spiral and question essentially everything as we make our music and Ian is time and again the one to help keep us grounded and keep me from totally exploding everything we worked on for months/years. 

Diandra: What is the most romantic thing you have ever done or seen? 

Ian: My sister’s dog, Louie, is obsessed with cleaning his brother Teddy’s ears. 

James: I’ve seen that and it is deeply romantic. I don’t think I’m willing to share “the most romantic thing” with you, but I’ll share that this morning my fiance told me she made me a dermatologist appointment for me (while I was out) to get a strange looking mole on my leg looked at and I felt deeply loved and cared for when she told me. 

Diandra: Describe your first crush, and which of your songs most captures that feeling? 

James: Courtney D, Boulevard Preschool. I definitely thought she would be my wife as we played in the sandbox and spent naptime next to each other. I think none of our songs quite capture the fire of our 4y/o romance, but I’ll never forget her even though I never knew her whole last name. 

Diandra: What is one change that music helped you get through? Was there a specific song? 

Ian: Music generally helped me get through my whole life because it has been something simple and fun. I’ve always loved it and wanted to do it. It definitely helped me and James get through our childhood and teenage years in a big way by just being something fun to do together. I guess it’s same now, but with slightly more pressure attached.

James: Oh heck yeah! Music gets me through every change (and is now also the cause of changes). Each song is kind of its own monument to a change that music helped me through. For that reason, none of the Valley Boy songs are really just “concept” songs or titles that had just been floating around. That said… oof, the list of songs other people wrote that got me through hard times is long and wandering. One little gem I’ll share is “Feather” ft Cise Star & Akin by the artist Nujabes. It was a big emotional crutch for me during high school; when so much of my world was entirely out of my control.  

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