The BulletBoys have been busy with the release of their album Elefanté last year sparking a new music video and plenty of tour dates, and one stop along the way was the SiriusXM Hair Nation Festival. I had the opportunity to talk with founding frontman Marq Torien after their set at the Festival, and catch up on the latest goings-on with the band.

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How’s the festival been treating you so far? You had an awesome set earlier.

Oh, thank you, it’s been great. A lot of family here, you know, we grew up here so this feels like we’re playing in our backyard.

Were you able to catch any of the other great shows that have been going on today?

You know, I haven’t, which really makes me bummed out, but I’ve been doing a lot of interviews, which is great. I’m actually getting ready to see Kix, and those guys are really good friends of mine, you know, Steve and stuff…I’ve probably got to run up on stage and give him a big kiss for his birthday.

A kiss for Kix? (laughs)

(laughs) Yeah, hell yeah, I love those guys, man. You know, they’re still really doing it and performing, and that’s a big thing for us, it doesn’t matter if it’s one [person] or one thousand, you go out there and perform – not too many folks are doing that these days. But Kix is, which is cool.

And I think you guys are too, definitely.

Thank you, man, that’s the only way I know how to do it.

Elefanté is the most recent BulletBoys album, and you guys have been doing a lot to support it for the past year and including a lot of the songs in your live set, what kind of reception have you been getting from that?

That’s what our fans want to hear as of late, yeah! Plus some of the old ones, but they’re always asking me, “Man, we want to hear ‘Tsunami’”, “We want to hear ‘Kinfolk’”. You know, they want to hear deep cuts from the record, which really just warms our hearts, because we’re going like, “wow, people really got this record”, which is great, you know? So it’s really cool and we’re actually playing a lot of the new record Elefanté on this next tour, and we’re going to be coming to the East Coast in a couple of weeks.

You have some backup singers on stage, The Pistolettes, and one of them, Marq, if I’m not mistaken, is your sister, right? I get the impression you’ve got a pretty musical family.

Oh yeah, all of us come from a real musical family. Very blessed by my mother and father who are amazing musicians, and we all just kind of followed suit in our own ways, you know? But it was really cool to have my sister up there on stage today, and it’s the first time ever, so it was rad. Yeah, her name’s Nicole, and it was great having the other two gals up there too, Yoli and C.J., man, they’re just awesome. They really rehearsed hard and did a lot of work for the show, and had a lot of fun.

With great results.

Yeah, totally, thank you.

So do you have a favorite song to play live?

As of late, “Symphony” is my favorite song to play live. We didn’t play it tonight because we were a little short on time, so we had to keep it short, loud and proud, you know? But, “Symphony”, I think with all the guys too, that’s one of our favorites to play live. That, and you know, everybody goes “you ever get tired of it?” and I’m like, “Nah! I love playing ‘Smooth Up’”, it’s just one of those tunes that’s fun to play, we have a good time with it.

Of course! It’s a great song. So you mentioned the tour just now, you’re heading to the East Coast, and then you actually have a few shows in Guam, which is interesting, not that common of a destination for tour dates.

Absolutely, it’s our first time out there. I’m really looking forward to it because we’re going to be playing three shows out there, I believe they’re all sold out, we’re being brought over there to play for some of our troops that are out there. We’re big supporters of all our fighting men and women out there, we love them very, very much and…thank you for doing what you do for us and keeping us safe.

Very nice…Now, on a final note here, I’ve heard that you’ve signed with Frontiers Music now for two more records – exciting news, what can we expect to hear from you guys in the future?

We’ll be doing a new record and releasing it hopefully sometime in February of next year…

Right around the corner!

Yeah! Right around the corner, but we’re really working hard on it, we’re going into pre-production in November, so it should hopefully be ready by the end of the year. It’ll be out on Frontiers Srl, and we’re really excited. So, shout out to Frontiers for signing us and giving us the opportunity to put out some great music.

Definitely something to look forward to. Well, thank you for taking the time to sit here and talk with me, Marq, this has been really great.

Oh, anytime, Chelsea, thank you for having me.

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More info on BulletBoys can be found at http://bulletboysofficial.com/.

Check out my review of the Hair Nation Festival here.