From parking lot to Grammys
Vancouver music duo connected outside hardware store in Brooklyn
TORONTO — With a song up for two Grammys this year, Vancouver-raised Tom Howie and Jimmy Vallance are prone to amusedly reflecting on how they formed their duo Bob Moses by chance in a hardware store parking lot.
They were acquaintances, at best, during their high school years. Nothing brought them together in any significant way when classes were over.
But after the Canadians randomly crossed paths outside a New York tool shop, it seemed like the universe might be giving them a sign.
“We went like, ‘What are you doing here?’ ” remembers Vallance. “And we just decided to hang out.”
As they chatted over dinner, they discovered many commonalities between them, notably a mutual love for music.
Six years later, Tearing Me Up, a brooding eight-minute tale of a toxic relationship, has two Grammy nods. Howie and Vallance share a nomination in the best dance recording category while a reworked version by Andre Allen Anjos, who performs under the pseudonym RAC, is up for a best remix Grammy.
The duo dreamt up the song’s concept when both were “going through something very similar” in their romantic lives, Vallance says. Using a drum beat that evokes Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll Part 2, they began to shape their experiences into lyrics.
“When we started pencilling in the words, it formed a really good story,” Vallance says.
Tearing Me Up recounts the murky tribulations of a man who lets himself be lured by an adulterous woman.
The song throbs with pent-up frustration, beginning with a beat that creeps along for over a minute and a half before Howie’s vocals emerge.
“Let me tell you about a little situation,” he starts in a conversational tone, detailing the tempestuous tale. “It’s been testing my patience. Man, she was keeping me up all night.”
Long before the Grammys took notice, critics were praising the song off their 2015 album Days Gone By as a standout.
But it was the RAC remix — which raced up Spotify’s viral music charts in some countries — that gave the song another life. Appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and recognition from Elton John on his Apple Music radio program gave them an extra push into the mainstream last year.
“Our whole career has been a long sort of bubbling,” Howie says.
Vallance counters his point with a dose of modesty. “We’re just some underground electronic act,” he says.
“I guess we do well for what we do — but I didn’t expect a Grammy nomination, let alone two.”
As for their name, the duo credits indie label Scissor and Thread for coming up with it.
Keen on giving its artists names that reflect the Big Apple’s biggest icons, managers at the company suggested they adopt their moniker as a tribute to Robert Moses, the legendary New York City planner behind the design of highways and artery systems in the region.
Howie acknowledges it’s hardly a Canadian name, but he suggests the Vancouverites were always looking for Brooklyn flavour.
“We kind of both moved to New York deliberately,” he says.
“Before we even had Bob Moses we wanted to make (sure) whatever project we worked on was not just a Canadian thing.”
While Howie insists they’re proud to celebrate their heritage ahead of the Grammy ceremony on Sunday in Los Angeles, he says they both felt Bob Moses shouldn’t be pigeonholed by nationality.
“We don’t sound particularly Canadian,” he reasons.
“Being Canadian is isolating in certain ways and awesome in other ways. But that perspective was only gained through travelling the world.”