Cal Poly student band Box the Oxford debuted their first indie-surf album on Friday.
After three years of writing and recording, “Wild” was released at a viewing party at Front Porch coffee house and is now available on Apple Music and Spotify.
The four bandmates met while living in Poly Canyon Village (PCV) their freshman year. The group bonded over their love of music and different backgrounds.
“We felt like in SLO there has been a void in the music scene and we wanted to help procure that by setting up shows and trying to spread awareness,” guitarist and computer science senior Colton Stapper said.
Initially, the band put their foucus on producing great work and less on finding a name.
“We all played different types of music in high school as well as all love and appreciated many types of music,” vocalist and guitarist and mechanical engineering senior Andrew Krippner said. “We didn’t want to be boxed in on style because of our name.”
For band members Krippner, Stapper, electrical engineering senior Eric Osborn and mechanical engineering senior Davis Muxlow, it is not about the name or label that encompass the album — it’s about the music that sells the name.
“Box the Oxford just seemed to sum up our individuality as a group,” Stapper said.
The band has grown over the past several years, from debuting at a Julian A. McPhee University Union show to opening for Jai Wolf and T-Pain at last year’s Spring Stampede to now releasing their first album.
The band also played at various venues across San Luis Obispo, namely SLO Donut Co.
“We got together and said do we want to just play SLODOCO over and over or do we want to make a record to do a career step in music,” Krippner said. “We said let’s make a record.”
The 12 original tracks on “Wild” were written during the band’s years in college. Several songs were first recorded in their rooms in PCV.
“It’s been really cool to see the process of songs evolving from sounding really bad in the demo version, then beautiful in the studio version,” Stapper said.
The band found the process of creating a record to be much more complicated than they expected. Box the Oxford had to fundraise to cover the costs of making the album. They recorded their songs at Kite Studios in Carlsbad, California.
In addition, the band had to do photo shoots, register their songs with music services and copyright their songs.
“I listen to music every day, but I didn’t understand until now that there is a lot more behind the scenes,” Krippner said.
Box the Oxford’s release party was packed as the group played their new album live for the first time.
Industrial engineering senior Max Cortes noted the group’s great dynamics and energy at the show.
“You can tell they had a blast playing their new songs which sounded awesome,” Cortes said.
After working on “Wild” for so long, Krippner said that every song on the album has been his favorite at some point. However, both he and Osborn feel that the song that always sticks out after listening to the album is “Outside of Me.”
All of the band members agreed that the time and effort spent working on “Wild” was well worth it to see their friends and fans enjoy the album live.
“It’s by far the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done,” Krippner said.