Whatever happened to danceable keybs-forward pop? It was quite a thing a couple of years ago before sort of dying off at the hands of the kinds of aggressive musics required for these aggressive times.
But don’t tell The Plum Boys. Frontman Fabian Aguilar, bassist Bobby Elder, multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Caleb Jackson, drummer D’Andre Miskel, and multi-instrumentalist Connor Powell cut their ’80s-pop influences with moody lyricism to arrive at something like Blade Runner at da club.
The twenty- and thirtysomethings have just put out a new record that neatly encapsulates their ethos. Alive’s four tracks were recorded with Brandon Saiz (Leon Bridges backup singer Brandon Marcel, Dallas’ Sam Harvey) at his home studio in Hurst this past year.
Saiz, whom The Plum Boys knew had worked with up-and-coming Fort Worth pop singer-songwriter Averi Burk, approached them after a recent show, “and the rest is history,” Aguilar said.
Having played Tulips FTW, Lola’s, and many other North Texas venues since forming in 2020, including Tannahill’s Tavern & Music Hall, where the boys once opened for ’80s giants Flock of Seagulls, Aguilar and company celebrated the release of Alive at The Post a couple weeks ago and, more recently, at South by Southwest in Austin.
“It felt great,” Aguilar said. “We were glad to be a part of something so busy and exciting. Everyone walking around Austin was there to hear live music. The crowd was pretty packed out the whole night. There was a lot of foot traffic, and because everyone was there for the purpose of music, the crowd was very engaged and giving the energy back.”
After forming at the Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts, The Plum Boys released a single, “Lexi,” in 2021, followed by nearly 20 singles since then. The band put out its debut album, She, in 2022, then the EP Velvet in 2024, plus four tracks in 2025. Most have accumulated 1,000-plus streams so far.
Alive’s first single, “Snorkel,” is a continuation of the sound the guys have been specializing in since Day 1, with lots of saturated instrumentation and dreamlike synths.
The lyrics are as passionate as ever. “Too much of my life,” Aguilar sings plaintively on the first single, “I’ve been lost inside my mind / Worrying about the life / That I’ve let pass me by / All the blindsided distractions / I let take up my time / Masochism is a crime / Can’t regret it this time / This time.”
Dom Visentine and Savannah Soldbery
One thing that separates Alive from the previous releases is its fearlessness. And urgency.
“We went this route,” Aguilar said, “because after writing a lot about love, we wanted to open our horizons with our writing and kind of force ourselves to go within and really write about things that we think about all the time and stress over: what’s going on in the world, being aware of our character as we go on this journey as musicians trying to figure out what success means, and just straight up just being confused about the world and wanting to grow. I mean, we feel this our most cohesive stuff so far, and we’re just excited to keep growing as musicians and artists and, most importantly, as people.”
Jackson added that Alive is The Plum Boys’ most personal project, but “it’s also a little fantastical and kooky along the way, answering existential questions with the good and bad as being musicians.
“What you’ll find through the EP,” he continued, “is the realities of growing up while feeling good and feeling scared. I think this EP is a favorite from our work, and it’s edgier. Maybe us Plum Boys are becoming men.”
Some of the songs are a couple of years old but still hold up more than well enough, Jackson said. “We want people to forget their worries and dance. Our generation especially is afraid to be zany and outwardly fun and free. We want to give that feeling to people with our work, too. We want people to groove and jam like nobody is watching. We are trying to bring it back.”
