Boy is a Swiss–German pop duo founded in 2007 by Swiss singer Valeska Steiner and German bassist Sonja Glass. The two met while at a pop-music course at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg in 2005. The band initially played concerts exclusively, before being discovered by and signed to Herbert Grönemeyer's label, Grönland Records, in 2011. Their debut album, Mutual Friends, was produced by Philipp Steinke and released in the autumn of 2011. The band sings entirely in English in a style reminiscent of that of Leslie Feist. In the UK, Mutual Friends was released by Decca in June 2012. The North American release of the album was in February 2013 on Nettwerk Records. Boy won the Hamburg Musician Prize HANS in 2011 in the category Hamburgs Newcomer of the Year, and their album Mutual Friends won the 2012 European Border Breakers Award. The duo's song "Little Numbers" was also featured in the Lufthansa Airline's Business Class advertisement in mid-2012. In 2013 the song was at No. 4 in the Japan Hot 100. The duo's first-ever USA tour launched on March 1, 2013 with a sold-out performance at Joe's Pub, New York City. After a two-year hiatus to focus on song-writing, the duo released their second studio albumWe Were Here in 2015.
History
Valeska Steiner was born in Zurich in October 28, 1985. She grew up surrounded by music, taking piano and singing lessons from the age of seven. She took part in several bands of various styles all through her adolescence, ranging from heavy metal to afro music, though at the time she thought of it more as an important part of her life than as a career path. With Sonja, she declared it was the first time she felt something was being created, instead of copied from what already existed. Sonja Glass was born in Munich in November 30, 1976. She played the cello until she was "about 18", when a guitar player saw her on the street with the cello after a concert and asked her to play in his band. There she met some girl bass players and got interested in the instrument. She didn't finish high school, but did study bass in the Netherlands, where she says it is easier to be accepted than in Germany. The duo met at a six-week music course, but then Valeska returned to Switzerland and the two kept in touch rather irregularly, with Sonja occasionally sending her songs she had just written, but they didn't yet know what to write about together. The band was only formed two years later.
