This Saturday the Kamloops based band The Lost Boys will be returning to the lakecity for a one-night-only show at CJ’s Southwestern Grill.
A relative newcomer to the music scene in B.C., since their inception the Lost Boys have always had a strong lakecity connection in the form of founding member Diego Flores. An LCSS graduate, Flores has made sure the band connects with the young people of both Williams Lake and the Cariboo.
Born in Mexico, Flores said he lived in Switzerland prior to moving to Williams Lake for his high school years. He said that all the space the Cariboo has to offer and the kind people of Williams Lake are what he enjoyed the most about his time here.
Flores said he got into playing music shortly after he moved from Williams Lake to Kamloops for school. As a child, he said he’d always been into listening to hip hop and rap to the point where he’d even write down rhymes and songs of his own. While he never would sing them out loud, that started to change while he was attending school in the lakecity.
“I never really rapped out loud when I was younger but I started just doing it in high school a little bit, just with my friends at lunch we would rap,” Flores said. “Then I came to Kamloops for university where I met my friend Brandon Hosler and he had a microphone at his house, so I started recording there and really enjoyed it.”
The two bonded over their shared love of rap and Flores began recording his first songs and released them locally. He fell in love with the idea of being a musical artist and decided to start pursuing it. Flores said he really enjoys the process of being creative and finds it fun like “playing a video game.”
Just over a year ago Flores, along with Hosler, Tallis Pitman and several others, who have since left the band, formed the Lost Boys to better pursue their shared dream of making music as a full-time job. Flores said they specialize in an almost boy band like mix of rap, hip hop, R&B and pop, using both live instruments and prepared tracks to complement their singing.
“It’s like a boy band over a rap beat,” Hosler said.
Unlike other emerging artists, the Lost Boys do not do any covers, Flores added, and solely perform their own original music at concerts. Primarily, they produce their own music, though they accept the help of outside producers for work on the instrumental component of songs, as well. Hosler said they also will take parts of songs that other people send them and make them into a complete product.
Their debut came in August of 2018 with a music video entitled Lost which garnered good, initial traction and has since accumulated over 6,000 views. They headlined their first event in Kamloops shortly after in September of that same year which sold out and have since been working to build upon that foundation. One of their songs, Malibu, which released with a professionally shot music video that’s garnered 12,000 views, made it onto one of Kamloops’ local radio stations, B100.
After building up their fanbase in Kamloops, Flores said they used the summer of 2019 to start expanding outwards and did shows in Winnipeg, Vernon, Kelowna and, because of his lakecity connection, Williams Lake. Williams Lake especially was a successful show for them, drawing around 60 people, and do the fairly large fan base they have here, it made them want to return for another show.
On Saturday, Nov. 9 at CJ’s Southwestern Grill they’ll be taking to the lakecity stage once more for a high energy and exciting show. All tickets for this concert will be sold at the door for this all-ages event for $10 a person with the band hoping to see around 80 to 100 people turning out.
Doors open at 7 p.m. with the first act going up at 7:30 p.m. with the Lost Boys performing around 8:45 p.m., Flores said. Opening acts will consist of B.C. hip hop and rap artists including Corey Sims, a well-known face in the local hip hop scene.
“I think people should come out to the show because it’s going to be a good performance and we bring a good stage presence. I don’t know what else there is to do for young people in Williams Lake. I grew up there and there was nothing much for me to do on a Saturday night as an underage teenager,” Flores observed.
Looking to the future of the band, both Hosler and Flores said they hope to be able to tour the world one day doing music full time.
“We set up this weird little goal, the other day, that we want to play every single registered town in B.C., that’d be insane,” Hosler said. “We’re trying to travel as much and play as many shows as we can.”
To that end, both Hosler and Flores have switched their jobs to part-time to pursue music, which they view as a calling as much as a profession. They say a lot of people don’t realize what they truly want to do until they’re older and while they’re young they want to do everything they can to make their dream a reality.
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