Landing a gig at Tesla’s Silicon Valley engineering headquarters sounds like a Gen Zer’s dream job. But tech couldn’t tame Jared Ottmann and Bill Pence’s indie-rock impulses. Collected Pieces (Nail Polish Emoji), Aluminum Boys’ upcoming debut, grew out their late-night jam sessions.
“We’re part of a trend of young engineers who decided to try our hand at the infant electric-vehicle industry,” says Ottmann. “Aluminum Boys is a very literal name. Before moving out to California, Bill was working an aluminum-machining line in a Ford transmission plant, and I was working at a foundry in Sheboygan, Wis.”
Co-produced by Aaron Tap (Matt Nathanson) and Paula Kelley (Drop Nineteens), Collected Pieces features contributions from drummer Sean Hutchinson (Bleachers, Taylor Swift) and banjo player Kyle Tuttle (Molly Tuttle And The Golden Highway). Ottmann and Pence recorded most of their parts in after-work sessions at the Coterie Den, a studio in the basement of a hot-pot restaurant in San Jose, Calif.
The latest Aluminum Boys single, “Common Pleas,” was inspired by Ottmann’s obsession with legal podcasts. “On one of them, someone said, ‘Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court,’ which is just the name of the court in Cleveland,” he says. “Anyway, the poet in me was enamored. I wrote it as a note on my phone and carried it in my pocket years before it became a song.”
Collected Pieces is set for release March 28. We’re proud to premiere “Common Pleas.”
—Hobart Rowland
