What started as a dream has become a reality now that North Star Boys cemented themselves as the group to watch. Founded by brothers Sebastian and Oliver Moy, the group also includes Regie Macalino, Ryan Nguyen, Justin Phan, Darren Liang, and Kane Ratan.
Fun fact: It was actually Sebastian and Oliver’s mom who inspired the group name North Star Boys. “My mother is a big inspiration in my life. Growing up, she always told Sebastian and I, ‘Follow your North Star.’ It means find out where you want to be in the future and then work backwards (from there),” he previously told YSB Now.
During our virtual chat with Oliver Moy, the talented 21-year-old talked about his passion for creating music that mean something. He also delved into the process of music-making, getting to meet American DJ and record produce Steve Aoki, as well as what Stars (as fans are lovingly called) can expect from their debut album.
1. For the Malaysian audience who are not so familiar with you and NSB, could you tell us about who you are and what do you do?
I am Oliver Moy. My passion is music. I started and founded North Star Boys with my brother Sebastian Moy. This was about 10 months ago and ever since it’s been a journey, to say the least.
2. At what point did you notice your following had started to blow up?
I would say like a year into social media. That’s when things started picking up. I’ve been on social media for about, I think I’m entering six years now. Posting consistently and it’s been a lot of fun. I myself have about close to 12 million followers across all platforms and the group for NSB has over 45 million followers.
3. We’ve noticed that you guys have really passionate, strong Pinoy fans. Is the group largely made up of a few South EastAsian ethnicities?
Yes, correct, actually. North Star Boys are an Asian American content group. So our backgrounds vary from many different places. A little bit about myself, I’m half Colombian and half Chinese and some of the members in the group are Filipino and Chinese, and it really does vary from different areas. And yeah, I love the Pinoy Stars so much.
4. Speaking of music, we understand that you and NSB are currently working on releasing your first album. Could you tell us more on that?
So, in the past 10 months, I’ve recorded over 150 songs and a lot of the songs I’ve recorded with the members of North Star Boys. So we are getting ready to release our debut album in the upcoming months alongside a debut EP which is coming very shortly. And alongside, our debut single is dropping within the next two, three weeks. So, a lot of things to be excited for.
4. Are all the tracks written by you?
Yes, I produce, engineer and songwrite. I actually record right here in my bedroom.
5. Is this your first time recording and producing your first record and how is that process like?
No, I’ve produced and engineered many records and wrote a lot of songs. We are releasing the songs that we feel is a part of the story. Not just the story for our music, but also the story for NSB as a whole. It has sounds from the genres of hyper pop, alternative rock and pop and we’re we’re taking all of our favorite sounds and the things that we love to listen to on a daily basis and we’re putting it together in our projects to make it as close to us as possible so that when we release music for our Stars, our fans, they can really feel us through our music.
6. What’s the theme of the EP?
We’re dropping a single called “Sunshine”. It’s going alongside with a music video as well, dropping on the same day. That song is very special to me because the music video and the song resembles what drives you. You know, a lot of things drive us. For myself, what drives me and what motivates me are the members and the team that we have here at North Star Boys because I’m very passionate about NSB. And I want to see each individual here grow as a person and grow in their careers. So that is my sunshine. Now, all of the other members, they have their own definition of what their sunshine is. So, I’m more than excited to share this piece of music with the world because this is what we’ve been working on for the past 10 months, and we’ve been working on it every single night.
7. You mentioned about writing over 150 songs. Was it hard to nail it down to a few selected songs for the EP and was it hard to cut some songs out?
Very much. Yes, there’s a lot of songs that I’m working on recently, like in the past two, three days, that I’ve fallen deeply in love with but I know that I cannot release that alongside the upcoming projects, because it’s not the same vibe and whatnot. It’s not the same feeling and sounds. So I plan on releasing those songs later on in the future. But the songs that we’re about to release, it took us like 10 minutes to write the songs and like a couple hours to produce and engineer everything. Because when we write, it’s not like we go into a room and we have a pen and paper and we write. We pretty much just freestyle into the mic and that’s how we get our emotions from what we’re thinking into the computer to record. It’s a very fascinating way to record and I think it’s very raw.
8. How many songs are we expecting for the first record?
We want to do seven songs for our first project—our first debut EP—but we might throw in one special song as the eighth song, but we’re not too sure yet. And I guess we’ll just have to see.
9. The acoustic version for “You Are My Star” was really good. Is that also the kind of vibe that we can expect from your new music or is it going to be a different direction?
If you enjoy the acoustic “You Are My Star” cover, then there’s going to be a song inside the EP that you are going to love. It has a very similar raw vibe to it and it definitely came from our hearts so yes, you can expect that in the EP.
10. We also noticed on your socials that you’ve met some pretty huge Hollywood celebrities. What were some of the interactions or celebs encounters that stood out to you?
Are you familiar with Steve Aoki? It was really cool meeting him. He invited me over to an event that he was hosting. It was about NFT’s and all kinds of different trading cards—Pokémon, baseball cards, basketball courts cards—and I was able to meet him that way. We were talking about music. We were talking about North Star Boys and some things that he’s working on. Yeah, meeting Steve Aoki was a really cool thing. There’s a lot of other people that I would love to meet in the future that I actually look up to. One of them being BTS. We’re really fond of BTS and we love what they do. So it would be really cool to meet them one day.
11. Did Steve Aoki give you any advice on how to put out new music?
Not much advice on putting out music, it was more so talking about genres of music. He’s into EDM and he’s also a DJ. So we were talking about a little bit of that and now sharing with him the direction that I want to take when it comes to music because my biggest goal when releasing music is to create something new. I want to create sounds that people are not too familiar with because I want to innovate. I don’t want to just create music that is replicating what is already out there. That’s why we’re mashing a couple of genres together such as alternative rock and hyper pop and pop music and a lot of the sounds that people are familiar with, but also giving it a nice NSB twist to it.
12. NSB represents a large group of Asians. We were wondering if you guys would incorporate your native languages into your music. Has that been in the discussions?
Yes, the group NSB consists of seven members. I’m the leader of NSB. We have recorded a lot of songs where there’s Spanish involved, Chinese and Tagalog from the Philippines. So yes, we do plan on releasing music outside of the English language.
@olivermoy 😂😂 @northstarboys
@olivermoy I think i did the dance wrong
13. One thing that we really liked about the content you put up, especially on TikTok is that you like to be silly and funny and how you entertain your fans. Does that come naturally or do you usually have to plan that out?
When it comes to TikTok, we just have fun with it. It’s nice to put a good plan and structure in what you do. I am a strong believer of that. But at the same time, I believe that the best content comes from when you’re just simply having fun. When it comes to the members of NSB, I encourage them to create content that they enjoy making. As long as you’re having fun doing it, then that’s really all that matters.
14. Is there anything else you would like to highlight?
I want to say a message to the Malaysian Stars. I want to say that I love you very much and we will be going to Malaysia soon. It may not be this year, but I’m going to be trying my hardest to make sure that NSB visits Malaysia so that we can perform, do a couple of shows and be able to see the Stars in Malaysia face-to-face. That’s the goal.
Check out the full interview here:
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Steve Aoki
