Sometimes A Legend

Bowman Mays spent two hours on a Wednesday evening in late April explaining the discovery and subsequent proficiency of his musical act, and yet I feel no closer to understanding how he does it. Sometimes a Legend’s musical circ de soleil of fingers expeditiously dancing, unconventionally jumping across his personally tailored instrument is a sight that would attract the attention of anyone in a crowd. What captures your fascination is the fact that it sounds as incredible as it looks. A treat that you can only really appreciate once you have seen it yourself. A jack of all trades, a master of one incredibly unique style of performing.

The setting is a picnic table at Batch Craft Beer and Kolaches on Manor. A pilsner and a cigarette for Bowman Mays (Sometimes a Legend), a stout for myself. Scoring the scene is a large band across the lot consisting of a clarinet, ukulele, percussionist, and vocalists all singing in Portuguese. Bowman shares that he has actually done sound for the band in the past, but tonight he only offers his services after noticing the occasional inconsistency in their mix. The conversation didn’t stutter or trickle, but flowed from the introduction. The artist brings the same energy to his conversations as he does to his performances.

Bowman Mays is a rare breed in many respects but most shocking of all, he has lived in Austin since he was three years old. He did not have to search for music, instead he was lucky enough to be raised in an pre existing ecosystem of musicians. Because of this, he has met and grown up alongside many artists still playing around the city today. His father was a classically trained oboist, and Bowman himself was a student of the instrument when he was younger before jazz combos filled his time in his early twenties. He was once a classical oboe major, which the learned musical theory and practicing techniques are still utilized to this day. Hard work is a cornerstone upon which Bowman’s extraordinary abilities are conceived and perfected. His classical training taught the vital art of musical muti-tasking and reinforced a proven way of rehearsal.

Growing up in a community of musicians led to a number of bands and projects including Bowman. Sterling Steffen, a good friend of his who plays saxophone, DJs around town and performs with Sir Woman, introduced Bowman to artists in the city, including those in Mother Falcon Music Lab. He ended up playing with Mother Falcon and Sip Sip before the invention of Sometimes a Legend.

These projects (both large, sometimes 16-person bands) also forged many connections for Bowman, who now also does sound for events throughout the city. Having knowledge of professionally mixing sound has given Bowman a valuable set of skills that translate well when performing his own shows. He processes his vocals live, which can be a meticulous task when trying to avoid feedback and delay in the monitors. His live mix is also geared towards club systems, so he has to anticipate how sub bass is going to sound live. These are just a couple of instances where his sound expertise is critical to achieving the mix necessary for both performer and audience members alike. 

His keyboard controller midi needs to have a specific bank of faders, preset buttons for switching songs and even song parts, 4x4 jump pad, which limits the number of midi controllers on the market available to Bowman. He actually has four of these controllers because they break so easily. Modifications have had to be made to these devices and specific parts from one are often transferred to another if anything breaks. “They’re not meant to be played in this way,” Bowman plainly states, “so you have to figure out yourself what breaks on them and how to fix it.”

For example, the controller was not designed with the intention of being played tilted away from the player so that it can be in view of the audience. Because of this unique angle of the keyboard, the pitch bender’s leveling mechanism began centering at a different frequency, so he had to solder in an additional potentiometer and modify it until the voltage thinks it is centered again. This is important because tilting the controller to be in view of the audience adds an integral visual element to the show. “If you don’t tilt it, the audience will assume you are playing backing tracks during the performance,” Bowman says. 

The Sometimes a Legend artist recalls engaging in carpentry projects with his father growing up, which may have given him the skills and confidence to start reverse engineering his instrument and making custom modifications. He even build his own carrying case for his specific instrument that is padded AND ventilated. He also built the tilted stand on which he plays his keyboard. He discussed 3D printing buttons for his keyboard for when they break/to design keys closer to his hands for his performances.

The performance we see today was originally built not out of insanity or obsession with the arduous, but out of necessity of the circumstances and the willingness to not compromise on the vision despite existing obstacles. His previous band, still under the name Sometimes a Legend, was performing songs that were pre recorded works of Bowman’s latest projects of the time. Sometimes a Legend slowly became a solo project for Bowman, who is now occasionally accompanied by Sterling, so vacancies were present that were once filled with other musicians. As he continued to perform, elements of his electronic music were now requiring Bowman to step off to the side and play basic sample parts to fully reproduce the songs in a live setting. As the band began to amicably dissipate even further, Bowman realized he was absorbing more (if not all) of the roles that were previously executed by members of the group.

Wanting to avoid the saturated market of piano-playing singer songwriters, and also eager for a new challenge, he pondered a way to perform solo without sacrificing the complexity of his arrangements. I found the oxymoronic dichotomy of pruning a band down to a one-man operation, while simultaneously engineering a performance in the most complex way imaginable, to be both fascinating and provoking. He personally opted to avoid backing tracks, aiming to optimize the organic, occasionally scarce nature of purely live performances. There’s no corporate management of intellectual property, there’s no strangulation of your music. He also did not want to sacrifice the instrumental virtuosity that can sometimes be missing amidst tables of computer equipment present in some live electronic music performances today. None of this was due to Bowman suggesting any lack of talent in these performers, instead he just has a personal preference of delivery.

Originally, he was looking to integrate looping into his sets in order to achieve the desired depth of his tracks when performing live, but similar to back tracks, looping chains you to a specific tempo, meaning he would have to learn to loop fast enough to build tracks quickly to avoid sacrificing the dynamic nature of his songs. While working on this skill of increasingly rapid looping. He determined he would dedicate a year to this skill and get to a point where he can play the jump pad live.

Bowman clearly respects the tactile nature of fast-paced, multi-tasking performers, which added to his appeal of learning this first-of-its-kind skill. It is the music and the challenge combined that achieve his satiation. “That is what satisfies me, but that is not the only thing I like about watching other people perform,” Bowman states as he glances at the Portuguese band still playing in the distance. I jokingly asked whether or not there were any other challenges he was hoping to introduce to his act, and to my surprise, he answered with an enthusiastic “yes.” There are a number of skills and techniques Bowman is actively working on implementing in his set. The attitude of constantly evolving.

This solo iteration of Sometimes a Legend is also ever-evolving. Bowman still has previously written records that are also being adapted for live performances. I asked if his music was now written with his unique solo ability when performing in mind, or if they are written and then adapted, to which he answered, “the fact that it looks cool is one thing, but the music has to be good.”

How can you translate what is organically done on stage vs. what has to happen when writing in a studio to create music? Differing perspectives? Both are seen as mechanistic to Bowman. Music quality is paramount. End goals are not top of mind, rather just taking care of the immediate task at hand. He is hoping to open up for people in the near future, and to do so he believes he will need to release an EP of his written music.

Although the carefully calculated, rhythmic whirlwind of hands skipping across keys and pads is the clear star of the show, Bowman stresses that the human voice is undoubtedly the most important instrument being played during his performances. In order to deliver a great singing voice, it is vital that his hands are operating in a state of pure subconscious muscle memory. As one could assume, this requires a tremendous amount of work. The vocals require most, if not all, of your conscious thought during performance.

Bowman is incredibly grateful to the music community in which he still participates in today, but admits that collaboration is not his thing necessarily, but happy to provide feedback on music when asked. His prior bands incorporated a democratic system of songwriting that did not necessarily sit well with Bowman, who prefers a dictatorial approach to songwriting because although the dictator may not always be right, the work will at least be cohesive. It can be hard to achieve a coherent, unified sound with larger groups. Rehearsals take longer, it makes everything take longer when a group is involved.

Although he is a one-man show, Sometimes a Legend does not create his music in a vacuum and leans on his influences as inspirations when creating his music. Bowman likes to pay attention to others discussing their problems and imagines other aspects of their struggles to create stories within his songs. He also enjoys listening to and drawing inspiration from many differing types of musicians such as Lil Wayne, Frank Zappa, Of Montreal, Doja Cat and even British rap. His adventurous taste expands beyond his style of play and musical palate, which was apparent as we closed our conversation discussing his experiences with the Berlin club scene, the delightful Netflix series Peeky Blinders, and trading names of foreign musical artists that we have come to admire. 

As the Portuguese music faded from the other side of the beer garden and the surrounding tables began to dissipate, a decision was made to relocate to Cheer Up Charlies to meet some of Bowman’s friends and listen to Secret Siren, Futon Blonde and Feeling Small perform. As I slowly walked back to my car to make the short drive home, I reflected on the stimulating conversation that took place in the hours before. I realized there was an immediate regret for posing the question of how Sometimes a Legend came to be such an exciting instrumentalist. Trying to dissect the madness and reduce the methodology into something digestible was a byproduct of immense curiosity, but it was ultimately a fool’s errand. The only way to truly digest his one-of-a-kind act is to witness it, hear it, and feel the wave of awe-inspiring curiosity for yourself.