Brother Boost
Brother Boost is your indie folk piano pal in Berkeley, CA.
Brother Boost is the music of Peter Hatch. By day, Peter is a UX designer in San Francisco, and he taught high school art in his 20s. After work, he gets down to business as an obsessive music tinkerer/writer/producer. He was raised on Elton John and Ben Folds Five, and was polished after college by Sufjan Stevens and Bon Iver. He lives with his wife Liz, and their rabbit, Mr Chili, in Berkeley, CA.
His first solo project, Nanobits, was made from old Casio Tonebank, cheap tapes, MIDI beats, a vocoder, and blink-and-you-missed-em sub-2-minute songs. These Nanobits songs were introverted, unfinished, and explorative. They were mostly stashed away on old hard drives, and were lost to the archives. But they laid the groundwork for something all-around bigger and better.
At 39, Brother Boost was born. After 20 years of bedroom recordings and half-creations, the looming milestone of 40 meant it was time to get to work. Call it a mid-life-crisis; it was abundantly clear that to write a fully-formed record, to focus time and resources on making it all it could be… this was the priority. The single goal: release a record before his 40th birthday.
The strategy:
Write all new songs and apply every lesson learned
Write autobiographically
Invite friends, family, and heroes to help
Work with a producer and mixer
Share it everywhere
The resulting record, Dead Meat is the debut album from Brother Boost. It's a reflection on friends and family, procrastination, introversion, horseshit, facing 40, and taking stock. And after 20 years of insulated bedroom-recordings and lost hard drives, Dead Meat is an earnest effort to throw away old song-hoarding habits. These songs are vibrant, chromatic, heartfelt, and funny. They should be played maximally loud and shared with strangers.
Peter wrote and recorded the music at home in Berkeley, and collaborated with co-producer, and mixer, Yuuki Matthews (The Shins) as he fleshed the songs out throughout 2021. He employed the drumming wizardry of James McAlister (Sufjan Stevens), and more help on guitars & mandolines from the great Eli West and Justin Keller (Land of Leland). He also added featured vocals and harmonies from his wife, Liz McFadden Hatch (Oh Liza Jane).
Brother Boost is currently, as always, at home writing new music, and preparing for live shows in 2022.
For bookings or inquiries about hiring Peter as a performer or producer, contact him here
