Miloe
By Kinga Mozes
Miloe started as lead singer Bobby Kabeya’s SoundCloud project in 2017, and has blossomed into a rising indie pop band. The Minneapolis-based band features Theo Galetka on the drums, Dom Winterbauer on bass, and Thomas Schroeder on lead guitar. Keep reading to find out about Bobby’s interests and inspirations.
Q: How would you classify your genre of music?
B: Indie pop, but I don’t really like to put our music into a specific genre or category.
Q: Where does the name Miloe come from?
B: I don’t really know, but I think it might be because I was listening to “Mylo Xyloto” at the time, and that was the first Coldplay album I really listened to. Coldplay is a big inspiration.
Q: How hard is it to juggle school and music? Do you wish you could just do one?
B: Yeah, I wish I could do just one. I feel like I have to half-ass one of them. Sometimes I’ll have to stop working on music to do school work, or the other way around. It’s definitely challenging, and if I go on tour I’ll have to take a semester off or something.
Q: Do you wish you could drop out of school forever and just do music?
B: No, because if Miloe does get successful I would love to go back to school and study what I really want to study.
Q: What do you really want to study?
B: I think graphic design would be really cool. I also have an interest in photography. I’m currently studying communications and marketing because I think what I learn could help the band, but my actual interests don’t really earn you money.
Q: What is your favorite venue or show you’ve performed at and why?
B: Probably the Varsity Theater show; it was in the summer. The energy at the show was just different. There were a lot of people there that I don’t normally see at shows, so that was really cool. We were just so loud there. We played with Qani and Atomic Cafe. It was a lot of fun.
Q: What does your writing process look like? Who writes which parts of the songs?
B: I mostly write the songs and come to the guys with demos. Then they add their own stuff to it. We formed because I asked the most talented guys I know to be in a band and luckily, they said yes.
Q: Who are some of your biggest music inspirations?
B: I would say some of my biggest inspirations are Dua Saleh, Dizzy Fae, Hippo Campus, Keep for Cheap, and Noname. I listened to a lot of Noname last summer, and I was really inspired by how vulnerable she is in her music. That’s definitely something I want to try to do more of and I think that made the song “Everything (That Should Go)” resonate with people. Jose Gonzalez’ soundtrack from “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is also definitely one of my favorites. I’ve listened to that soundtrack so many times; it’s so beautiful.
Q: What makes Miloe unique in the Minneapolis music scene?
B: I don’t know if there’s anything that really makes us unique. We’re just doing what everyone else is. But I guess if I had to say something, I think we’re not afraid to sound like pop music. Our upcoming EP is more pop than our past stuff has been.
Q: Describe your dream music video.
B: I don’t know if I have a dream music video because every time I have to film a music video I can’t remember what my ideas were. I do really like the TOPS music video for the song “I Feel Alive” and the concept of minimalistic music videos that are shot in one take.
Q: What’s your favorite song you’ve released and why?
B: Definitely our most recent one, “Everything (That Should Go).” It's the most vulnerable song I’ve ever written. The story behind it is actually really funny. My friend Qani and I decided to make a joke post on Instagram saying that he replaced me in Miloe, and that I was now Qani. We wrote songs as if we were each other, and I ended up writing this super emo, sad boy song that I actually really liked. I showed it to the rest of the band and we put the song together. It was a fun experience, and I’m happy we did it.
Q: Do you have any recommendations for other Minneapolis bands/musicians to check out?
B: Definitely Keep for Cheap, Hippo Campus, and The Happy Children. Hippo Campus has been a huge inspiration to us. They helped us with the production of a lot of our past music since we didn’t know much about it.
Q: What’s some advice you have for someone just starting out in the music industry?
B: My best advice is to find your own sound. At the end of the day, you should like what you made. It doesn’t really matter if other people like it. Focus less on the audience and whether people will like it, and people will connect and relate if it's personal and important to you.
Q: If you could use one word to describe your music what would it be?
B: Youthful.