BAMP Project / Aubry Boutin is the most important member of BAMP. This is because, without him, the local concert-promoting supergroup–BAMP is an acronym for its founders’ names: Brad Smith, Aubry Boutin, Matty Hazelgrove and Philip Pendleton–would be all consonants. We’re joking, of course (who needs vowels these days, anyway, in an era of bands with names like GRLFRNDS and !!!). We don’t actually know who the brains behind BAMP might be, or if there even is a clear frontman, and that’s mostly because the foursome takes great pains to be regarded not as individuals but as an entity.

First, a little background: Late last summer, BAMP responded to repeated interview requests from Honolulu Weekly with enthusiasm–but also with insistence that “the guys,” as their spokeswoman Monica Ivey describes them, be interviewed all together or not at all. It was an unusual demand to get from promotions people, who tend to be experts at giving perfectly packaged phone interviews with stock quotes about how awesome and newsworthy their fill-in-the-blank is. But we were game, and arranged to send a reporter to meet them at the sound check, per their request, before the Silversun Pickups show on Sept. 5. Only, once our reporter got there, he was turned away. It seemed “the guys” had changed their minds. Sure, plans change, but BAMP went on to reschedule and subsequently cancel interviews planned for sound checks before two more shows before finally agreeing to put Boutin on the phone, solo, for an interview.

This is just the beginning of a hint at how BAMP operates–that is, much more like musicians than a crew of professional promoters–which might also begin to hint at why they’re so good at what they do. And that deserves to be restated because the guys from BAMP really are good at what they do. They bring an incredible array of music and entertainment to Hawaii: Band of Horses, MGMT, Matt Costa, Matisyahu, Mickey Avalon, John Legend, Bad Brains, The Used, Panic(!) At the Disco, Vampire Weekend, 311, Modest Mouse, The Fray and M. Ward, to name a recent few. In the span of a half-decade, they have reinvented the local music scene.

In short, BAMP delivers. Still, a successful company run by four men who only want to talk about what they do when they’re all in the same room? It sounds more like a rule that might be instituted by a boy band than a business collective.

“No, no, it’s not anything like that,” says Boutin. “It’s just that we’re a team and we want to be represented as that.”

The way Boutin describes the group is sweet, if almost impossible to believe, in the same way that, say, the Jonas Brothers might describe their dynamic: Not only do the BAMP guys love every second of their jobs, he says, but they never fight–never even disagree–about anything. Ever.

“Honestly, we don’t,” says Boutin. “I know that sounds crazy but we all are very accommodating. We’re just all on the same page and we flow with it. I am sure one day we’ll disagree, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

What they’ve agreed upon over the course of five years and more than 100 shows since BAMP’s inception is the need for a thriving music scene in Honolulu and throughout Hawaii. “We just saw a need for shows,” says Boutin. “Not so much, you know, everyday radio music concerts, but more like shows that are eclectic. The artists that you would probably never see in Hawaii, but you could see every day in L.A. and New York.”

But the guys at BAMP didn’t just want to be able to attend the kinds of shows they felt were lacking, they also wanted to hang out with the musicians who interested them. And what better way to get into the green room than to be the one responsible for the concert?

“We thrive on getting to personally meet the artists and just getting to know their behind-the-scenes personas,” says Boutin. “Being around musicians is fun. Just being around them on a casual basis is what motivates us to continue. They’re artists. And, I will say that the myth of people only wanting green M&M’s in their bowl backstage is not correct. Artists aren’t that crazy. Usually, everything just flows perfectly. We love what we do.”

Of course, Boutin’s passion for BAMP’s mission doesn’t mean that accomplishing it is easy. The talent may not demand color-coded candy, but BAMP is still responsible for making sure that every logistical aspect of a show runs smoothly–from booking to marketing to travel arrangements and beyond. And they get it done. They reliably recruit stellar musicians and make shows happen.

That isn’t always the case in Honolulu. In the entertainment business, nothing is guaranteed, but in a metropolitan area like Honolulu that’s much, much harder for touring bands to reach than its population counterparts (like, say, Boston, which is within hours of several other major metropolitan areas), the ramifications of a gig falling through are much greater. There isn’t always an act to sub in at the last minute and rarely a comparable show going on in another bar down the street. Take last weekend for example, when buzz about Snoop Dogg performing at Chinatown’s SoHo Mixed Media Bar lured a larger-than-average crowd to the nightclub–which then refunded the night’s cover charge to angry patrons when the rap artist didn’t show.

SoHo owner Daniel Gray, who had confirmed the “secret show” on Thursday, says he was duped by false promises from notorious local concert promoter Turk Cazimero.

“People warned me about working with him,” says Gray. “Like, years ago, he promised Public Enemy at Pipeline and it fell through. I believed him about Snoop, though. I’m as disappointed as anyone. It makes me look bad, too.”

In the entertainment business, as in many industries, one’s word is his currency. And BAMP’s reputation is, by all accounts, sterling. Everyone from fellow promoters to the tech guys who work the sound at regular BAMP venues like Pipeline Cafe say that working with the guys is a pleasure–not least of all because, as one local public relations representative puts it: “They’re all ridiculously good looking. They look like they’re in a band themselves.”

But when asked how they’d fare if BAMP took the stage, Boutin cracks up–at first.

“What’s funny is that we’re all really shy and we hate getting on stage,” he says. “I’d probably be guitar. We’d need to find the right singer.”

It doesn’t seem so far-fetched. They already have a band name of sorts, and, in turn, a blossoming brand. The other BAMPs out there–the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners and the Builders Association of Metropolitan Pittsburgh, for example–may well have noticed that the acronym they share has become synonymous (at least in Honolulu and on the Internet) with musical greatness.

Plenty of others have tried and failed to accomplish what BAMP has accomplished, and understandably so. It’s not easy to sustain a business model that requires flying people to the most remote location, as measured by distance, on Earth. Boutin says that the secret to their success, beyond hard work and determination, is carefully guarded–as is the amount of money they make each year, though he will say they’re able to turn a profit–but he’s quick to open up about the overwhelming support from a community of Honolulu music lovers.

“BAMP wouldn’t be around if we didn’t have people making an effort, buying tickets and coming to our shows, so we definitely want to thank our fans,” Boutin says, catching himself almost immediately. “Well, I guess they’re not our fans–they’re fans of the music–but the more people who continue to go to shows, the more artists we can bring. Our goal is to bring new and changing artists nonstop, the more the better.”

The thing is, BAMP does have fans, and lots of them. Honolulu’s serial concertgoers gush about the guys. Sure, they aren’t the ones playing their hearts out on stage, but they are the ones to thank for those who are, and that’s not lost on the people who pay attention to local music offerings. In the grand tradition of the boy band, the guys behind BAMP are young, driven, successful, chronically agreeable and in it purely for the love of music. But boy bands break up. We can only hope that BAMP never will.

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