Her Campus Cal Poly recently met with half of the incredibly talented band “Box the Oxford” after hearing them play for UU hour on Thursday, Oct. 22! Made up of third year, Cal Poly engineering majors Andrew Krippner (guitar and vocals), Colton Stapper (guitar and vocals), Eric Osborn (drums), and Davis Muxlow (bass), they are best described as having an “indie surf rock” style. Their interests include bowling, motorcycles, and avoiding noise violations – to name a few.
We were fortunate enough to have been able to sit with Andrew and Colton for some questions about their experience in the band.
HCCP: “So I was wondering if you could tell me about how this all started.”
Andrew: “Sure! Well freshman year Colton and I actually got ahold of each other over Facebook in the summer-“
Colton: “Before we met.”
Andrew: “Yeah, so I’m from San Diego and he’s from Seattle, so we connected just over music and started chatting a little bit and then in PCV (where we lived), we actually randomly connected again and realized we were talking to the same person! And then we started playing a lot of music and writing songs together and we did a few things together, just me and him, but then we started tacking on some guys – we added a few different musicians at different times, but we’re really excited that we get to play with Eric and Davis because they’re really talented guys and add a lot to the team.”
HCCP: “What about the name?”
Andrew: “Our response to ‘what does Box the Oxford mean’ is that we don’t really agree on why we chose the name, but we all agree that it is. But really, Box the Oxford is an appeal to aesthetic, ambiguity, and the human experience – that’s my esteemed answer.”
HCCP: “Do you guys write your own songs?”
Colton: “Yeah, the set that we played at the UU we played nine originals, and so we’ve been writing those the last two years.”
Andrew: “I’d say I’m the main author of the songs, and Colton really helps me by inspiring me through everything.”
Colton (to Andrew): “Where do you get your inspiration [from]?”
Andrew: “An observation of the shortcomings of the human experience through post-modernism perspective. Yeah, we see a lot of holes in people’s philosophy.”
Colton: “I think that’s why college is kind of a good inspiration for us, because you see a lot of different people’s thoughts and actions and ideas, and I think that helps us write.”
They said their top three musical influences would have to be