Tyler Schlagenhauf has been playing music for a while now, but there’s something different about Mylo Bybee. The band consists of Schlagenhauf on guitar and lead vocals, Tim Fahlen on guitar and backing vocals, Tony Caruso on bass and Jason Guadalupe on drums. The four musicians are pioneers in bringing back the music that defined early 2000’s emo and alternative rock. The band will be bringing their recent tour to Black Lung Society and Kilby Court Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

An Evolving Form

Mylo Bybee has taken different shapes over the years. The band started as a family project, with a lineup of Schlagenhauf, his brother and his brother-in-law. This era of the band was formative in the creation of Mylo Bybee’s sound and future endeavors. However, the band started changing as Schlagenhauf’s brother started to pursue his own project and his brother-in-law left to focus on his growing family. As one door closes another opens, and in walked Caruso and Guadalupe. The band acted as a three piece for most of its life, but as Mylo Bybee started booking larger shows and festivals, Schlagenhauf sought another guitarist, Fahlen, to round out the band’s sound.

What separates Mylo Bybee from other bands in their scene is their unorthodox background with their instruments, which influences how they write their music. “I fully play by ear,” Schalgenhauf said. “And so I would say our style of writing music, we really are bringing in several different genres of music into one genre that our band is.”

Schalgenhauf brings the band an idea of a song, starting with a hook or baseline. With this inspiration, the band works together to add their own parts, pulling from their own individual ideas of what the song might look like. “We’re really bringing all sorts of different genres of music and backgrounds that each of them listen to, and funneling it through our very odd and unique writing style and pattern and how we do things,” Schalgenhauf said.

In regards to Mylo Bybee’s sound Schlagenhauf strives to bring something unique to his listeners, while staying true to the music that he grew up listening to. “I feel like our genre is a little bit left of center right now, like it’s not the up-and-coming big genre,” he said. “Everyone’s a super big fan of the early 2000s rock that’s obviously starting to really make a comeback and a resurgence.”

A Focused Vision

Mylo Bybee released their song “Time Machine” back in November. The track is a part of the larger story of their upcoming EP which will be released in February. The band recorded the new record several months ago, and have since been working on building a solid foundation for their art to live on. Their team plans to release one more single off the record in January in anticipation for the EP in the following month. Schlagenhauf is specifically looking forward to the release of a custom vinyl in May that will have two additional remixes of songs on the record.

Part of Mylo Bybee’s success can be attributed to Schlagenauf’s meticulous attention to detail and ability to organize the chaos that comes with touring. He views touring as nonnegotiable if you want to promote your individual sound, despite the challenges of rising prices. Mylo Bybee had to come to terms with not making money off the project, at least to start. But for Schalgenhauf, it was never a question of whether he would pursue performing music. All of the experiences that Mylo Bybee has brought for him—playing with bands that he grew up listening to and interacting with fans—has paid him back tenfold. “I guess I’m a glass half full guy. If you get too bogged down in everything, it just kind of seems pointless,” he said.

And there are events for any band where no amount of planning can prepare for what’s to come. From soundchecks to load-in times, it’s impossible to know how each venue handles the details of their shows until they tell you, which can sometimes be right as you’re going on stage. “That’s just one of the things that I’ve learned is to kind of step back, and not really necessarily focus on some of those things that don’t matter as much,” Schlangenhauf said. “It’s more about the experience that people have. It’s more about the experience we have as musicians because obviously we love doing it or else we wouldn’t be doing it.”

Inspiring connections

Commitment to the band’s growth comes with members juggling their respective day jobs and the artistic challenges of today’s music industry. There will always be different barriers for musicians to overcome, and though AI is a major one right now, for Schalgenhauf it’s all about perspective and trusting the community that Mylo Bybee has built. “The fans are such a huge part of this, that fans of music and fans of the art form are not going to let this type of stuff thrive,” he said.

Schalgenhauf copes with the changing industry by reminding himself why he’s doing this in the first place. “At the end of the day, I write music because I love writing music, and I’m not going to stop writing music,” he said. “I want to have this established catalog of my art form that I cherish so much.” Mylo Bybee’s “Time Machine” starts with a simple strum of the guitar and pining vocals, signaling that the song revolves around melancholic nostalgia. Seconds later, the beat picks up, and with the introduction of the rest of the band, it becomes clear that the song is an homage to the past with a toast to the future. Interestingly, the last half of the song is instrumental, and it seems that Mylo Bybee is inviting us to reminisce with them.

And for Mylo Bybee, all of the attention and interactions with fans is just a bonus, but one that they are thoroughly grateful for. Schlagenhauf values the listening experience that people may have when they see the band, and he is adamant that he never wants to put his own interpretation of a song on a listener. “I would say anybody who listens to our song that walks away with any type of emotion being evoked, that’s mission accomplished in my mind,” he said.

Mylo Bybee will be in town this Saturday at Black Lung Society, and Sunday at Kilby Court. The band is also looking forward to the Radio Boise fundraiser show they will be playing at the end of January. More information about their shows can be found on their website or Instagram page.