Originally based in Santa Cruz and often featuring ten or more members, Boostive incorporates musical influences ranging from world and dub to soul, hip-hop, and psych rock. After putting out a series of EPs, their debut album Cream Supreme was released in April 2019, with cover art by local artist Thomas Condry of the Malarkey Collective.
"This album was created with the intention of representing our live sound, with full ten piece band, recorded live in the studio," says bassist-guitarist Seiji Komo. "We recorded a majority of the album live to tape at the famous Eastwest Studios in Hollywood and did additional overdubs at Rarified studios in San Diego. We did all the effect dubbing at the our producer's studio Chubb Dub Studios, right here in Ocean Beach."
The album features 14 different musicians from all over California. "We have a four piece horn section, and four featured vocalists on this record. It was a pleasure to work with such talent at such a famous studio, I mean David Bowie mixed Iggy Pop's Raw Power at this studio. Lots of history in that room."
Asked about the band's worst show, Komo recalls "When we were based in Santa Cruz and we had just bought a new bass tuner. Pulled that thing straight out of the box not knowing its full functionality, and a few songs in we are all thinking why does the bass sound so weird? Am I in tune? Is it some weird phasing with the sound mix? Ended up being some setting on the tuner that is a few cents away from normal 440.. Should have just tuned by ear, but I decided to trust technology over my better judgment, so yes I was just slightly out of tune and played the entire show wondering what was up. The worst part is we were shooting a live video of the set!"
The reggae band's second single on Stoopid Records dropped in summer 2020, “Grow Along,” featuring Divina Dub. That was followed in Autumn by the psychedelic single "See I."