It was around 7:10pm when the doors finally opened and security began checking people into The Royale.

The line, which stretched down Boston’s Tremont Street, was abuzz with excitement, as over a hundred fans waited with their tickets out, eager to be scanned inside and secure the closest spot to the stage as possible.

This was The Making Friends Tour, and with dim lighting and warm air, The Royale was now these fan’s safe haven for the next few hours before the show would end and they would be ushered out.

But now- the night was just beginning, and in only a few short minutes, the first band of the night would take the stage and begin a thirty minute set.

And while most of the crowd knew the headliners, The Mowgli’s and Jukebox the Ghost, it was the opening band that brought the most intrigue as the house lights went down and a robotic track began to tell guests exactly who they were.

“Welcome to the Twin XL show. Are you having a good time?” the voice asked the crowd.

“If you do not have a friend one will be provided for you.”

It was then that the trio, featuring an extra touring member, took the stage and launched into their upbeat and antisocially themed track “Sunglasses.”

Made up of two parts The Summer Set and one part The Ready Set/Nekokat, Twin XL is an electro indie band hailing from Los Angeles California.

Featuring lead singer and guitar player, Cameron Walker, bassist Stephen Gomez, guitarist John Gomez, and touring drummer Dave Briggs, Twin XL first made waves in the alternative scene after the release of their debut single “Good” in September of last year.

Since then, the band have released a debut EP, titled “How to Talk To Strangers,” and have played a variety of shows, including The Maine’s 8123 festival. However, the “Making Friends Tour marked their first venture on the road as a full band.

With a set consisting of all six of their tracks, a vibrant light show, and homemade signs that read “YOU ARE HAVING FUN,” and “WE ARE TWIN XL,” Twin XL aptly pumped up the crowd before the main acts took to the stage.

“We are Twin XL and this is our first time in Boston,” Walker announced to the crowd after playing a few tracks. “Thank you to our friends in The Mowgli’s and Jukebox the Ghost for taking a chance on us, and thank you all for being here and taking a chance on us too.”

But who were these three gentlemen? How did Twin XL become a band? Where did they come from?

Second Society Report had the opportunity to sit down with Cameron Walker and Stephen Gomez after their set to find out a little bit more.

Second Society: How did you guys meet each other? I’ve read it as at a house party, is that true?

Cameron Walker: It is somewhat true, but it’s deeper than that. I first met them when I was in one of my first bands in Wisconsin, and Stephen and John were on their first tour with The Summer Set. We met at one of their shows, and then I joined a different band, and we kept ending up in the same circles. We were really around each other for ten years and then reconnected at a party.

Stephen Gomez: We all ended up in LA.

CW: Yeah, we all ended up in LA and that’s when we actually decided to work on music together.

Second Society: Did you plan to start a band together?

CW: We started writing songs before we actually started the band, and ended up really loving the stuff we made, so we just decided to make it ourselves.

Second Society: What got you into music at a young age?

SG: Neither of my parents are musical, but they always had music playing so I grew up listening to a lot of different stuff. I got super into disco. I fuck with disco and funk music (laughing). But really, I grew up around music, and in high school was when I got super into punk rock and emo music. That was the first instance of me really falling in love with music.

CW: I had a lot of musical influences growing up, and my mom was really into music. I definitely think that you can hear our influences come through in some of our songs. We definitely have Beatles-esque harmonies and motown funk influenced drums.

SG: I definitely think my rhythmic sensibilities came from the stuff my parents got me into. I’ve never been able to get into white people music. It just has no rhythm!

CW: That’s true. Stephen does all of our drum tracking, and splices it up so instead of being on beat and very regulated, he splices it up so it sounds like a real drummer. He’s great at it.

Second Society: Were your parents supportive of you pursuing a career in music?

SG: Oh yeah, my mom told me to drop out of college. My old band had just signed with a record label, and I was like “Mom we just got signed, but I have to go on tour forever,” and she was like “Do it. Drop out of school.”

Second Society: So you’ve told us how you got started, but why Twin XL. How did you come up with the name?

CW: That is more of a John question, but since he’s being our fearless captain loading our bus, it was because he saw the word twin somewhere…

SG: He liked the word twin, he saw XL somewhere.

CW: Oh, yeah. John liked the word twin and he was driving somewhere and saw XL on a sign or something.

SG: And he was like “Twin XL” and it just kinda stuck. It’s like the Boeing 747. It’s not the 747th model of the plane. It means nothing, it just sounds cool.

CW: And it worked out because our logo looks like an XL, which is what happens when you hold down the “L” key on your phone, which Stephen actually found accidentally. So that was cool because then anyone could use our logo and we could turn it into something.

Second Society: Now that Twin XL has become a band, and you’re on tour, what has been the hardest part of transitioning away from well known projects, either The Summer Set or Cameron, your work with The Ready Set and various other projects, and into something completely different with a new sound?

CW: I feel like I’m a slut when it comes to bands because I always attach myself to different projects (laughing) so it hasn’t been that difficult for me.

SG: I honestly never thought I’d go on tour again, and it’s been a pleasant surprise that people care about us and want to see us, especially as- until recently- we were unsigned and doing this all ourselves.

Second Society: Oh congratulations, are you allowed to share any more about that?

CW: It’ll be out soon so yeah, we just signed a deal with Sony Red a few days ago.

Second Society: Congrats!

CW + SG: Thank you.

SG: But yeah, I didn’t expect to ever be doing all of this again. And you can definitely tell that there are some people at our shows that only came for a nostalgic meet and greet, and that kind of sucks, but most people have been really welcoming to us. And it’s still great that they are all coming to our shows, and that a lot of people seem to like our new stuff.

CW: This EP and band was about making a statement, and jumping into a new world of music has kept us open minded, humble, and is allowing us to make our mark in a new territory.

Second Society: Is that why you toured with two bands (The Mowgli’s and Jukebox the Ghost) that are outside of your traditional genres?

CW: I wouldn’t say that they are outside of the genre of Twin XL.

Second Society: Had any of your previous projects toured with either The Mowgli’s or Jukebox?

CW + SG: No.

CW: We are really trying to make something new. And that’s why when we aren’t on tour we will be writing, and when we aren’t writing we’ll be on tour, or working on something to enhance our visuals. We are always doing things to help enhance the project, whether it be music videos, photos, or writing.

Second Society: What do you want people to take away from or get out of your music?

SG: I often wonder if people pick up on the depth of lyrical content in our music. They sound happy and upbeat but there’s very much a contrast between our chill choruses and our “emo” verses. That’s where our emo roots come into play.

CW: There’s an iconic bittersweetness in the tracks. It started when we began writing and we weren’t writing for a specific project. Then we wrote “Don’t Wake Me I’m Still Dreaming,” which is all about the feelings you have as a kid when you see the world in colors, and then you grow up and are like ”wow this kinda sucks.” It was that idea, that you can have an epic powerful song, with deep lyrics. And we were like “This is what this band is going to be.” I hope that people appreciate the lyrical depth.

Second Society: At what point when writing songs did you decide you wanted them to be your own and to make a band together?

CW: I think about two songs in, when we wrote “Good.”

SG: “Friends” was the first song we wrote intentionally for the project.

CW: Yeah, “Friends” was the first song for Twin XL, but we had also previously written “Neon Summer,” “Everybody’s Talkin’,” and “Good.”

Second Society: Are there any specific musicians that have inspired your sounds? Beyond what you grew up with at home as kids?

CW: Oh tons. Muse was a big one, Sir Slide, MGMT. Now I’m forgetting every band I listen to (laughing).

SG: Foster the People’s first album, Borns… I’ve been an indie kid forever, but I didn’t have the musicianship previously to do anything with it.

CW: We’ve always loved the music but it wasn’t until recently that we had the confidence to pursue it.

SG: Nothing scares me now. In my previous band it was always “is this too.. Emo?” “Is this going to freak people out?” and lots of “ifs.”

CW: There was a pressure to fit into certain expectations. Now we are taking our time, with no time restraints and no limits.

Second Society: What has been your favorite song that you’ve written together so far?

SG: “Don’t Wake Me” is my favorite.

CW: “Don’t Wake Me,” “Friends” or “Sunglasses.” I really love the line in “Sunglasses” that goes “I’m terrified of new friends, they love you then they leave you dead,” because that’s really just the story of growing up and the LA experience.

SG: That’s relatable across human existence.

CW: Especially when you get older. I don’t know how many friends I’m going to make in my 30s. So many people you meet and think you’re friends and then they end up being shit.

Second Society: What has been the best part of touring so far? Or something special about playing live?

CW: Definitely 8123 Fest, which was in John and Stephen’s home state of Arizona. That was the first show we played where people came to see Twin XL for Twin XL. Even though we only had two songs out at that point.

SG: And people actually knew the words.

CW: Before that it was all local shows in LA where we had to beg our friends to come out.

SG: Or it was all industry people.

CW: Yeah, and also of this tour, Pittsburg has been the biggest surprise and coolest so far. That was one of the first stops where the crowd really knew all the songs and it was loud. It’s been really cool to see each night how our music has been expanding, and more and more people know and sing along.

Second Society: Going back for a second to the topic of videos, I have to ask before we leave about the matching suits. Is that something you are going to continue with?

CW: Maybe. I’m sure there will be a time we don’t do it. But the funny thing about the suits is that I own both of the suits (laughing) . But Stephen has the blue pants, and John only has the orange pants.

SG: I wasn’t going to pay for that. Three fifty for a suit that I probably won’t wear again? No thank you.

Second Society: Was that something you guys came up with- the matching suits- or was it something someone else pitched to you?

CW: We came up with that. We wanted to portray that Twin XL was a team, as one idea.

SG: It’s a group effort.

CW: It’s its own entity and personality. That was our uniform.

SG: I’m sure it’ll happen, but I can’t imagine a time when we won’t wear them in a video.

Second Society: And lastly, we noticed you had a touring drummer with you. Since you guys don’t have a drummer in the band did you ever consider using tracks live, or were you nervous about playing without a drummer?

CW: Oh yes, that is Dave Briggs, he was in The Cab, and also plays drums for Skizzy Mars. He is the only person I think that could take what we do in the studio and do it live. He was one of two people we talked to about doing it, and when the other person played we were like “eh,” but Dave was great.

SG: We considered using drum tracks, though, and I’m really glad we didn’t do that.

CW: Me too. I hope that it’s Dave forever with us, because he’s the best.

Second Society Report: Awesome, thank you guys so much. We hope to see you again soon!

CW: You definitely will.

SG: We’ll be back in the fall.

CW: But we can’t say more than that!

Be sure to check out Twin XL wherever you stream music, and be sure to follow them on Instagram and Twitter.

And, as always, let us know what you think about their debut EP “How to Talk to Strangers” in the comments below!