Bob Moses (band)

Howie and Vallance attended the same middle school and high school in Vancouver but were merely acquaintances, despite enjoying similar tastes in music. They had both dabbled into the sounds of California punk, Northwest grunge, and minimalist electronic but never together.[2]

After high school, Vallance moved to New York City, where he worked for a record engineering company for Dutch artist Matthew Dekay on Lee Burridge's All Day I Dream imprint.[3] He originally started his career making trance and progressive house music, with early success at the age of 18 with releases on the likes of Ultra Records and remixes for Sia and her record "Buttons" alongside Chris Lake and Markus Schulz.[4] After working for Dekay, Vallance began working on writing and engineering for Get Physical's co-founder and one-half of M.A.N.D.Y., Philipp Jung.[5]

Howie continued singing and after a year of attending Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, he also moved to New York.[6] He was originally in the rock band Coalition, known for their song "Snowboarding".

After a year, Vallance and Howie reunited in a Lowe's hardware store parking lot. Surprised to see each other in a different country, they decided to spend time together.[7] They started working on music in Howie's apartment.[8] Soon after, they shared a flat together before working on music for the first time as a duo. The duo helped write a vocal hook for one of the songs that Jung was working on.[5] The band experimented with different sounds, since Howie had a background in rock music[2] and Vallance in trance music.[9] They began to experiment and combine the electronic and alternative sounds together.

After some studio time and working for a year, the duo showed the Scissor & Thread crew, specifically Francis Harris and Anthony Collins, otherwise known as Frank & Tony, what they had been working on.[10] Harris suggested the name "Bob Moses" after New York architect Robert Moses,[11] and their debut EP, Hands to Hold,[12] on that label in October 2012.[13] Soon after the release of this first EP, they went on to deliver a second, Far from the Tree,[14] before signing to Domino Records in March 2014.[15]

Bob Moses' debut album, Days Gone By, was released on September 18, 2015. "Tearing Me Up" became the most prominent song on the album, earning Grammy Award nominations for best dance recording and best remixed recording, non-classical.[16][17] It went on to win the latter award for remixer RAC. Vallance said the concept for the song was imagined while both of them were "going through something very similar" in their romantic lives.[7] Howie has pointed out that part of the song's inspiration came from the beat of Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part 2". The song received considerable radio airplay in the United States, having peaked at No. 16 on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart.[18]

In January 2016, Bob Moses performed on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, after being personally picked by Ellen DeGeneres to appear on the show. They performed "Tearing Me Up".[19] Tracks from Days Gone By have also been played on ABC's TV show, The Catch.[20][21][22]

On August 19, 2016, Bob Moses released a special Never Enough edition of their album Days Gone By.[23] The album featured remixes of "Like It or Not" and "Tearing Me Up" from artists like A-Trak, RAC, Joris Voorn, and Tale of Us.[24] The album also featured two new bonus tracks, "She Don't Mind" and "Here We Are", along with live versions of "Tearing Me Up", "Before I Fall", and "Nothing At All."[25]

In 2017, Bob Moses was nominated for Live Act of the Year at the Electronic Music Awards.

On May 30, 2018, Bob Moses announced a new tour in North America, along with a new single titled "Heaven Only Knows".[26]

On July 26, 2018, Domino announced that Battle Lines would be released on September 14, 2018 and released the first single from it, "Back Down."[27]

On September 14, 2018, Bob Moses released their second album, Battle Lines, on multiple streaming and music services as well as on CD/LP via their label Domino.[28]

On December 12, 2019, the duo released the Unplugged EP, featuring acoustic versions of three songs from the Battle Lines album, plus a cover of the song "Save a Prayer" by Duran Duran (from the album Rio, 1982).

Bob Moses released their third album, Desire, on August 28, 2020 to multiple streaming and music services.[29][30] The duo streamed a performance to a live audience at the Inside Lands festival on August 28.[31][32]

Described by the artists as "a love tale for the digital age", the album is presented over six continuously mixed tracks.[33] With typical tour schedules disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the duo told Forbes that they intend to perform live stream sets and begin to collect content for another album.[29]