Yeobo is an instrumental band from the Central Coast that's influenced by both psychedelic rock and world music. That influence comes through in their song "Little Cactus," which the band performed in the KAZU studio recently.
The band's name comes from a Korean word that means something like 'sweetheart' or 'honey.'
Kee Hyon Higgins is the band's lead guitarist. He heard the term 'yeobo' when he was growing up.
"Being half-Korean, I lived with my grandparents for a bit when I was in my adolescent years, and so I heard them calling each other 'yeobo,'" he says, "so that left an imprint on me."
Higgins lives in Seaside and along with bassist Glenn Bell, also from Seaside, and drummer Jenn Roby from Santa Cruz, formed Yeobo earlier this year.
"I actually knew Glenn from working together before this," says Higgins. "He and I kind of stayed in touch over the years. (Bell) is a quite a professional musician around the area. He's in a number of bands and he was like, 'Kee Hyon, I'll give your little project some attention.' But he, by himself, is phenomenal."
As for the drummer, Higgins says, "I found Jenn maybe in the safest place on the Internet—Craigslist. So, yeah, a really safe place to find people and invite people into your home, which she did. Thank you, Jenn, for trusting me."
![Yeobo strike a pose outside studio B at KAZU [l to r: Bell, Robey and Higgins].](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/ebb4c2f/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4257x4156+0+0/resize/840x820!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F11%2F24%2F0c25af9c444ead60fbccb3a1133e%2Fimg-0938.jpg)
Yeobo recently released their debut single, "Danny's Walk." The video for the song was filmed at the iconic Flintstone House in the Hillsborough area near San Francisco. Yeobo performed it during their visit to KAZU's tiny Studio B recently, and talked about the making of the video.
Dylan Music: Where does the name for that (song) come from?
Kee Hyon Higgins: So, you know, you have friends...people who mean a lot to you. And I had a friend growing up here locally in Pacific Grove, and he was a good friend of mine, a musician as well. We just played guitar together and he was someone who meant a lot to me. And he passed away...probably like two years ago. I think I wanted to really remember him through just the title alone.
DM: The video for "Danny's Walk" [was] filmed at the iconic Flintstone House. I, like so many other people, go down 280 to San Francisco, (and I) see it on the right side up on the hill. So how did that come about?
Jenn Roby: The Flintstone House is actually a house I see a lot too on the 280 when I'm driving to the city. We reached out to the Florence Fang Foundation and they let us film there. Florence Fang is very supportive of artists. She's an artist and she has a lot of different projects throughout the house. There was some issues with her putting more art in the backyard and a lot of the neighbors...they got annoyed.
DM: That's so funny. All the neighbors probably hated it because it's so cool. I love it. I mean, they should be overjoyed!
Glenn Bell: I agree.
DM: It's such a funky, cool house over there. All right, so what's another song that you have that we haven't heard yet?
KHH: We're going to play a song called "Pale." It is coming out Nov. 22 with a video that we're brewing as well for that single.
DM: "Pale." Okay, here we go.
Yeobo will be performing on Halloween at Oblo Cocktail and Kitchen in Santa Cruz. They'll also be performing on Nov. 10 at Fruition Brewing in Watsonville and on Nov. 14 at the Shanty Shack in Santa Cruz.
