Boom Forest

John Paul Roney, who grew up in Baraboo, Wisconsin, shaped Boom Forest into his own vehicle, shifting its sound from indie-folk beginnings toward ambient indie-electronic territory through the fusion of organic songwriting and atmospheric textures on the 2015 album Post Knight Errant and the 2019 album Hard Times, Anything Helps.

Roney’s first band was the alt-pop group We the Living, which navigated a major-label cycle and its attendant pressures during the latter half of the 2000s. After the band dissolved in 2010, he relocated to Nashville and, several years later, began recording under the Boom Forest name. The self-titled 2014 debut retained his acoustic-guitar-and-vocal foundation while signaling the sonic experimentalism that would expand in subsequent work.

Post Knight Errant, released in 2015, continued to reflect Roney’s folk leanings yet added progressively darker hues and atmospheric details. Following his move to Los Angeles, he delivered Hard Times, Anything Helps in 2019, a set that leaned further into electro-organic territory by weaving synthetic effects and beats around his soulful vocals.