The yacht rock genre has seen a recent boom in popularity, but what exactly is yacht rock? Tommy Buoy, the singer of the popular band, Yachtley Crew, sat down with WOKV’s Chase Bunker ahead of that band’s Florida shows in February, to talk about the constitutes as yacht rock, what caused the recent boom, and more.

“Yacht rock is soft rock from the ‘70s and ‘80s. All the songs that you would know, like Steely Dan, Toto, Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins. It just kind of got a rebrand in the 2000s by a YouTube comedy series...rebranded to yacht rock, just kind of making light of it. Not really poking fun at it but making light of it, and so that kind of caught on with America,” says Buoy.

On what caused the rise of the genre, Buoy says, “it’s a number of different things, honestly. It’s [YouTube], I would also attribute it to the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, which had a lot of yacht rock hits in them, and really focused on that to bring it to a younger generation, and reminded people how great these songs are. I also think that there’s a part of it that’s like...it’s just really good music from that time, that maybe people aren’t getting that fill with current music. Not to trash current music or anything like that.”

You can see Yachtley Crew at the Orange Blossom Opry in Weirsdale on February 15. You can hear more on yacht rock, performing, and how many nautical jackets Tommy has to bring on tour in the full interview.

You can find more of Chase’s interviews in the Chase Chats section of WOKV.com.

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