The first time Brendan O’Brien saw an Electronic Benefits Transfer card, the system used to deliver Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits to recipients, he was a senior at Emerson College working as a grocery store cashier in Allston, Mass. There, he frequently conversed with customers who relied on SNAP and even discovered that some of his co-workers used an EBT card.
This, he told The Beacon, shocked him — these were people who were working a full-time job, people who, to him, shouldn’t have needed to use the benefits. He realized then the full scope of what food insecurity looks like.
“It’s not how it’s represented in the media. It’s all types of people, ages, families, and family sizes,” O’Brien said.
More recently, when the government shut down last October, November SNAP payments were delayed and cut. Seeing this news, O’Brien wanted to use his music to support his “fellow Bostonians.” He has since donated all proceeds from his recently released album “Silver Replacement” to The Greater Boston Food Bank.
While O’Brien was raised in New Jersey, he was born in Boston and has deep ties to the city. He graduated from Emerson with a creative writing degree last May, and continues to live in Allston. He said that donating to the food bank was important to him because it felt like a way to look after his city.
“Boston was kind of a part of the album from the get go and it feels good to be connected to a greater cause,” O’Brien said.
Since 2024, O’Brien has been releasing music on Spotify and Apple Music under his artist name, Bobrien. However, for his first full-length album, he chose to only use Bandcamp. This was because the platform specifically allows artists to keep more profit than other platforms, O’Brien said. The less money Bandcamp takes, the more money he can parlay to GBFB donations.
“Silver Replacement” is priced at $3 or more on Bandcamp, which at first glance may seem like a random number, but it’s not. Before releasing the album, O’Brien researched the donation to meal equivalence for GBFB. He set the lowest amount someone could donate to $3 to ensure that after Bandcamp takes its 15% cut, each album purchase will provide at least one meal through the GBFB, he said.
In the album’s description on Bandcamp, O’Brien has also linked the GBFB’s website, offering the option of direct donation.
“Silver Replacement,” which O’Brien called a passion project, contains multiple nods to Boston. The album cover, a photo taken on the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Allston Street, shows the storefront of Lee’s 2 Market on a summer day. The reason O’Brien chose this image for his album cover is simple and sweet.
“[The market] is very close to my apartment. I took a photo because I liked the way it looked in the sunlight up against these apartment buildings behind it,” he said. “It’s definitely a place I love.”
“Me and Paris,” the third song on the album, serenades the listener through a day spent in the city. The two characters in the song bike down Commonwealth Avenue, buy trinkets and snacks from street vendors, visit the Boston Public Garden, and finally arrive at The Brattle Theatre, a quick walk from the Harvard station in Cambridge, Mass.
As with the rest of the music O’Brien has released, “Silver Replacement” is self-produced. He learned how to play the piano and guitar by taking lessons as a kid and figured out how to record on his computer by “Googling stuff” and “a lot of trial and error.”
When asked if he was a GarageBand user in his youth, O’Brien replied, “Still. Still. The album is GarageBand.”
While he said he doesn’t have any particular expectations of how his music might be perceived by listeners, O’Brien hopes that other young people will consider donating profits from their creative projects.
“It’s something that I’ve seen already among my peers and other people I know around Boston. It’d be great to see more stuff like this, done by people with more influence than I might have,” O’Brien said.
As for what comes next for O’Brien, he plans to keep writing songs and continue being a creative who prioritizes finding opportunities to give back to his community.
“It is absolutely something to aspire to look for and try to do forever,” he said.
