Rolo Tomassi: Leaders Not Followers
“The vision is just to be the best version of ourselves that we can be,” muses ROLO TOMASSI keyboardist and co-founder James Spence. He’s answering quite an existential opening question on how he would describe his band’s mission statement at this point in their career, and while he acknowledges that it may be a simplistic way of looking at it, it’s a strategy that certainly seems to be paying off for the genre-defying five-piece. Over the past 17 years they’ve gone from strength to strength with every passing record, and we join Spence and guitarist Chris Cayford just ahead of the release of their staggering sixth album, Where Myth Becomes Memory. True to form, it’s a record that sees the band reach new creative heights, with the quintet pushing further than ever before into the contrasting extremes of their sound.
“There’s not like one generic overarching theme that we’re trying to achieve as a band,” explains Cayford. “There always feels like there’s so much more that we can do. Like as soon as we finish a record it always opens the doors to be able to do more things.” In Where Myth Becomes Memory’s case, this manifests itself in what’s surely ROLO TOMASSI’s most ambitious record to date – one that marks another step up from the already incredibly high standard of its immediate predecessors in 2015’s Grievances and 2018’s Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It.
Reflecting on how the band have continued to push the envelope with every release, Spence suggests: “I think at this point there’s always going to be a sort of house style to it. I don’t think bands stay together for this amount of albums without there being a spine or a soul to it that’s kind of central at least. But I think what we do is just constantly look to push those bits that decorate it, and that’s what changes.”
“It would have been really easy for us to just do Time Will Die… part two,” he adds. “So the kind of pressure that I put on myself and our band was just to make sure we didn’t do that. I wanted something that was definitely going to be a progression from that record. We were delighted with the response to that record; it definitely felt like it helped us take a step up, getting to play shows with bands like GOJIRA, and we just felt like we reached a lot more people. For me I see it more as an opportunity at this point, to continue doing what we think are good things. We just have a bit more of an audience now and we’re hoping to make similar strides with this record too.”
As mentioned, the result is an album of striking contrast, with the band dealing as much in haunting ethereality as they do in crushing metallic savagery. Cayford elaborates: “One thing that I’ve definitely learned, especially when writing, is quite often it’s not so much about how heavy or how quiet something is but more the kind of tone and atmosphere of it. So sometimes I’ll write a heavy riff and I could write a million other heavier bits and pieces that just don’t connect with it for whatever reason, but then James could write something on piano that is more intrinsically linked to the sound that I’m making than anything else that I could possibly write… Essentially it just gives us free rein to pretty much write any sort of music and it still be our band, which is a cool position to be in.”
For all the powerful juxtaposition on Where Myth Becomes Memory, it’s a testament to ROLO TOMASSI that the record never feels disjointed or jarring. Of course, this is the result of careful consideration to the flow and journey of the album. “It’s one of my favourite parts of putting together an album, because it’s something that as a fan of music I’ve always appreciated,” explains Spence. “I’ll always question a band’s decisions as to where they’ve put songs. I think on this record more than any other record we’ve done it was quite hard because there were a lot of combinations of tracks that did work. There was always the first song and the last song, but everything else in the middle was kind of all to play for and we did a lot of work before we settled on the tracklisting and the sequencing that we have.”
This idea of sequencing and journey is something that extends not only to this album, but to the two records that came before it as well, with the band describing Where Myth Becomes Memory as the final part in an “unintended trilogy” that started with Grievances. It’s a concept mainly derived from the lyrics of vocalist Eva Korman, but Spence is happy to shed some light on his sister’s thought process. He clarifies: “Grievances was a lot about grief and the issues that one has with oneself. Love Will Bury It was more about sort of letting go of that and about forgiveness, and this record is about renewal and rebirth and change and brighter, more positive things.”
It’s an inspirational theme for an inspirational work, but even without it ROLO TOMASSI have been inspiring younger bands to pick up their instruments and push boundaries for a while now – albeit largely unintentionally. Both Spence and Cayford agree that it feels weird to think of themselves as a source of influence on others, with the latter expounding: “There have been so many bands that I’ve listened to or gone to see live and suddenly I’ll be like ‘I’ve got to start doing some of that, that’s amazing.’ So if anything that we’re doing is doing that for other people then that’s pretty cool. I guess it still feels like we’re the same age as all of these people… maybe that’s just getting older, but it’s very cool nonetheless.”
Regardless of who they may have influenced, one thing which remains certain is that ROLO TOMASSI have never fit neatly into any one box, and that’s not about to change any time soon. “Ultimately why would we limit ourselves within the confines of one thing?” Asks Spence. “As soon as you call yourself one thing, if you do something that goes against that then people get really mad about it on the internet. We’ve kind of carved our own niche for ourselves and just invented this space where we can exist and do what we want and I’m way happier with that.”
Cayford concurs, and as the duo look ahead to the record’s release and all that comes with it, they agree that they’re just going to take it as it comes and enjoy the process. “Basically the last day in the studio you shut the door and it’s just kinda done and you can’t choose what happens after that,” concludes Cayford. “Even down to the artwork it’s its own beast now and that’s what it is. That whole journey is pretty wild, it’s quite fun, and we just want to keep doing that for as long as we feel this way about it.”
Where Myth Becomes Memory is out now via MNRK Heavy.
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