Interview: Rolo Tomassi February 18, 2009

Screaming in music divides opinion almost more than anything else. There are those like my friend Alec who will not listen to anything that is not screached at an inaudible volume. And at the other side of the spectrum there are those who insists that anything without a a melody isn’t really music. Now, i don’t approach music with as much of a narrow view as Alec, but i do have to say that bands like Trivium, whether or not they are ‘music’ are pretty shite. So to describe Rolo Tomassi, without making it sound crass to the majority of the music consuming public is difficult. They scream and shriek a lot. But for once, it makes sense, at least to me. Their music switches between jazz melodies on a guitar, to post rock to grating noise core and then to ambient. Classifying it is really difficult and not really worth bothering. The best way to describe it is to misuse a quote from Chris Morris, that listening to a Rolo Tomassi record has an effect “much like the relief at the end of an hours vomiting.” 

I met up with James the star kicking synth playing skins extra from Rolo Tomassi that makes you wish you were as cool as he was. After a limp hand shake we sat down in a bar, over some pear cider to talk about Music, the Matilda Centre and Pro-Evo.

Article:  How did you start making music that sounds like nothing from this city?

Rolo:  Well we don’t really live in the city and we’re not in any scene. We live half an hour away, quite isolated. When we started this band one of our aims was to not play and play in Sheffield cuz we’d kinda done that with our previous things. We just wanted to get out and see other places. It also helped that we didn’t have any local musical peers.

Article: If you have no peers here, who would you like to tour with?

Rolo: Sounding the way we do, there is no band in the uk that we would sound good with.

Article: How about 65 days?

Rolo: We did do a tour with them, but they have got the whole post rock thing going on.

Article: How do you guys make your songs?

Rolo: It’s all down to our guitarist Joe. He writes 75% of what we do. And when I say writes, I mean everything. He is the brain. Rolo Tomassi is Joe.

Article: So what do you do in the band other than jump around and scream?

Rolo: I write the lyrics. I play keyboards. I write some of the music as well.

Article: what are your lyrics about?

Rolo: Well i write a lot of the lyrics with Eva. Personally they are about communication and how people often struggle to say what they really mean.

Article: So you scream them?

Rolo: Yeah, there’s a bit of irony in there I suppose.

Article: Where would you like to be in the next few years?

Rolo: I’ve got no idea. This band was literally about doing what was right at the right moment; taking what was put in front of us. So I’m not sure and I couldn’t really say. I’d be happy to be more financially secure, but on a personal level, if we can keep touring and putting out records, then i’d be pretty happy.

Article: Are you gonna be doing a video or anything?

Rolo: Yeah. It’ll probably be a single from the album… We’ve been talking to someone about doing something. But I can’t really say.

Article: Are far as Sheffield is concerned, is there anything that you would like to see happen here?

Rolo: It kinda seems like a few years ago there was a real push to make the whole DIY thing happen. There was the Matilda centre and you could do what ever you wanted… But the Matilda centre got shut down and the cricketers doesn’t do shows any more… and then there is a Carling Academy built. There isn’t any way to get anything started. I used to put on shows at the Cricketers. Any money I made went straight into the bands. Then Rolo started touring and I sort of fell out of that.

Article: So a couple of years ago Sheffield was better, I’ve heard that a lot. What happened?

Rolo: I think its kind of the people as well. The people that did all those cool things, I haven’t seen in the city for a long time.

Article: So is it all about people doing things?

Rolo: Yeah, I think so. The Matilda centre especially wasn’t just about music. It was about art and other stuff. It was great, i went to shows there, it was always fucking cold. Awesome. And they had their own bar and stuff. Lots of people made an effort to make it work. But now things have almost ground to a halt.

Article: If I said you sounded like you were from Brighton or London, would you be suprised?

Rolo: Not at all. I feel like in sheffield, other than blatant indie stuff, there is not much identity at the moment.

Article: How do we change that?

Rolo: Start a band.

Article: Is that your advice?

Rolo. No. I’m not here to save rock and roll. I’m just raping it for what its worth.

Article: How much is that?

Rolo: Very little