Rooney
This interview was conducted with Taylor from Rooney while on their recent tour with The Donnas and OK Go.
LA Punk: What’s your name and part in the band?
Taylor: I’m Taylor, I play lead guitar and sing some backup.
LA Punk: How would you describe your music?
Taylor: Our music is rock and roll with some poppy songs and um…yah.
LA Punk: How did you guys get picked up by the label and how is that going?
Taylor: It’s going great, we started playing a lot of club gigs in LA and we circulated a demo to all the labels. We landed a really good manager and he helped us get all the record labels to come on down and see the show in LA and it was really crowded and we had a lot of fans already…you know…they smelled something good I guess.
LA Punk: What can fans expect from your long awaited record?
Taylor: Hopefully the energy of our live show. Basically, 11 tightly crafted
songs, no bullshit. Its not one of these records with noises in between or
like skits, it’s not something like that. It’s like 11 tight rock
songs, there’s not a lot of fucking around, no weird songs, not too
many guitar solos, even. It’s very sparse and to the point pop music.
LA Punk: Can’t wait to hear it. After your record comes out would you want to headline your own tour and/or open for bigger bands?
Taylor: We’ve been talking about this a lot lately, funny you should ask. We’re trying to decide what we want to do. It’s nice to be on high profile tours opening for big bands like Weezer, The Strokes and The Donnas because so many people get to see you. But it’s also really great to do headlining tours because if bands do too many supporting tours they sort of give everyone this impression that they are just an opening act. We’d like people to see Rooney as a band that can headline. So, ideally, we’ll do both but for right now I think we’re only going to open for bands. A small handful of elite bands that we think are really great and that are really popular, too.
LA Punk: Who would you want to headline with or go on tour with?
Taylor: That’s a tough question since I consider us such a new, small, baby band still. I can’t think of a smaller band. I don’t know. We have some good friends in LA that have some good bands but who knows?
LA Punk: How do you guys feel about playing such a huge festival like Coachella? Are you nervous or excited about this?
Taylor: We’re excited so far – we haven’t gotten nervous yet. Maybe we will be. I don’t know how big the stage we’re going to play is or how many people will actually see us that day.
LA Punk: It’s going to be a lot …
Taylor: Are you sure? What if we’re on a third stage or something?
LA Punk: It’s a huge thing!!
Taylor: So it’s big?
LA Punk: Yup.
LA Punk: What are you guys listening to at the moment?
Taylor: We listen to a lot of the Beatles on the bus just because you can’t argue with the Beatles, really. If somebody puts it on sometimes you don’t know what mood someone’s going to be in. We listen to ELO, too. The Cars, we listen to Badfinger, David Bowie, Sloan…we listen to a lot of shit.
LA Punk: How do you guys think the west coast scene differs from the east coast scene?
Taylor: The east coast is too fucking cold for me to observe a scene. I’m either on stage or in the bus. There wasn’t enough time to like do stuff like this, to be perfectly honest. I didn’t meet as many people on the east coast because I’m so used to California. We got there and it was like “people god damn live in this weather?” I couldn’t believe it. The west coast scene is our scene, I can’t really compare something that’s home to something that’s not home. Do you mean like the east coast scene as far as the vibe of the bands that have been coming out of New York lately?
LA Punk: No, just that the response you guys get in front of the kids.
Taylor: Oh. Well, yah, we headlined a week on the east coast and we played really small clubs but they were packed shows. The kids sang along and stuff, it was cool. It’s the same but on a smaller scale. I don’t think the type of band is different … they might be paler or something…
LA Punk: I won’t keep you any longer; I was wondering how you guys feel
about playing in your hometown, Los Angeles?
Taylor: It’s a really mixed bag because, first of all, we don’t play there very much now. When we play in LA we really make an event out of it. We never just book a club in LA because we feel like playing a show. Every time we play in LA, we go as big as we can. It’s a real event. So, on one hand it’s great because it’s the biggest headling show we can ever play. We are playing the biggest shows we possibly can on our own. On the other hand, with all the friends and family and industry that are hanging around backstage, it gets a little tense. I get nervous and a little overwhelmed after shows in LA. So I’d say the performance and the time on stage is the best, but everything surrounding it is such a headache. I like traveling a lot. A lot of musicians complain about touring but it’s my favorite thing.
LA Punk: What has been your favorite city so far?
Taylor: I don’t know because I just judge them by the shows. We never really get a chance to really see the city. This was great, Cincinnati was a great show with The Donnas, and Chicago was a really great show. There have been a lot of great shows on this tour.
LA Punk: Great, well thank you.
Taylor: Yup. No problem!
Interview by Robyn London