Music
Playing Friday, 29th with Autovaughn and The Rewinds at Exit/In
by Chris Parker
There’s nothing particularly romantic about Rooney’s backstory. The Culver City, Calif., quintet features a male model and an actor, Robert Schwartzman (a.k.a. Robert Carmine), whose older brother Jason is also a noteworthy actor (Rushmore)/musician (Phantom Planet). Rooney’s full-length debut was released on a major label (Geffen), and their big boost came through an appearance on the The OC. They’re not scruffy, lovable basement-playing DIYers—if anything, they appear to be the West Coast’s answer to The Strokes (former tourmates whom they count as friends).
Which is precisely why you should judge an act by their music instead of how many times they’ve been shot, or what they look like, unless we’re talking about those glorified stripper-hacks, the Pussycat Dolls. Rooney—as in principal Ed Rooney from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off—blend new wave and power pop into perky, sugary blasts of energy and melody of a sort that hasn’t been heard since the late ’90s.
“When we started, we were Cars fanatics,” says keyboardist Louie Stephens by phone during a promotional blitz in New York before an appearance on Conan. “Weezer, Superdrag, Supergrass—those are the modern bands [we liked], and then we kind of found our way into the middle.”
Rooney are steeped in classic pop, name-checking acts such as The Raspberries, Beach Boys and Electric Light Orchestra. Their 2003 self-titled debut covers a nice range of sunny, danceable pop rock with the innocent bluster of Buddy Holly, which makes sense, as some of them were still in high school when they cut the album.
“It was me and the guitar player Taylor [Locke]’s last year of high school, and we were, like, going to the prom and then going to the recording studio,” Stephens recalls with a chuckle. “It was great.”
Unfortunately, all that success and good fortune only heightened expectations for their follow-up. The result was a difficult three-year stretch where the band recorded three completely different albums, each with a different producer. Only three tracks from the earlier sessions made it onto the new album, Calling the World (out July 17).
“It was sort of like the first one was too hot, and the second one was too cold,” Stephens says. He describes the first album, recorded with Tony Hoffer (Beck, Idlewild), as “experimental, and satisfying to make,” comparing it to Weezer’s underappreciated second album, Pinkerton. “It came together great and I love the album, but then to try and go conquer the world with that album—it wasn’t going to do that for us.”
They returned to the studio, this time with Howard Benson (P.O.D., My Chemical Romance), but the resultant recordings were slick and unsatisfying. “It sounded like many of the other records he had done,” Stephens says.
They had run into John Fields (Honeydogs, Andrew W.K.) while touring on their debut, and when he saw them later, after their first two recording attempts, he offered to do a track on spec.
“A lot of his influences are spot-on with our influences, and he was able to make us sound the way we wanted to sound, if not better. I just immediately breathed a sigh of relief when I realized we were with the right guy,” Stephens says. “If we had put out, say, the Howard Benson record, I would’ve felt compromised, and with this one there were no compromises.”
Fields is a talented multi-instrumentalist, and he rode the band hard. In the end, it resulted in a terrific album that taught them something about the recording process. “The first time I had fun making the record,” Stephens says. “I realized afterwards maybe there weren’t enough challenges along the way to really squeeze out the good stuff.”
Calling the World’s dozen tracks cover a broad swath of influences. “Don’t Come Around Again” channels The Records’ “Starry Eyes,” while the title track has a jangly, harmony-rich Fountains of Wayne vibe. There’s the plush, E.L.O.-like symphonic pop closer, “Help Me Find My Way.” And the single “When Did Your Heart Go Missing?” is a dance-pop track worthy of Wham! “But I also think there’s a little of Bowie’s ‘Modern Love’ mixed in there,” Stephens adds. He doesn’t try to deny that their music is beyond hummable—you can dance to it. “To have a rock band that can play in a dance club—that used to be normal back in the day, and there’s a power to that.”