It’s been six months since they released their first EP, Believe, but the hype surrounding the half-Irish, half-Canadian band ROMES has created a ripple effect that is still being felt. The four-piece have been omnipresent since putting out the record and are regularly selected for band and song of the week by Noisey, Spotify, Shazam and the Guardian, to name but a few.
Their back story is endearing to say the least and echoes that of many other humble beginnings. Jacob Bitove and his brother Nick moved at a young age from Canada to Wicklow with their parents. “I didn’t really have a choice, they just kind of dragged me over…”, Jacob Bitove laments, before adding: “But I suppose it was all for the best because I met you guys.” There they met bassist Andrew Keyes and guitarist James Tebbitt at St Gerard’s School, Bray, where they first formed. “When I started playing with Jacob and James I couldn’t even play an instrument”, admits Keyes: “They kind of just asked me to join the band just because I had the same taste in music as them.”
From there, the band underwent constant evolution. “Just depending on who was around in the year dictated who was in the band. For example, Nick [Bitove, the drummer] was five years ahead of us and was never really in the band with us until this point. We had different drummers from Greystones or from our year gigging around with us and that dictated the different bands. Whenever we gained or lost a member we began with a completely new name”, explains Keyes.
The result of this journey is an archetypal synth-pop sound: placid synthesisers, rolling bass, spiky guitar riffs and anthemic hand claps embodying an almost retrogressive sound that echoes the old of INXS, and mirrors the new of Years and Years.
Upon leaving Ireland, the band settled in Toronto, initially tagging along with the Bitove family as they migrated back to their native Canada: “When we finished up in Bray and Nick finished up college in North Carolina, I guess we just wanted to take a year out. The year ended up going pretty well and then one year led to two and three, and we’ve just been plugging away ever since. But we didn’t do it with a master plan in mind, it was just a bit of a laugh.” It was there that the band found their feet, going through one last re-shuffle before establishing themselves as ROMES: “That band did OK for a couple of years but ended up losing a member. Since then we’ve been doing ROMES, but even from the very start this feels like it’s definitely the purest distillation of what we’ve done. I think we’ve always worked really well just the four of us together, and this is really the first time just the four of us have been able to give it a lash”, explains Keyes. Bitove agrees with this sentiment, declaring it an almost integral process to go through cycles of a band until you find the right balance: “We’re finally making the music we’ve wanted to make, and we definitely had to make all those steps to get here pretty much.”
The group share a uniquely strong bond, a familial one that goes beyond the existing sibling relationship half of them share. “The other two lads in the band have basically just grown into being my brothers as well, and we have this tightly knit family, and we know when not to step on each other’s toes. It’s just a really good environment where we’re like best friends, brothers, whatever”, says Bitove, before Keyes jokes: “Yeah, we’re like the Canadian equivalent of Oasis. Instead of calling each other dickheads all the time [the brothers] get on really pleasantly and apologise to each other all the time.”
The result of this journey is an archetypal synth-pop sound: placid synthesisers, rolling bass, spiky guitar riffs and anthemic hand claps embodying an almost retrogressive sound that echoes the old of INXS, and mirrors the new of Years and Years. The band developed this sound during an extensive period of writing, penning some 40 tracks before any definitive plans for recording had been made, then striking gold when renowned studio producer Tony Hoffer got on board. Hoffer’s resumé includes work with M83, Phoenix, Beck, Foster the People and Depeche Mode amongst a host of others. In total, Hoffer’s work has been nominated for five Grammy Awards and one Mercury Prize, making the decision to go into the studio with him a “no brainer”, according to Bitove. “We hit up a couple of producers and when Tony got back to us instantly with feedback and saying he loves what he’s hearing and that he could make something special with it. Right then and there we just knew right away we had to get in the studio with him.” Keyes hails his input while recording in LA as a factor that galvanised the band’s sound, sometimes turning demos into fully embellished songs in just one take: “Tony made everything seem really easy. We used to be really meticulous and go over everything with a fine tooth comb, but Tony was more about getting the right emotion, energy, atmosphere and feel. It just ended up being very relaxed and chilled, and it was just a great environment. Cam Lister as well, the sound engineer, they just made it a really fun place to be creative and work.”
Despite being lauded as an 1980s-inspired outfit updated by modern production, the pair admit they’re not sure where the influence bled through. “I’ve seen those comparisons, and we’ve gotten it for the past while now”, agrees Bitove: “I think I can speak for the whole band though when I say that those are some bands, as legendary as they are, that we’ve never really listened to, like Duran Duran for example.” Keyes elaborates: “We like writing pop music and electronic music, but we like doing it with real instruments, so that’s kind of where it stems from. I know Tony is a big New Order fan and he loves Depeche Mode and all those guys, so maybe he gave it that sound too.”
We like to write big choruses, we always have. It’s kind of the Pixies idea of having sparse verses and then huge choruses.
For a band that has only released a total of five songs, their work has gained significant traction and airplay, featuring heavily in American sports shows and even making an appearance on this year’s edition of NFL video game Madden. Keyes explains that this is not taken for granted: “Our reaction was a bit more subdued that it should have been, just because we knew about it for so long and couldn’t tell anyone. We were over the moon. To have the feedback be so great and have all these things come through, especially in the first few weeks, was really special and something I won’t forget, regardless of how things turn out in the future.” The band attributes this to the manner in which they develop their songs: “We like to write big choruses, we always have. It’s kind of the Pixies idea of having sparse verses and then huge choruses”, Keyes says. Bitove once again cites Hoffer as a big influence in terms of song structure but also ascribing it to their own lyrical content: “That was actually a huge thing with Tony on this record, that you’ll find the verses are more on the laid-back kind of things so that when the choruses hit it just sounds like an explosion. So maybe that gives it that anthem factor. I think with a song like ‘Believe’, our lead single, the lyrics give it that inspiring, motivation type song, so maybe that’s why it’s picked up for all these sports things because it has that quality to it.”
Naturally, ROMES are on the radar of fellow St Gerard’s alumnus, Hozier, who presciently commented about the band in an interview some months ago, admitting “you never know” when pushed about a potential collaboration. Keyes and Bitove’s response is certainly more revealing and captivating than initially expected: “We did a jam with him a couple of weeks ago that will hopefully never see the light of day”, divulges Keyes. “It was at four or five in the morning, and we were doing a mess around of Foxy Lady by Jimi Hendrix. That’s the only thing we’ve ever had in the works, and I’d say if you listened back to it would probably end up being the only thing we’d ever do as well.” Any potential collaboration that could materialise will have to wait, however. The band are busy planning a tour in support of the album release, expected some time early 2017, and are hoping to play an Irish venue “sooner rather than later”.
