The Roamers bring a wealth of experience from their individual musical careers to this exciting new venture. Led by Matt Rice, a seasoned bass player and singer who has been a dedicated performer in the Los Angeles area for many years, the band offers a unique approach to making music. "We're a new band and we love playing together, but we’re more like a collective than a group," Rice explains. "The reason I named it The Roamers is because the members/players kinda roam in and out of the band depending on what day, week or month it is. There are a lot of us involved, and it's rare that we can all get together at the same time. Usually, we manage to get three, four, or five of us together when needed. We've all been musicians for a long time, and have other pursuits. We play in each other's bands, do session work, and have various gigs. But we’re always excited to play together."
Formed in 2023, the group played a bunch of local bar gigs to tighten up their sound and live set. Simultaneously, Rice was writing songs, making pre-production demos at home and taking them to the studio to cut with the guys at Sharktank. It took some work and some time, but before they knew it, they had an album. Two songs have already been released as singles, “Room to Roam” and “Do What You Wanna Do” and have racked up substantial listening numbers.
The Roamers embrace every genre of American music they encounter, and this eclectic influence is evident in their songs. The album offers a diverse range of styles, starting with the country boogie of “Playboy,” transitioning to the outlaw punk energy of “Favorite Things,” and embracing a pop-Texan vibe on “Lights Down Low.” It also features the guitar-laden blues of “Room to Roam” and the twangy folk rock of “Where the Road Is Always Open.”
Most of the songs were written between 2020 and 2023. “Most of the songs are a mix of both fact and fiction,” said Rice. “As a matter of fact, I almost named the album Facts and Fiction because that’s how I write. Sometimes there’s a real situation or a real person that inspires a song, but then you take that concept and fictionalize the rest of the story. Other times, it’s entirely fictional, written specifically to suit a melody you came up with or to capture a particular mood you’re feeling.”
One example is the song, “Favorite Things”. “One verse was about someone who was very dear to me and struggling at the time,” said Rice. “It was hard to see him struggle. But the rest of the verses had to be fictionalized based on the same theme to get the song out of it—Your favorite things can be fun, then a crutch, and then it can hurt you.”
"Room to Roam" was the first song they recorded in the studio. "This song might be based on real events or entirely fictional, but it's definitely performed in character," Rice remarked. "For the vocals, Brian guided me on the mood I should aim for. 'Imagine you're Jerry Lee Lewis performing in a rundown bar, filled with nothing but disdain for everyone there,' he advised. Even the band? 'Especially the band!' So, I did my best to capture that mood.”
Inspired by the opening scene of the Robert Mitchum movie, “Out of the Past”, Rice wrote “They Come Around”. "I consider this song to be Americana Noir," he said. "It's about fate and the struggle to move forward despite your past. When I wrote it, I was close to people who were confronting their pasts in unexpected ways, and that influenced my writing, also.”
Basic melodies, chord progressions and lyrics were all worked out before stepping into the studio, but once in the studio, they refined everything. “Once Brian Whelan and Luke Adams got involved in the recordings, the arrangements and performances improved a lot. We had a braintrust of guys who’ve spent much of their lives doing music, with lots of experience in different areas. We’re also friends and happily collaborating on arrangements, tones, mixes, jokes, etc. The sum of these parts was much greater than when the original songs were written by one guy.”
Rice may be a bass player first, but doesn’t write on a bass guitar. “For the last five years or so, my favorite guitar has been a 1960s Kay acoustic. I bought it for $70 on eBay. It’s vintage and American made and all that, but it’s a total cheap-o. The pick guard is painted on. It doesn’t do well with heavy strings. I don’t even know which parts are real wood and which parts are plywood. I dig that I don’t have to feel precious about it. If I’m by the fire pit on a cold night and we’re drinking tequila, I’ll bring it. If I’m on a road trip, I’ll bring it. If I know I’m going to be waiting on someone for awhile, I’ll bring it. It usually just hangs out on a couch or chair in my living room. Sometimes my dogs knock it over. Whatever. It’s always available. And for that, it’s a very valuable guitar to me. I’ve written a bunch of songs on it, including over half of this album.”
Rice played in bands through his teens and twenties. As he got older, a more traditional office-type of career took much of his time. And then his family came along. “As my kids grew older and more independent it freed up more of my time to devote to music again. And with experience comes wisdom. And with a little wisdom, I realized that recording and releasing an album of original material was something that I had to do. It’s a calling. You could say it took a couple of weeks to make this album, or about a year to make it, or you could say it took my whole life, depending on how you measure it.”
The Roamers will release on September 20th, 2024.
