Rogue Wave Are A Full Band Now
Friday November 25, 2005 @ 04:30 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

Rogue Wave
Rogue Wave

Zach Rogue's rise to indie pop fame has been nothing short of magical. Sure, it takes some talent to get signed to Sub Pop, but, if you believe the Rogue Wave frontman, he really does owe his success to sorcery.

"I was delivered by a stork to my parents and they sent me to a wizard school for seven years," Rogue says. "Through that nerdy exterior there's something wise and wizard-like."

Rogue is joking, of course. But if there's one kernel of truth to be taken from his fantastic story, it's that he knows what he's doing.

Rogue's musical journey began in 2000 after web developer and recreational musician Zach Schwartz was laid off from his 70-hour-a-week job. With no employment prospects and an impending marriage, Schwartz did what any former full-timer would do — he ran off to New York to make a record.

"[Rogue Wave producer] Bill Racine was living out there," Rogue says from a parking lot in St. Paul, Minnesota. "He mixed some Desoto Reds [Rogue's previous band] stuff, but I didn't know him intimately. I sent him some four-track demo stuff on a lark, and he really liked it.

"He said, 'Come out here, I'm living in Woodstock.' I said, 'That sounds like an interesting thing to do, I have no money, why not buy a plane ticket?' It seemed like a silly thing to do, yet was somehow appropriate. I just wanted to go away for a little bit, and he had a place to stay and access to recording gear."

Those Woodstock recording sessions would become Out Of The Shadow, a complex collection of cerebral indie-pop littered with odd noises, layered vocals and captivating melodies. With disc in hand, Schwartz returned to Oakland, changed his last name and put a band together. Still, he never thought Nirvana's old label would come knocking, let alone that his music would turn into a new career.

"I never really thought about getting signed. That didn't seem like a realistic goal at the time. I was more interested in having people I can play music with. And once the band started playing some shows, that's when it started to feel more real and that's the part that mattered. Getting signed was just crazy. That was a whole other step, a whole other realm."

About two years after his fateful firing, Rogue got the call.

"Someone from Sub Pop called me on the phone and said, 'Can we come to San Francisco and see you guys play and have some dinner together?' It was like a movie phone call. When they started talking to us and they wanted to sign us, I felt really blessed and fortunate."

Since then, Rogue Wave have won over scores of fans, toured North America, and just released Descended Like Vultures, their first full band release.

"Recording the new disc was really different," Rogue says. "On the first record, Bill would be setting up a mic and I would be trying to figure out the part before he was done setting up.

"It was totally seat of our pants. When you have four people in the studio it would have really been chaotic if we did that, so we had to be a little more structured."

Descended Like Vultures is a much more cohesive rock 'n' roll affair. Rogue's odd flourishes are still there, but there's no mistaking this record for a solo effort. Even so, the songwriter's still having trouble convincing people that Rogue Wave are a full-on four-piece now.

"It's not that easy getting people to think of us as a band. It seems like people who want to conceive of a band want to have a singular person. That's inevitable because I sing or because I write the songs. I try to explain that it's all of us. Maybe I'll change people's minds with enough repetition."

With Rogue Wave's new disc getting rave reviews, it shouldn't be long before their fans start thinking about them as a collective. But whatever happens, Rogue is just thankful that he was tossed from his day job five years ago.

"It's a really interesting time for me in my life as an adult, and I don't take this for granted at all," Rogue offers. "For the first time, I want to follow my heart instead of my wallet."

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