Photo by Josh Sisk
It hasn’t been terribly long since Baltimore quartet Roomrunner graced D.C.’s ears with their raw energy and oddly catchy distortion, but considering how frequently they crossed the Beltway in 2013, this trek to the Black Cat seems somewhat overdue. Then again, the seventeen month break in between last year’s Ideal Cities and this month’s Separates EP is longer than we’re used to from the band. This EP, out on D.C.-based Accidental Guest Recordings, still has the impressive riffing we’re used to from the band, but the mood is decidedly darker and even a bit subdued. In advance of tonight’s show at the Black Cat, we talked to songwriter and guitarist Denny Bowen about what the band has been doing in the interim and what he’s been listening to over the summer.
DCist: It’s really only been about a year since the release of Ideal Cities, but it seems longer because everything else just came in quick succession. Did you guys feel like you needed a break? Why the delay?
Denny Bowen: It was a combination of things. After we recorded it, Fan Death Records kind of stopped operating and we needed to find a place to get the record out; find somebody that wanted to put it out. While that was going on, I started gearing up to play drums for Future Islands. I toured with Future Islands for the whole U.S. and all of Europe for about 12 weeks total. Also Dan from Roomrunner was on the U.S. tour doing sound. So, that kind of took a chunk out of our time. Then, after awhile and not really finding a home for the record, Sean Gray, who was a part of Fan Death Records and now does Accidental Guest, stepped up and offered to help us out. That’s really great because me and Sean have been friends for a really long time and he’s supported me and it’s really great to have someone that supports you that much.
DCist: I totally missed that you were touring with Future Islands. How did it feel to play drums again?
DB: It was cool. I play drums on all their records including this last one, but in August of 2013, I recorded with them, which was the Singles record, and then they asked me to do a tour in November which I did. It was only about a two week thing. And then Roomrunner recorded our EP right after that. But touring with Future Islands, playing drums, it’s different, it’s not like playing drums in Double Dagger because that was a live, heavy, crazy thing. Future Islands is much more controlled and you’re playing along with a drum machine. I mean, I really love those songs and it’s really great to play with those guys. It’s really exciting too because the tour was happening right when the album came out. So it was cool that I got to be a part of the record and then a part of the tour for the record.
DCist: I actually remember hearing “ESPN Zone” for the first time about a year ago. Have you had all of these songs for awhile?
DB: Not really. “ESPN Zone” was something I demoed myself. That song was on a compilation in its demo form. I brought that to the band as a song we could use and we recorded it for the EP but the other songs, it was different. All of the other stuff previously I demoed on my own and was playing all the instruments and bringing it to the band, or in the case of the first two releases, I had recorded it all myself. But this stuff, I kinda just brought guitar parts to practice and we put it together as a band. And some of the stuff came together in the studio as well. Like, Bret did some vocal harmonies on the record and helped me out a lot with coming up with strong vocal melodies and harmonies.
DCist: That seems like a big difference.
DB: I think it’s different because we’re trying to do it live, play the songs live with the vocal harmonies with Bret singing them. It’s been pretty cool. On Ideal Cities it was kind of just like an afterthought to put them in, but with this record it was definitely something that was a little bit more delicate, to make them sound really good and really make them more interesting.
DCist: Have there been other changes coming into this EP? Songwriting or sonically?
DB: Other than the collaborative thing, lyrically it’s more like a personal thing than previous records. The first EP was pretty personal, but Ideal Cities was nonsense and this is intensely personal and it spilled over into the songwriting a bit.
DCist: What have you been up to this year in general?
DB: I got home from touring with Future Islands in June and then I moved to the Mt. Vernon neighborhood in Baltimore which is a block away from the recording studio that we recorded this EP in. It’s a really cool house. I was kind of bouncing around between a bunch of different living situations because I wasn’t sure where I was going to be for a long time and so I got to unpack my stuff after a year. I live with Zach and John from Dope Body. So, that was the beginning of the summer and then I’ve just been kind of working on writing stuff as much as possible. I kind of started another band as well because I’ve been writing a lot of stuff and some of it isn’t really appropriate for Roomrunner, so I’m gonna get that off the ground. But mainly, I’ve been trying to immerse myself in music. I kind of went on a weird binge and bought a ton of records and bought stuff that I was really into in high school that I tracked down just to own it. It was kind of excessive. The stuff I was buying was like, Party of Helicopters and Frodus and The Red Scare and a lot of stuff from the late ‘90s and early 2000s. Honestly, what I spend most of my time listening to is Longmont Potion Castle to be honest. It’s like this dude from Denver that does surrealist prank phone calls. I kind of spend more time listening to that then I do to actual music. I don’t know why.
DCist: What style are these other songs?
DB: They’re really slow, really sad and I don’t use a lot if any distortion at all. It’s clean guitar. It’s pretty interesting. It’s a different approach for me, but it’s been really fun and the other people in the band are people from Baltimore bands I really like.
