Interview: Touché Amoré

Alter The Press caught up with Jeremy Bolm, vocalist in Touché Amoré, after the band’s recent performance at this year's Hevy Festival to talk about touring, best friends and favorite shoes!

Alter The Press: You put out ‘Parting The See Between Brightness And Me’ in June of this year. Was that the first studio recording that you recorded ‘live’?
Jeremy Bolm (vocals): Yes, it was a new experience!

ATP: That something that you’d wanted to do for a while?
Jeremy: It was something that we had talked about and then when we first approached Ed Rose about working with us, his response back was: “I want to do a live recording because I think it’ll capture what you guys are better than anything else!” The way he put it was so exciting for us, I never forget it, the exact quote was: “I want to focus on passionate takes as opposed to perfect takes!” to which I was instantly: ‘he gets it.’

ATP: How did you end up putting it out through the label Deathwish Inc.?
Jeremy: There’s two owners of Deathwish, Jake [Bannon] from Converge and Tre McCarthy. Tre was at Sound & Fury 2009, saw our set, came up and asked us about where he could get records for his East store, stuff like that. He made a bunch of jokes and we realised that he’s the funniest, grumpiest dude, liked him a lot and we just kept in touch with him. At that point ‘To The Beat Of A Dead Horse’ had just come out and so obviously we weren’t going to be putting out a record for a while. We toured pretty strong for about, pretty much 2 years and then realized it was time to start doing a new record after we did those splits (with La Dispute and Make Do And Mend) and stuff so we were trying to figure out who was going to put it out and he stayed in such close touch with us and was always there for us, but for us, we have to be beyond comfortable to work with anybody. Something I always say is that if you’re gonna call me, I wanna know about your day, what your dog did before you start talking to me about my band! We became really close with him but we didn’t really know Jake yet and then we ended up getting to go on tour with Converge and after that we got really close with Jake and were like, OK, this is the place to be, this is the thing to do!

ATP: You tour pretty relentlessly and you’re now in Europe with La Dispute, who you’ve played with a lot. How did you first hook up with them?
Jeremy: Our first 7” came our on No Sleep Records, which was one of his [Chris Hansen, No Sleep Records founder] earliest releases, I think in his first 10, and I knew Chris because he used to work at Revelation Distribution with my best friend Joey who runs 6131 Records, who put out ‘To The Beat Of A Dead Horse’ so like I said, I know these people very well! That’s why we put out ‘To The Beat…’ with Joey because he’s literally my best friend. I’d known Chris through that and we had recorded a demo and asked if he would be interested in putting it out, he did and at that same time, La Dispute was putting out their full-length, the ‘Somewhere Between…’ record and so he obviously gave us a copy of it and we were like: ‘Oh, this is pretty cool!’ Then they were coming on their first West Coast tour and I booked their show in LA so we played together and first night we met we just instantly became such good friends, specifically Jordan and I had such a strong connection on so many levels and they stayed at my house and we booked a couple of shows for them and just became real close buds. Actually today, funnily enough, on the ferry over here, I have a log of every single show we’ve ever played, in order, and we had a discussion about what band we’ve played with the most and, it was like a debate but it was obvious that it was La Dispute. We counted it and today was the 51st show we’ve played with them and we’ve played 385 so that’s a pretty strong chunk of that!

ATP: This is the second time you’ve been to Europe now. What’s the most different thing about touring Europe as opposed to the US?
Jeremy: Hospitality! Hospitality and the feeling of having absolutely no control over what you’re going to do! The fact that it is normal to have already set up, with the show, a place to stay and meals provided. That doesn’t happen in the states, you’re fending for yourselves, you have to figure all that stuff out on your own! That’s one of the biggest differences I’d say. You get off the plane, you’re picked up, you’re driven, you’re told when to eat, when to sleep, when to play, you wake up, there’s breakfast, you drive all day; it’s like, you have no say in what you’re going to do, you’re just being driven around, it’s such a different thing!

ATP: Is that a good or a bad thing?!
Jeremy It is a good thing… no, it’s not a good or a bad thing, it’s just how it is here. I’m someone who, I’m a lot more comfortable when I can do what I want comfortably, I know where I can go and get food, where I can eat… I’m a picky eater so I get screwed a lot because maybe there’s something that I’m freaked out about eating or something! It’s a nice getaway from touring the states, it’s a cool change of pace.

ATP: Have you played a lot of festival shows in Europe?
Jeremy: This time is the first tour we’ve done any. We’ve done Fluff Fest, which was the best day of our lives, the craziest thing. It was insane, we got to play to an estimated 4,000 people which was just mind blowing. Like, that’s on some level of ‘that could never happen to us?!’ That was definitely an experience. We’re playing Ieperfest coming up, we played a thing called Horstfest and oh, we played Sucks’n’Summer. Our day was pretty much, Trash Talk were supposed to headline but they didn’t make it over as they’re not here today. One of the days had Suicidal Tendencies, Napalm Death, Youth Of Today, but our day the headliners were us! We were like: “This is cool man but I wanna see Napalm Death!” but yeah, it was cool… very muddy though, very, very muddy!

ATP: Have you found yourself prepared for the mud?!
Jeremy: No! My shoes!

ATP: They’re looking pretty good!
Jeremy: Well, they’ve dried a bit! I buy one pair of shoes a year, these are my favorite color so I was super-psyched and we showed up to Fluff Fest on the second day of tour and they were just engulfed! So year, that was kinda rough I know to prepare better next year!

ATP: This time around, in Europe, have you found more people knowing the songs?
Jeremy: The first time we were over here it was incredibly overwhelming and the shows were awesome and there were a lot of kids that sang along honestly to the point where I was just expecting the same, we had such an awesome time and it was so crazy last year that if it’s the same again then I’m psyched; if anything maybe less people because maybe people don’t like the new record because people don’t like the new record, I dunno! But the fact that, there was
more kids, almost all the shows have been sold out and so many kids singing to the new record, I would say even more night where there was kids singing to the new record than the old record which is some oddity that I don’t even understand, that never happens to bands! We write the set list worried that we’re going to bore kids playing new songs but it’s been crazy! We feel very fortunate.

ATP: Your lyrics are brutally honest. Do you ever find it tough to express that honesty onstage?
Jeremy: It’s easier to express it onstage. One of my biggest downfalls in any sort of romantic situation I’m in is that I’m terrible at opening up, I never say how I feel and… it’s not that I’m forcing to, it’s just always been my way. I just don’t think about it and this is sort of the way that is easier for me to get it out and you know, sometimes things that I write have caused awkward situations or maybe have made certain relationships a little different than it was originally. I feel that if you pick up a microphone you have a responsibility of being as honest as you should be so I don’t have any regrets about it.

ATP: Final question, is there one moment or one of a few moments that you can say has been a defining moment in your Touché Amoré’s career thus far?
Jeremy: Honestly, walking out and looking at the crowd at Fluff Fest. As soon as we made a hint of feedback the whole place started cheering and I was like: ‘This can’t be real?!’ That was one of many. I’ve said this so many times in so many different facets but if the band broke up tomorrow I’m not sad, I won’t be even a hint of sad, I’ll just be so happy that I got to do any of this because it’s the most mind-blowing thing in the entire world and that’s not bullshit. The fact that anyone even gives a shit about what I’m saying right now, that fact that you’re going to have to type this, that you’re dedicating time to even wanna type what I have to say is overwhelming. We’re forever thankful for anything that happens at all because we never though that we would do anything more than play our friend’s backyards in LA.

Nick Worpole