Hello! Who am I speaking to and what do you do in the band?
– Hey, my name is Jonas and I am one of the guitarplayers of Emarosa!
How would you describe the Emarosa sound? Which bands did you grow up listening to?
– That’s such a hard question. People ask us that a bunch, and I’ve heard a million different descriptions. The standard one for the late night gas station attendant is “hard rock with pretty boy singing” haha! I know we’ve been compared to bands like Thursday, Saosin and Circa Survive, which I’m definitely okay with. I grew up listening to whatever my parents were listening to. It was a lot of 80’s, 90’s power pop/rock haha! My mom especially made me listen to George Michael a lot. And my whole family has always been very big on Queen.
Is there a story behind the band name?
– The band originally had a horribly cliche post hardcore / screamo name, so when Rise Records showed interest it was decided that a name change probably wasn’t a bad idea haha. From what I’ve heard “Emarosa” could possibly mean something like: “containing all things beautiful”, in some language. I don’t know if that’s true, and I’m not sure who came up with the name exactly, it was before my time, but I know that no one knew about the “meaning” of it when it was made up.
How did you guys form? What’s the history of you getting together?
– Jordan, Lukas and ER all knew each other from High School, and had played in a couple of bands together before Emarosa was born. Will lived down the street from where they practiced, and was ER’s manager at the Hollister in their local Mall. So that’s how they got together Haha! That was actually the line-up for the EP “this is your way out”, including Chris Roetter on vocals. I had played shows with Emarosa while in my old band, and was always a fan of their live shows especially. So when they offered me to come play with them I couldn’t resist. Shortly after I Joined there was a change in vocalists, as most people know! Things weren’t working out for Jonny and DGD, and the relationship between Emarosa and our singer Chris was going downhill. Looking back it was pretty crazy how it all happened haha. One week Chris was out, the next we were playing our first show with Jonny at a YMCA in Lexington haha!
Are there any specific things that inspire you to write, whether it be people, things, events etc?
– hmm, I can only speak for myself; but I am very inspired by other creative people. Right now, I am very heavily into Radiohead and after listening to “Ok, Computer” or “in Rainbows” for the 117th time I still find things I never noticed before; and that to me is extremely inspiring. It’s something I’ve always wanted to be able to do myself, hopefully with this next CD, we’ll be able to keep the listerners listening with little details that go unnoticed at first.
How did you hook up Rise?
– During the recording process of “This is your way out” Craig, the owner of Rise, responded to a 30 second soundclip the band had posted on their myspace, wanting to know if that was the sound the EP was gonna have. After that it all went pretty fast, Rise snatched Emarosa from “Standby Records” and the EP was released shortly thereafter!
You just toured the UK…how did you find the UK kids? Did the tour exceed any expectations you may have had? When will you be back?
– That tour was absolutely insane! None of us had ever heard of YMAS, and had no clue what to expect! We showed up to the first show in Bristol, and within 5 minutes we were greeted by a guy who had “Relativity” tattoo’d across his chest. It was unreal! We didn’t know the shows were gonna be that huge, and we definitely didn’t expect any of the kids there to know us really. The London show especially was one of the most amazing nights of my life, not only were we playing one of my favorite cities in the world; but my parents had gotten a bunch of people together and flew over from Denmark, where I am from, to see us perfom infront of 3000+ people. It was absolutely unreal for them, and for us also. Nothing so far has topped the tour with YMAS! We still talk about it on a regular basis, and since we hired the crew we had in the UK to come with us on our current headliner, it’s almost like being back there again. We had plans to go back and do “Funeral For A Friends” greatest hits tour later this year. Unfortunately our recording schedule clashes with it, and as much as we love the Funeral guys and would love to tour with them again, especially in the UK, our next CD is a priority we can’t push aside. So hopefully we will be back early in the new year!
What’s the weirdest fan experience you’ve ever had?
– haha! I haven’t had too many weird fan experiences actually, i try doing my best not to make it awkward for fans because that’s when the weird experiences happen. And it usually helps if you start out by giving them a big sweaty hug, that way they don’t feel awkward and will be more relaxed. However, one time in florida, I was asked to sign a guy’s ass. Which I did, but it was pretty strange haha.
What can we expect from the new material and when can we expect a new album to hit the streets?
– that’s something we’ve tried to determine for ourselves, ever since we finished “relativity”. I remember during the recording process, ER and I talked a lot about wanting to do more folk/indie stuff for the next record. Really bare bones, mellow and raw. But that has changed a bit since then; we still wanna keep it very raw and not super produced. I know Jordan wants to mess around with organic and vintage keys, like more Rhodes, mellotron and more organs and such and there will be very little, if any programming at all on the next CD. we will save that stuff for our live show haha!
I see us going in a more straight-forward direction, with more choruses and more catchiness, utilizing Jonny’s vocals a bit more than we have in the past.
We are recording with Brian McTernin, who has done many amazing bands in the past, and when we met up with him it didn’t take long for everyone to realize that we are all on the same page regarding this next record. I think we are all gaining a lot of confidence and are all very excited to see what we can create next time. Expect something maybe a little darker, catchier and more Epic! Haha!
We are hoping to release the CD in the spring next year, in time to land a good summer tour to support it. Maybe even a sweet trip back to the UK!
What do you think of bands such as Brokencyde and Millionaires who are polarising crowds on warped Tour this summer? Is there room for bands who use backing tapes and mime?
– honestly, and this is my personal opinion, I really don’t enjoy that kind of music at all. When I first heard of the millionaires, I didn’t pay attention to them, and I haven’t ever since. Much less Brokencyde. But I wasnt surprised when I heard about the lip syncing on warped tour. It annoys me a little bit, that anyone these days seem to be able to sky-rocket to the top of the charts without any form of musical talent. Especially having toured with a band like A Day To Remember who’s been doing this for a long time and worked extremely hard to get to where they are at, which I have a lot of respect for, it bugs me that a techno-pop group can take over the same scene in less than a year. Maybe I’m bitter, or maybe I just don’t understand what it’s all about haha, but I still can’t take it seriously. And that’s just my personal opinion, I don’t like the “music”, and my respect for it, and the people behind it, is very limited. A lot of bands, including Emarosa, use samples, back-tracks etc during live sets; but there is a huge difference between having sub-drops and sound effects or whatever in your back-track, and to basically putting on a CD and dancing around without actually playing or singing anything. It’s been proven time and time again that if you try and fake it, it will eventually turn on you and you will look like a fool!
What’s better/worse – someone who downloads your music illegally but takes an active interest in the band and comes to shows or someone who
buys the CD, listens to it once and then puts it on a shelf never to play it again? Are you worried about how the industry appears to be going with the death of the CD?
– I think the majority of the people at our shows probably downloaded our CD ilegally at one point or another. Which is fine with me, I would rather them get the music somehow, see if they dig it, come to shows and have a good time and potentially buy an actual CD from us, instead of them buying a CD they haven’t heard, only to find out they hate it. But I guess that’s why myspace is there, so you can listen to the songs before you buy the CD. I if knew were to download music online I probably would, but I don’t have an interest in finding out how haha. I buy all my music on iTunes straight from my phone; it’s faster and easier than going out and finding the hardcopy, putting it on my computer and then onto my phone. CD’s are being replaced by the digital copies and I’m fine with that. Vinyls were replaced years ago, yet right before this tour I went out and bought 5 brand new vinyls. Digital is way more convenient, but I think CD’s still have a couple of years in ’em ! Haha
What music are you guys currently listening to? Any bands/records you would recommend we check out?
– Like I said earlier, I am heavily into Radiohead right now, but I dont think that’s shared by more than maybe one other person in this band.
We all listen to the new “as cities burn” record, definitely check that out. Also the new “a day to remember” cd “homesick” has been a pretty frequent selection while driving our RV. Another band we are all really into is “PM Today”, a recent Rise Records signing. They are 4 young and extremely talented dudes, that put out and awesome CD, even before they were signed!
If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would it be and why?
– We would all love to tour with Glassjaw i know that, they are a big influence to a lot of us, and sharing a stage with them would be unreal.
If I could chose any band it would have to be Queen. Freddie Mercury is in my opinion the best singer that has ever lived, and well, that whole band is incredible. Muse would be another dream tour of mine, Im not sure how well we would fit on a tour with them, but I would still love it haha.
If you could have any super power, what would it be? Why?
– that’s easy, I would wanna be able to fly! Superman was awesome, I wouldn’t mind being compared to Superman. And flying home every night after a show to sleep in my own bed, with my girlfriend, would be very nice too.
Katy Perry or Lady GaGa?
– Lady GaGa hands down. I know some of the guys would disagree with me, but she had one song that got stuck in my head the whole time I was in Denmark, visiting my parents before the UK tour in march. That doesn’t happen a lot, so props to her haha.