Ruckus Inquisitus: La Rocca

I find myself sitting at the only occupied table in the smaller, secondary, dining room of Schuba's Tavern, located right in the heart of Lakeview. A graveyard of barren pint and wine glasses already lie scattered about the table as the waitress arrives with yet another tray of libations. The four dapperly dressed individuals across the table from me are none other than the Silverlake-via-Ireland rock band, La Rocca, and currently they are entrenched in a debate over whether or not to order Schuba's much recommended meatloaf. Apparently, meat and breadcrumbs, when molded into a comforting shape, is a dish that is pretty much indigenous to America, so they were all very excited to try out some of our obese country's local cuisine. Yet, at T-minus forty-five minutes until they hit the stage, something like meatloaf might not be the best dinner choice--you can see the dilemma.

The waitress scribbles everyone's alcohol preferences onto her notepad and I decide to switch up from Guiness to PBR; a metaphorical move, bridging the gap between the Irish and American Indie Rock scenes. As we continue to bullshit and drink the respective drinks of our people, time constraints force the actual interview portion of the evening to begin. Now, originally, I was scheduled to interview lead singer/guitarist, Bjorn Baillie, but after sharing some pints and some words with the entire band, we decided to do the interview as a collective group effort; creating a sort of La Rocca Entity. In case you're wondering what the hell that means, basically, I ask a question and they all answer, add in after thoughts, whatever... and then we combine all of the input into one coherent written answer. Amazing. I was especially excited about it since I'm the type of guy who brings a water bottle full of red wine to a concert rather than a tape recorder.



In afterthought, I actually kind of like the idea of a group entity. It promotes honesty and togetherness and negates personal liability for slanderous drunken remarks. Anyways, after the interview, La Rocca hit the stage and rocked names and took faces--good thing only Nick went for the meatloaf.

However, for exposition's sake, I should note that the original idea for the La Rocca Entity was that each band member takes turns providing one word of the answer, moving clockwise around the table until a complete answer is drafted.

Ruckus Maximus:	So, you guys have played Chicago before, right?
Bjorn:	Yes!
Ruckus Maximus:	So, what'd you guys think? I've noticed that the scene here is definitely a lot more supportive than other places...
Nick:	It's
Alan:	absolutely
Bjorn:	great;
Simon:	so
Nick:	far
Alan:	so
Bjorn:	good.

Everybody laughing

Ruckus Maximus:	That was awesome... So, do you think you guys are going to be able to keep this up for the whole interview?
La Rocca Entity:	That depends... How many questions do you think we can answer with, "So far, so good?"
Ruckus Maximus:	Technically, all of them... but I think that's the only one that would make sense.

And so ends the round-robin portion of the interview, and thus begins the La Rocca Entity portion...

Ruckus Maximus:	I've heard some pretty crazy stories of debauchery involving Birdmonster. What's it like being on tour with them?
La Rocca Entity:	They're lunatics... in a good way though. But, they can't drink as much as us. At all.
Ruckus Maximus:	Speaking of that, as I'm sure you're all aware, there's a long standing history and tradtion of rock bands from Europe causing some outrageous ruckus in the States... Have you guys been contributing to this fine pissing on the Alamo tradition?
La Rocca Entity:	Well, we've absolutely drank every band we've played with over here under the table. Except Silversun Pickups--those guys can drink. Actually, we have a pending drinking and golfing contest in the works with them.
Ruckus Maximus:	A drinking and golf contest, how does that work?
La Rocca Entity:	We're going to basically get really drunk while playing golf. Maybe the goal should be to drink one beer every hole--that's eighteen beers by the time we're finished.
Ruckus Maximus:	That's awesome. Maybe you guys should make it miniature golf... you could knock out those eighteen beers in, like, an hour. So, when is this feat of alcoholic rivalry going to go down?
La Rocca Entity:	Well, once we both have a day off, we can settle it... It's pretty rare that we get a day off in a good city. We were off last night, but, before that, the last night we had was when our van broke down in Mesquite.
Ruckus Maximus:	That's terrible... Ironically, I'm from Las Vegas, so I know exactly what you mean when you say Mesquite... That sucks man, I'm sorry... So you guys just get really hammered off of nickel slots and free drinks?
La Rocca Entity:	Actually, we ripped the hell out of the Mesquite Public Library's CD collection.

Right about here was a, "You're from Vegas," related burn about The Killers... Awesome.

Ruckus Maximus:	So, you guys go anywhere cool last night?
La Rocca Entity:	We went to Club Foot. They have Vodka/Oranges for $2.50... it's cheaper than the beer!
Ruckus Maximus:	Damn, I'm going to have to check that place out... So, back on track... You guys are obviously from Ireland, but you've made a name for yourselves and exploded out of the Silverlake scene. What exactly is it about Silverlake that produces so many amazing bands?
La Rocca Entity:	Well, there's a lot of cheap rehearsal rooms and great venues there; there's a lot of musicians living in the area, too... I guess, basically, it's just inductive to the area, you know?
Ruckus Maximus:	I saw that Tony Hoffer produced your LP, The Truth. What was it like to work with such a legendary and well respected producer?
La Rocca Entity:	Tony was cool... he definitely brought a lot to the record. We were very lucky to have gotten to work with him, I mean, we try to work with only really short people, so we were definitely lucky in getting him to produce our record. Seriously though, he's great. He's the reason we signed with Dangerbird; just a great vibe.
Ruckus Maximus:	Now, I didn't see him listed among your influences, but when I listen to the self-titled track off of The Truth, I get a serious Billy Joel vibe. Was that what you were going for? Because, I definitely think it's the best drunken, bar room singalong that I've heard since Piano Man.
La Rocca Entity:	(laughing) It worked then! We actually went shopping with Tony for the piano we used to make the record. We literally looked at hundreds of pianos until we found this perfect one that made the record sound really great. Actually, we got it from the piano tuner from The Band, which was great because we're massive fans of theirs.
Ruckus Maximus:	So, what have you guys been listening to lately?
La Rocca Entity:	The new Jet and Killers!!!!

Everybody laughs for a really, really, ridiculously long time.

La Rocca Entity:	But, no, seriously... a lot of Silversun Pickups and Birdmonster. My mom actually just went to go see Elvis Presley live... Apparently it's just his backing band performing, with like vocal tracks and his image on a big screen. She said it was great, though.
Ruckus Maximus:	As everybody likes to point out, you guys are named after your favorite bar back home... but what makes that bar so name-borrowingly awesome?
La Rocca Entity:	It's a total dive... really down and dirty with their drinking. Plus, they have a shiny new green sign.
La Rocca Entity:	Wait, we have to go watch this band. (Los Abandoned, the opening act, started playing a few minutes ago.)
Ruckus Maximus:	Oh yeah, totally. Let's just do one more fast conclusatory [not a word] question, and we'll all go watch them. Any final shout outs, shameless sponsorship plugs, or unknown bands we should be watching out for?
La Rocca Entity:	Dappled Cities, another Dangerbird Records band that is great... Them and Turn; a cool band from Dublin.

Sweet. Big ups to the guys from La Rocca for taking the time to hang out... They played a great show, pictures are up at: Ruckus Live: Birdmonster & La Rocca. If you don't own The Truth, go buy it...