Interview with Romance Of Young Tigers

If you read this site often enough, then you will be well aware of Dayton, Ohio 3-piece Romance of Young Tigers. You will be aware of the fact that they make one monolithic sound, you will be aware that I rated their self-released ep as pretty damn excellent and that I reckon they could be one of the bands of 2007. ROYT's guitarist and programmer Seth Graham talks about his band, their stunning ep and plans for the future. He is "under the assumption that no-one cares...", only the ignorant, or those not in the know, wouldn't care about this band.

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Firstly, Romace Of Young Tigers is an excellent name for a band, is there any significance behind it ?

Not to much significance to them, other than we were aiming for a name that wasn't tough. I was at a used bookstore a long time ago, and was skimming through books that looked interesting, I saw a chapter of a random book named "Romance of Young Tigers", I always thought that would be a good name to use. So when we started this band we coudln't come up with any names, so I brought that one up and it stuck. It has no meaning really, in fact, we make fun of the name a lot, we did have intentions avoiding a lot of cliches, and that's what we came up with. But now, there are at least 3 bands I know of with the name tigers in it, so perhaps we didnt succeed


How would you describe Romance of Young Tigers sound to the uninitiated and what bands or artists have influenced the sound?

I don't know how to describe us, I usually just say programming and loud guitars with some effects. I can't speak for Todd or Jeremaih but I personally really like Belong, Mum, Growing, old Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd and some obvious bands such as Mono and everything Constellation has put out. Those and a million other bands and everything from films to plays to random things seem to influence us (I know thats a terribly cliche answer but its true).


The self-released Ep, has amazing artwork. How involved were the band in its direction and how important is it to the overall package?

Thanks. I did the art work for the cd's, my friend Bobbi and Katie helped me with learning to screen print. Bobbi helped me along the way with any problems I ran into with screen printing. Todd also helped me assemble them. We worked so hard to finish the cd, and I thought the cd was decent and wanted to have packaging that I felt really was something personal and handmade and somewhat described the cd inside. I wanted the cd to be something worth paying for, and not just plain old jewel case with boring clip art. I ended up making a hundred cd's which I finished mid Decemnber and they are already gone, so 400 more will be made, a special black and white edition that Archlight Communications is going to release for us, along with a 10" of the ep, with a bonus track and we are going to try to arrange it so I will do the screenprinting and artwork for the vinyl as well. So as for now none are available, but will be soon, hopefully by mid feb.



The band's sound at times is incredibly loud, yet there are no percussive elements. Was it a conscious decision to do without a drummer or did it happen naturally?

Todd and I started the band as just two guitarist, we wanted to have loud heavily effected drum machines with heavily effected guitars. Jeremiah asked to play about 3 months into todd and I starting the band. We weren't sure if we wanted anyone else except us, but Jeremiah ended up working out really well. We then thought about a drummer over programming so we searched a little while, but really couldn't find anyone that worked out. So we decided to revert to programming. Jeremiah was really instrumental and making the ideas technically happen, him and I both sort of just started programming stuff and through trial and error we got the idea to work live, Jeremiah being an engineer did all the tech work. Then Jeremiah and I sent programming ideas back and forth and eventually programmed for all our songs. So to answer your question, it was a little bit of both I guess, it naturally happened, and it was the idea we first wanted to do, but in the end we liked the programming idea more than a real drummer.


Would you consider using drums on future releases?

I don't know maybe. I doubt it, but I can't really say



"Long Withdrawing Roar" is an apt title for that particular song. As most songs are instrumental, where do you get the titles from?

I got "We Sing Sin" from a poem. "The Sound and Fury" is from the book by Faulkner. I made up "Cease Silent Soft Choir"and "Long Withdrawing Roar", they just seemed to fit the songs. We always had ridiculous names for our songs, but we decided to try to just name them to what they actually sounded like since we felt we had to, to release the ep. To me, the song titles fit of what the songs might sound like, or at least to me they did. I wanted them to make sense, and not just some ridiculous nonsensical title that just came across as pretentious. I would like to think we achieved that. But who knows?.


You mentioned that the Ep is getting a 10" vinyl release on Arclight Communications and features a bonus track. What can you tell us about this new composition?

Were having band practice today to work on this new track. I think our new stuff, if anyone cares, will be different from the EP, I think trying to find a way to orchestrate live noise with a lot of interesting layers, not as straight forward and a lot more synths and keyboards and drum machines that are heavily effected etc. But I don't know, I don't try too hard to control the finished project, I try to go by feeling and ideas and patience. So the bonus track I think is sort of something that will give someone an idea of what we will doing after this ep. I feel stupid saying this, because Im always under the assumption that no one cares, but if a stranger sends me an interview, I guess that means someone cares.


You recently completed a show with The Ascent Of Everest, how was that experience?

It was great, we had a lot of fun, they stayed at my house, we all hung out and watched explorer staring Ethan Hawk when he was like 10.


Being from Dayton, Ohio, what can you tell us about the local music scene and who should we look out for?


I feel like im the wrong person to ask about music from dayton. Things that I notice in town are such things as Epicene Sound Systems here in Dayton, the noise label that has released some good stuff such as Upsilon Acrux and etc. Mouth of the Architect is from here, and needless to say they are a great band in my opinion. Also Kenoma are from Dayton, and they are probably my favorite local band. I would like them if they were local or not, but thats true about all bands I like. There is a band called Yakuza Heart Attack, I haven't seen them live, but what ive heard is really good, its really interesting. The Bull and the Bear is a great band, The Human Reunion is also a great band. So many bands from town, but those bands in particular I think are great bands. There is also a tiny label my friend Andy runs called Poptek that releases local and non local stuff and is very involved in helping local music. Andy at Poptek and my other friends run a music festival every year called the Dayton Music Fest, its a great effort to support local music. A lot of music happens in Dayton, especially for how small it is. To be honest we are nobody's in this town, but the bands I mentioned seem to do quite well locally, I think thats why I feel Im not exactly the person to ask about local music, no one seems to agree with me on who good bands are locally.


Finally, What does the future hold for Romance of Young Tigers?.

I don't know, hopefully put out this ep on Arclight, and work on new full length or new material.