Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever: An Unlikely Ascent To The Top

Instead of discussing the band’s status as the hot new things in alternative pop, frontman Tom Russo is holding forth on the merits of 2009 Kerry All Ireland winning footballer Tadhg Kennelly.

“He was a great player,” says Russo, relaxing in his home in suburban Melbourne. “A lot of the real legends of AFL have been from Ireland. Every now and then you get a new Irish talent. Jim Stynes was another one.”

AFL is Australian rules football and, hailing from the game’s spiritual heartland of Victoria, Rolling Blackouts CF are true believers.

“The real religion of Melbourne is AFL,” says Russo. “We are born and bred to it. It’s similar to Gaelic football in many ways. Sorry for taking all your best players!”

That’s quite alright, we reply through gritted teeth. After all, and to their credit, Rolling Blackouts CF have gone some way towards making amends by gifting Ireland with one of the shows of 2018 when they played Whelan’s last summer. That gig was in support of their astonishing debut album, Hope Downs – a thrilling ghost-ride that acknowledged the spirits of indie-pop past, without falling entirely in thrall of them.

The jangling existentialism of the Go-Betweens was in there, as was the ethereal flutter of The Feelies and the New Zealand Dunedin Sound bands of the ’80s – The Bats, The Chills and The Clean etc. Melbourne, as it happens, is having a mini-moment of its own.

Despite consistently ranking as among the best cities in the world in which to live, it has produced a succession of fantastically mopey new talents: Rolling Blackouts, for sure, but also Black Cab, Dick Diver, Camp Cope and The Stevens.

How does such a seemingly idyllic city produce such compelling – and generally very melancholic – music?

“It’s a nice place to live but Melbourne is not perfect,” says Russo. “A lot of bands have come out of cities where the weather is supposedly miserable or grim. People have to go inside. That’s the received wisdom as to where good stuff comes from. But Melbourne has a lot going on – it’s quite a big city and the music community has a track record in resisting lock-out laws that could have shut down a lot of venues. And the scene isn’t really competitive in a way that some cities can be. People are supportive of one another.”

A generation ago, Rolling Blackouts – Russo and his brother Joe on bass, plus cousins Fran Keaney and Joe White on guitars, and drummer Marcel Tussie – would have had to relocate to New York, Los Angeles or London in the hope of “cracking” the music industry. This invariably would have involved all five sharing a grotty flat and being ignored by the local music press.

Thanks to the internet they’re no longer required to do so. It’s massively painful having to fly all the way to Europe or North America to tour. But everything else they can achieve from home. So while they did eventually jet to Seattle to meet their new label bosses at the storied Sub Pop, the deal itself was signed, sealed and delivered over the internet, after the label was alerted to their existence by a review on Pitchfork.

Suddenly it’s possible to be the hottest band among the international tastemaker community while literally living on the other side of the world.

“Everyone is pretty happy here,” says Russo. “I don’t think we’d survive if we’d had to do that thing of us all moving to London and living in really grim poverty. The internet has changed a lot. It has created an international music press and community. Stuff going on down here gets a bit more attention.”

Hope Downs is an old-fashioned belter – aggressive when it needs to be, yet also strip-lit gorgeously with melancholic melodies.

“You only get to make a debut album once,” says Russo. “We avoided expectation. This started off as a bedroom songwriting project. But we wanted to make it as good as it could be. It’s strange; having it out on Sub Pop means it’s getting attention from all over – including from Ireland and the UK. It’s a bit obvious to say we didn’t have any expectations. But really, we didn’t have any expectations.”

After a hectic 2018, the band are taking a breather. But this summer, they’re back in Ireland supporting recent Hot Press cover stars Idles at the Iveagh Gardens.

“It sounds like a fantastic venue,” says Russo. “Hopefully the weather will be nice. Or it at least won’t rain!”

Hope Downs is out now. Rolling Blackouts CF play Iveagh Gardens, Dublin with Idles on July 11.