Rogue Wave
Believe the Hype
By Brian Brophy

      “We are tremendously hyped,” says Pat Spurgeon, drummer for
Oakland’s Rogue Wave. “Someone just called and told us we were
hyped.”
      And, though laughing as he says it, Rogue Wave is hyped. With
solid reviews in publications such as The Examiner, The Guardian,
Splendid E-Zine, Bay Area Buzz, East Bay Express and many others,
the band’s debut album, Out of the Shadow has received its fair
amount of press. But unlike many other bands that have been hyped
in the past couple years, Rogue Wave may be the real deal. It’s fitting
then, that the band signed to Sub Pop Records last week, a label that
built itself on hype in the early ‘90s, but that had some amazing bands
to back it all up.
      Out of the Shadow took shape when Rogue Wave frontman Zach
Rogue left the Bay Area after being laid off during the economic bust.
He left his band at the time, Desoto Reds, and headed to New York
where he recorded some songs he’d been working on, which turned,
unexpectedly into the full length. “I just started recording,” says
Rogue. “I only wanted an outlet. I’d just got laid off from a job; I
needed to do something with all this trouble I was feeling.”
      That trouble was poured into the songs on Out of the Shadow.
Songs on which Rogue played everything, created vocal harmonies
by himself and put out. Songs like the melancholy, country-tinged
“Postage Stamp World”, on which Rogue sings, “Ever since Mom
walked out, sis’ and I can get no sleep/Since then dad’s brought
home 13 redheads, a blonde, a brunette and a sheep,” the entire
time sounding phenomenally sincere, as he does throughout the
album. Rogue varies styles on the album, like the perfect pop of
“Endless Shovel”, the whirlwind “Sewn Up” and the melodic folk tune,
“Falcon Settles Me,” but the quality of the arrangements and
harmonies is consistent throughout the record, making it easy to see
why, after returning to the Bay Area, Rogue had no trouble finding a
few strangers to round out the band.
      First up was Sonya Westcott, who responded to an ad that
Rogue placed looking for a bassist. “I loved the album immediately,”
she says. “I had been searching for a project for a long time. I had
heard a lot of demo tapes that I would just kind of pop in the player
and be like, ‘ehhhh…’ Then when I heard that, I remember having
breakfast one morning and I popped in the CD. My boyfriend and I
were eating breakfast and I looked at him and said, ‘It’s really good,
isn’t it?’ I could not stop listening to it, so I called Zach immediately.”
      The same thing happened when Rogue sent Spurgeon the
album, “He sent the CD and I put it in and my first thought was, ‘I gotta
call this guy now. He probably already has a drummer,” because I just
loved it so much.”
      “I had never really had a chance to sing in any band and that
was what I really wanted to try to do,” Spurgeon continues. “I didn’t
really care about playing anything intricate on the drums. I want to
play the most sparse kind of thing, but I really wanted to be able to
sing. This band allows me to and it allows all of us to do it. I really
wanted the songs to be fully realized and to do that all of us have to
be able to sing, so that’s kind of one of the requirements of the band,
that we all do that.”
      Everything worked out in spite of the fact that Spurgeon and
Rogue’s first meeting nearly never happened.
      “Basically, I wasn’t cool enough for Pat,” says Rogue. “We were
supposed to meet at this bar and he’s like, ‘Yeah, I have an afro; you’
ll recognize me.’ I thought he was pulling my leg. So, I’m in the bar
and one of his friends sees me and is like, ‘Is that Zach?’ And he’s
like, ‘No, that can’t be Zach.’ I guess because of how I looked. And I’m
like, ‘Fuck, dude. Sorry man, I’ll put on my cool scarves and wear
leather.’”
      Rogue Wave is pretty much the opposite of cool scarves and
leather. The band’s music speaks for itself and their attitude toward
the entire operation of being in a band is overwhelmingly positive,
which is somewhat surprising in a band that seems to be so driven.
      “We practice a lot,” says Rogue. “Sometimes I wonder if we
practice too much, because we’re always doing it. But I don’t think so.
We try to look at bands that we responded to, that we really like, that
inspire us. They work their hearts out. That’s what I want.”
      Spurgeon agrees, “I think that it takes that kind of work to get
anywhere and we would like to get somewhere with this band.”
     One reason they are able to balance their professional ambitions
as a band and their general attitudes is due to multi-instrumentalist
(guitar, keyboard and occasional drums) “Golden” Gram Lebron. A
good example of this was his recent onstage antics during a Mates of
State set at Bottom of the Hill in which Lebron danced like an ecstatic
madman, thrilling the Mates and the audience alike.
      “An unexpected thing that Gram brought to the band was his
spirit,” says Rogue. “A lot of times when you’re playing out on the
road or you’re lugging gear around, just all the hard stuff… Gram is
like this burst of energy. Plus he’s really silly. It’s been a shot in the
arm to us. And it’s been a really positive thing. Playing music is an
emotional endeavor too. Sometimes I go to a place when I’m singing,
it brings me to a good place when I’m getting it out, but it makes me
sad if I’m talking about something that’s hurting me. If your job is to
emotionally be throwing stuff out there and sometimes people aren’t
going to be receptive to it and you don’t get anything back, it’s nice to
have people that keep you up or remind you to be youthful. I think
this is a youthful band, actually.”
      This youthfulness is evident in Lebron’s description of joining the
band.
      “I basically wormed myself in,” he says. When Pat played me the
record, he was like, ‘Let me play you a couple of songs.’ And we
listened to the whole record through twice. After that I kept bugging
him and I finally got to come to practice. Pat had said that they were
thinking about filling it out, and so I’m like, ‘Oh my god, it’s gotta be
me!’”
      And Lebron’s dedication to all things Rogue Wave knows no
limits.
      “Gram has almost died from electroshock,” says Rogue. “One
time we played the Make Out Room and he had a guitar in his hand
and I handed him one, and he’s like, ‘Uhhh!’ And I thought he was
messing with me. He was being shocked and I’m like, ‘Oh, ha ha,’ in
the middle of a set. He’s been electroshocked and almost lost a tooth
so far. That’s emotion.”
      Emotion seems to be the cornerstone of Rogue Wave’s music, its
performances and the band members’ attitudes. All of which seems to
prove that the hype the band’s been receiving is justified, a rare, rare
occurrence that’s refreshing to see.

Catch Rogue Wave live at The Fillmore with Super Furry Animals and
Papa M on Friday, February 27. Check out the Web site at                 
www.roguewavemusic.com.