For the better part of his adult life, Jeff Rosenstock raged against the machine as part of the biggest little DIY punk band on the planet, Bomb The Music Industry!
The collective was not so much famous, but certainly well known for things like releasing all of its music for free, touring relentlessly and featuring a constant rotation of members – it was, after all, conceived as the band anyone could be in. After the group’s split in 2012, however, Rosenstock found himself at a loose end. It was from here that he took the initiative to start going solo – well, sort of, anyway.
“Like most things that I end up doing, it ended up being completely accidental,” says Rosenstock in between takes of recording at his home studio. “Right after Bomb broke up, I was talking to Sean [Bonnette] from Andrew Jackson Jihad. He had this tour planned, and he was going to ask Bomb – but, obviously, that wasn’t going to happen. I suggested going out on my own with them – just as Jeff Rosenstock, just playing songs, nothing to do with Bomb. He agreed to it, and it lit a fire under my ass. I had all these half-formed songs that I’d been working on, and that inspired me to finish them and get them ready.”
Rosenstock’s most recent release is last March’s We Cool?, the second album to solely bear Rosenstock’s name, and a follow-up to the tastefully titled I Look Like Shit from 2012. The record features full-band arrangements as performed by a group of friends who also join Rosenstock on tour to perform We Cool? live. This, as he points out, is one of the new freedoms he has discovered and subsequently embraced as a ‘solo’ act.
“I think the liberty of putting out music under your own name is that you can make any kind of record you want. I made this full-band album, but I can go out to the woods and make an acoustic album. I can do some weird, experimental shit. It’s just my name – I don’t have to put it out under any other pseudonym or anything like that.”
Months after the release of We Cool?, the first screenings began for Never Get Tired; a documentary about Rosenstock himself, and by extension, the life, times and death of Bomb The Music Industry! Created and directed by independent filmmaker Sara Crow, the project was crowdfunded, raising over US$30,000 and premiering in Rosenstock’s native New York City last July. It’s since been shown in theatres and DIY movie nights across the world – including a screening in Melbourne – and the subject himself is blown away by the fact that something like that could even exist in the first place.
“When we were first approached about doing it, I just couldn’t believe that anyone would care about my band enough to want to make a documentary about it. You don’t think that anyone cares about what you’re doing when you’re still holding down a job while trying to tour, trying to make rent for the month, trying to get the booking agents to call you back about the next tour… When a stranger just comes into your life and says they want to make a movie, you’re just like, ‘What the fuck?’ There are parts of it I get mortified watching – especially with other people around when I’ve attended some of the screenings. The parts where they get the really surly, angry side of me on tour – I don’t like anyone seeing that side of me. I will say that I do love watching that first part, from when we were kids and we were first starting out. I know it’s a dumb thing to say, but I really can’t believe how young we all look.”
Rosenstock is set to return to Australia this month for a whirlwind national tour that will take him up and down the east coast in only 11 days. Joining him on the tour will be Melbourne upstarts Camp Cope, as well as long-time friend Chris Farren, who will perform with Rosenstock under the guise of their side project, Antarctigo Vespucci. Although Rosenstock has not played in Australia since the final Bomb The Music Industry! tour in 2012, he did return here for a spell back in 2014 to work as producer on The Smith Street Band’s acclaimed third album, Throw Me In The River. Recording took place in Forrest, a small town in regional Victoria where both he and The Smith Street Band will return for a huge show at the local pub, The Wonky Donkey, called A Weekend At The Wonk.
“Of all the places in Australia, Forrest is the hardest one to explain to my friends back home,” laughs Rosenstock. “I’m going to show my bandmates this weird little town out in the woods where I spent a month making an album. Where I’m from, doing anything away from New York is weird. Even going to make a record a couple of hours out of town is seen as weird. The other side of the fucking planet, though? They’re like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ I’m going to miss Smith Street a lot on this tour, but I’m so glad it’s happening – and that Weekend At The Wonk is happening, too. We’re so stoked to see everyone, man.”
Jeff Rosenstock’sWe Cool? is out now through SideOneDummy/Shock. Jeff plays the Factory Floor Wednesday March 9; andBlack Wire Records onThursday March 10, with Antarctigo Vespucci and Camp Cope.
