1. How did you came up with the name of the band?
We just brainstormed at one of our early practices. When it became clear that we were actually going to write some songs and play shows, we figured we needed a name to play under. We wanted something general, that could mean different things to different people, and that wouldn't create specific expectations of what we would sound like. We didn't discuss it very much, just picked a name and went with it.
2. Do you have a standard procedure of creating a song? Do you just jam around or is there a main riff and the track is build up on it?
We used to jam a lot during rehearsals. Most of the early material on TGS and Wake/Lift was written this way. If we improvised something and liked it, we would just play it again and again until a structure emerged. It was a very intuitive process. The problem was that over time, we developed habits -- and that made the songs start to all sound the same. When we began writing for ADOM, we switched over to a more structured songwriting process. We would talk about song ideas before playing them, and decide in advance what a song should sound like and what sort of parts it should have. It became almost a game, a way to challenge ourselves to see if we could do new and interesting things. The Anaesthete had the most structured writing process of anything we've done, where we were actually making flow charts for all the songs. Sometimes we would come up with something that had great parts, but the parts didn't fit well together -- if that happened, we would sometimes end up moving parts from one song to another where they might work better.
3. What are your influences and what kind of music do you hear when you are at home?
I (Matt) can't speak for other members of the band, but I think people might be surprised at how little metal we listen to normally. My personal favorite band ever is Stars of the Lid. Everything I do with electric guitar owes something to those guys; they are pioneers without equal. A Winged Victory for the Sullen also gets a lot of play while I'm working and I really like Thomas Koner and most of the stuff on Kranky Records. In terms of metal, I've been listening to a lot of death metal in recent years, like Decapitated, Wormed, Ulcerate, and Gorguts. And everyone in Rosetta likes 90s hardcore, especially the stuff Hydra Head was putting out around 1997-2000.
4. What's the first record you've ever bought ?
So embarrassing -- probably one of the Punk-O-Rama compilations. Or maybe it was a Nirvana CD? Hard to remember. Possibly Rage Against the Machine, which I still love.
5. Name a band that you would like to share the stage or tour with ?
Usually the bands I can think are way out of reach. Maybe Jakob, or Pallbearer. My favorite bands to tour with are bands that don't sound too much like us and are nice, easygoing people. That's one reason why we've toured so much with City of Ships over the years.
6. Did the internet and specially the blogs helped to spread your music around the world? Name a place (country) that you were surprised to know your music has reached to?
I think the internet is the main reason we ever were able to tour outside the US. We've never had very good distribution overseas, so it was mostly just people hearing us online and telling their friends about it. I was pretty surprised that we had a lot of fans in Russia, for example. I recently did an interview with a zine in Iran! That was a big surprise. And we are going to tour China this summer, which is a great privilege.
7. Do you support the idea of bandcamp, where fans can decide the price or services like spotify?
We much prefer Bandcamp to any other digital platform. It provides fair compensation to the artist in a way that few others do. Spotify seems to be mostly about letting people download legally, but doesn't care about compensating the artists fairly. So listeners can download without feeling guilty, I guess. But it's iTunes and Spotify that are making money from that, not bands themselves.
8.Your latest album, “Anaesthete”, was digitally released as “name your price”. It’s rare a big band like Rosetta to release something and let the fans to decide how much they pay for it. How did you come up with this idea and was the acceptance of the fans as expected?
It was mainly a recognition of the times we live in. The internet has made most of the music industry machinery obsolete. You no longer need all that promotion and distribution to be heard around the world. So it makes sense to cut costs and simplify the process so that the band can give music directly to listeners. It allows the band to be financially sustainable, and the fans to get the music more easily and for cheaper. We were very happy with the response to the digital release -- it has done better than any previous release and thousands of new people have heard our music for the first time. Very exciting. We are still thinking about the pricing model and whether we might want to change that in the future, but from here on we will be self-releasing as much of our music as possible.
9. Where do you see yourselves in 5 years?
Probably touring less, but still making music. I think we might end up playing fewer shows but releasing a lot more new music. In the past we've put out a full-length every 3 years or so. I think in the future it might be every two years or even a major release every year. Because the self-released digital versions break even, then we don't have to save money or tour for long periods to afford recording time.
10. Is the artwork of an album important nowadays in the digital era?
It's probably less important that it used to be. Or maybe its importance has changed. Before digital distribution, the artwork was meant to tell you something about how an album sounded, by using recognizable visual cues. There's no need for that anymore, since people can hear the album before they buy it. So it creates more freedom for the artwork to be weird, or experimental, or challenging in some way.
11. What is your favorite album cover?
My favorite album cover of ours is Wake/Lift. The tower imagery has a lot of personal meaning for me.
12. It seems that a lot of people are turning on vinyl again. Why do you think that is and which is your preferable media format?
Most of the music I listen to is lossless digital (while I'm doing other things), but I do buy LPs occasionally for my collection. I think the larger format of the artwork is worth paying extra money for, and I do enjoy the way that vinyl demands more complete attention than digital music. Vinyl functions as a collector's product that you buy when you really love something. It's great to have that available.
13. What's the funniest story or moment as a band?
There are so many. It's hard to say. There was one time that we stayed with my mother-in-law on tour, and BJ managed to break a tile shelf in the bathroom and cut himself pretty badly. Armine ruined all of my mother-in-law's towels trying to get the bleeding to stop. I got in a lot of trouble, haha.
14. Do you have a new release or tour planned?
We have an EP coming out this year on Translation Loss records. It will probably be our last traditional release with a label. The material was recorded over a year ago but just hasn't been released yet. We'll be touring China this summer. And we're working on writing some new material with Eric from City of Ships, which should be interesting.
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