Los Angeles retro alt-rockers Rocket (whose sound Paste characterized as, “imagine Sonic Youth writing songs for the pop charts.”) have already played some pretty huge shows in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection. Last year they opened two nights at The TLA for emo legends Sunny Day Real Estate (HR from Bad Brains showed up one night and Rocket guitarist Desi Scaglione bought one of his current favorite shirts on South Street), prior to supporting PHILTHY phriends bôa at The Foundry on their sold-out reunion tour and Ride on their third local show of the year, at Union Transfer… They also played Foto Club in 2023 with our buddies MILLY, who are amazing, although I’m not sure that that qualifies as “pretty huge.”
However, Rocket just kicked off their first-ever headlining tour, which will have the band back in town on November 7th to play Warehouse on Watts, the 250-capacity [usually] all ages spot that this city has long needed. And during a recent Zoom chat with the quartet, they tell me that they’re really amped to play these dates. “Just to have the chance to actually be the headliner is really exciting, having only done that a handful of times, so I’m excited to get a chance to play for crowds that are there for us. After we get back to LA in November, I’m really excited to see how we’ve changed from the beginning to the end,” Rocket vocalist and bassist Alithea Tuttle tells me, while guitarist Baron Rinzler says that the band will be, “leveling up slightly on our production game,” including adding keyboards into the mix.
The headlining jaunt follows the October 3rd release of R is for Rocket, the band’s debut full-length, which Stereogum named “Album of the Week,” saying it, “strikes a satisfying balance between loud and melodic, its mixes full of cathartic noise without compromising detail or vibrancy.” However, Baron tells me his favorite reaction to the LP came at the album release show: “We did an instore at Amoeba, and there was a guy who came up to us and said, ‘Dude, none of my homies fuck with you guys, but I fuck with you!’” “It’s like a level up, much more expansive, sound-wise,” he goes on to explain of how the album compares to 2023 debut EP, Versions of You, before Alithea tells me that the recording process represents quite an evolution for the group: “The first EP we did at [drummer] Cooper’s [Ladomade] parents’ shed [laughs]. We did this record half at 64 sound and half at [Foo Fighters’] Studio 606, so the recording was totally different.”
And Rocket have apparently been longtime fans of Foo Fighters, with Desi naming their self-titled LP as one of his favorite debuts and Alithea telling me that the alt-rock icons’ take on music videos served as inspiration for the R is for Rocket music videos: “As a band, it’s the only other time you get to be visual, aside from your album cover and your merch, where you get to show your vibe, style, and personality. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, which I hope you can see in the videos, but they also help to illustrate what feeling can go along with the songs. So, we were like, ‘Let’s do as many as we can!’ [5 of the LP’s 10 tracks have official music videos] which proved to be harder than we realized [laughs].”
When I ask about some of the highlights of Rocket, who have been releasing music since debut single “On Your Heels” dropped in 2022, Desi tells me, “Playing with a lot of bands that you love and any sort of positive reaction you get from fans is really exciting. Everything, for the most part, is fun or funny.” Baron, on the other hand, has quite a specific highlight of the group thus far: “Playing with The Smashing Pumpkins!” This summer Rocket did a run supporting The Smashing Pumpkins across the UK. However, Alithea does clarify for me that the band is not, technically, named after the Siamese Dream track…
*Get your tickets here.
