RMRS

Playing together since August 2011 in venues and festivals across Texas, RMRS has attracted a loyal following with their energetic live performances. Friday, February 28th they will celebrate the release of their debut album “Don’t Say What It Means to You” at the Korova with Lonely Horse and The Black Market Club, to name a few, as well as many other local acts to keep you dancing all night. Doors open at 7 pm. $8 Minors, $6 21+.
Q: What brought the five of you all together to form RMRS?
A: We each left different bands with a similar feeling of new found creative freedom. In a sense (because of that) it took more convincing, both of ourselves and of each other, to commit to a group, but it also brought us together with a common vision of limitlessness that stemmed from being independently successful musicians and yearning to create our own experiment. Each member brings something invaluable to RMRS and the result is harmony.
Q: Who are your greatest influences?
A: We come from diverse musical tastes. From Local Natives to Circa Survive to — lets be honest — the Backstreet Boys.
Q: What else inspires your music?
A: Every year Michael takes trips to the beach and comes back with new material, its something about the wide open spaces that let you relax. Our audience and fans inspire us too, when we are out there promoting ourselves and selling our own merch, people notice we’re personal and they appreciate us by supporting us. When we played at Never Say Never Festival in the Valley, the local kids were on spring break and we were giving away stickers and they wanted us to sign their CD’s, it felt good and everyone was really psyched, especially when we sang the Spongebob theme song during our sound check and the crowd busted out in unison: “Ohhh, who lives in a pineapple under the sea...” Experiences like that are inspiring.
Q: Which song should a potential fan listen to first off of the new album?
A: “Pillow.” It’s unanimously our favorite. We took a step back and worked to articulate something refined and well-written rather than experimental. And it kind of sounds like a song from the 90’s movie Flipper...you’ll just have to listen to it and be the judge.
Q: How has RMRS changed since your first show together? What change is in the future?
A: Like a relationship, when you form a band together everyone involved is heading in the same direction...ideally. When RMRS first formed it was more like an open relationship, with those 2 am texts that you wake up in the morning to (u up?). But now with our album releasing, we are committed. We are playing SXSW, planning a tour, and heading back to the studio to work on new material.
Q: What is your pre-show ritual?
A: We don’t have one because setting up for a show is probably the most stressful thing in the world until we’re done playing. We’re five grown men showing up to one place at a set time, so you would assume things go smoothly, but we each bring our own equipment separately and set it up ourselves...sometimes at the last possible moment...and so when we are up on stage before we perform we are focused primarily on our equipment and sound.
- See more at: http://www.paisano-online.com/the-local-listen-rmrs/#sthash.7HPGN8E7.dpuf - Taylor Bird

Sometimes, the best thing to happen to a well-known local band is the break-up.

Just such a situation led to the formation of local alt-rock outfit RMRS. Born in late 2011 out of the ruins of three sonically divergent bands (Pygmaeus, Cure for the Radio and Collective Dreams), RMRS’ style is a unique blend of hard-rock thrash and danceable grooves. I caught up with three of the five band members for a sit-down at San Pedro Park. With clear skies above and the din of the thriving park as our backdrop, we discussed the group’s formation and evolution, their unique style and the record they’ll release this Friday.

Vocalist and keyboard player Michael Christopher was clear about the band’s intentions. “We wanted to make music that was unlike anything we had respectively done before,” he told the Current. Bassist and founding member Eddie Welsch added, “Yeah, like something more simple and something that people wouldn’t necessarily expect any of us to do.” For Welsch, previously in the avant-garde rock fusion band Pygmaeus, RMRS provided the opportunity to explore his fascination with soul, R&B and dance bass lines.

The band quickly coalesced and were recording demos by their second practice session. Then, after scrapping an Austin-based recording session, the band began working with Anthony Diaz DeLeon at Hollywood Studios in SA on what would become their debut album Don’t Say What it Means to You.

Though the guys will be celebrating the release of this record on Friday, Christopher reported that “it’s been done for a while, we’ve just been working on packaging and stuff like that.” One of the seemingly minor tweaks the group made is changing the spelling of its name from Rumors to RMRS. The new spelling not only makes the band far easier to Google, but the dropping of the vowels makes for a jagged effect that seems to gel more with the music—less round and more sharp.

All things considered, the final product that is Don’t Say What it Means to You is a tight exercise in progressive alt-rock power and pop execution. The nine-song affair begins in hazy contemplation, with two dreamy instrumental introductions (“Intru” and “Volcanoes”) and then drops into the fury of the album’s most forlorn song “Live Like This,” with its weary narrator lamenting the way in which our life decisions can end up costing us friends. With “Pillow,” the album’s lead single and most fully realized track, the band showcases its talent for nuance and delivers a surprisingly pretty rumination on the heartbreaking cycle of expectation and disappointment. “Pillow,” Welsch said, “was like a golden egg and [is] the only track on the album that was composed as a full band.” Drummer Joseph Briones, who instantly agreed with me that “Pillow” is a promising example of the places the band could still go, noted that “since the album has been done, we’ve already written a bunch of new songs as a group, songs that we’re excited to play and release soon.” - James Courtney

RMRS is a phoenix that rose from the ashes of SA's Pygmaeus, Cure for the Radio and Collective Dreams. The alt-rock group RMRS, runner-up in the Current's SA Music Awards in the Best Indie Rock Band category, is asking its fans to donate to their Indiegogo campaign to keep their project in high gear.

RMRS' hard work and devotion to their craft shows in every groove, every lyric and every note. The $5,000 goal will cover merchandise and CD pressing charges, along with goodies for the for fans who donate anywhere from $1-$100. Take a look at their Indiegogo campaign here. - Shannon Sweet / The Current

“RMRS is a collective of musicians that create music inspired by life and the way it is discovered.”
Emerging from the San Antonio music scene, comes RMRS (Rumors), an independent rock band with catchy pop vibes. They established themselves as a band in August 2011, but remained hidden from the public until Fall 2012.
Their name has spread quickly through San Antonio with their first album release published in multiple local newspapers, magazines, and radio stations.
Kyle Cooper (BGV/Guitarist), Joseph Briones (Drums/Percussionist), Edward Welsh (Bass), Michael Christopher (Keys/Vocals) and Mark Esquivel (BGV/Guitarist/Keys) make up the five piece indie pop/rock group.
Now this SW crew needs help from their fans and friends to continue their journey into musical expansion. You can help by donating to their IndieGoGo page which funds pressing for RMRS’ forthcoming EP VICTIMS.
If you’re in the San Antonio area late next month don’t miss RMRS Live VICTIMS EP Release Show at Jack’s Patio on February 28th – 8pm! - Mac. M. / Good Bamm Sho

RMRS Hit Progressive Pop Target With 'V I C T I M S'
RMRS' new EP V I C T I M S is a remarkably dense listen, despite the stylized spacing of its name. The SA quintet packs its five-song second effort with caterwauling guitar lines, keyboard and backdrops. If there's a vocal melody going, there's often a harmony pulling at it like a rip tide.

On the EP, it's a definite plus. The thickness of V I C T I M S is well thought out, not an example of over-stimulation or trying to do too much. But in the live set, the viscosity of the music creates another problem.

"I've fallen off the stage so many times because we have too many instruments," said singer Michael Christopher. Keyboards, guitars, a smorgasbord of pedals for additional flavor, drums, drum pads and a few hundred yards of cable make for a cluttered, but necessary stage space. "At the same time, it makes everything so beefy live," said guitarist Kyle Cooper.

Last February, RMRS released its debut album Don't Say What It Means To You. Over nine tracks, the outfit plays with nimble kicks and syncopated riffs, as Christopher sings of life and loss in a voice pushed just beyond its breaking point.

For the second effort, RMRS carefully layered more into less for the five-track EP. A favorite trick of drummer Joseph Briones is drawing energy down with a triplet emphasis on the kick drum, then snapping back up with the on-beat. Around this structural rhythm, the band creates a landscape of interacting guitars and vocals. "We've added a lot more instrumentation," said Christopher. "On this EP we're doing a lot of three to four part harmonies and chants."

Within those involved vocal lines, V I C T I M S takes a step forward, with a head turned wistfully to the past. "Waves were slipping in the hardest way, when will I return?" Christopher signs on the opener, with nostalgia pining in his voice.

"From a lyric perspective, this EP is about growing up," Christopher said. "Leaving a phase in your life and going on to a new one and remembering that phase a little bit. Trying to hold on to that part of your life. A lot of it has to do with the time when Kyle and I were living in another area, another place, different time, different people in our lives." - Matt Stieb THE CURRENT