Bio

The band formed in 2005. Not long after forming, the band had written some songs and immediately began to perform at local venues/pubs to small crowds. At this time, the band released some of their first material on to a 3 Track Demo CD which they could sell at the shows they were performing at. The demo CD-R was released under James Spence's (keyboardist/vocalist) independent label which he named "Mayday!". They there are 8 releases under this label. After a split EP with Mirror! Mirror! (limited to 333 copies and released through Speedowax) the band signed to Holy Roar Records and released a self-titled EP featuring re-recorded songs from previous demos and EPs along with new songs. In June 2008, Rolo Tomassi were given a spot at Download Festival. The band was featured in the February 2009 edition of Rock Sound, with singer Eva Spence appearing on the cover along with The Bronx and Fucked Up as part of the magazine's Shred Yr Face 2 tour. The band played the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas in March 2009. On 29 June James Spence revealed that recording of the follow-up album to Hysterics would commence during the summer of 2009. The band also performed at Underage Festival and Sonisphere during August 2009.On 14 August 2009 it was announced that Rolo Tomassi will be playing the Australian music festival Soundwave in 2010 alongside bands Faith No More, Meshuggah, Alexisonfire and Jane's Addiction. They also played sideshows in Melbourne and Sydney as a support act to Jane's Addiction Towards the end of October 2009, the band flew to LA to record their second album. Artwork for their second album is, like Hysterics, designed by Simon Moody. Recording finished on 31 October and the album is due for release in March 2010. In early February 2010, it was announced their second album would be titled Cosmology and was due for release on 19 April 2010. In interviews, the band revealed they were working with American DJ/producer Diplo. The album has since been pushed back to 24 May. On release, Cosmology debuted at number 183 on the UK album chart.The band played on the Ronnie James Dio Stage at Download Festival and played on the NME/Radio 1 tent at Reading and Leeds in August 2010.In the band's blog in June 2010 it was written that there may eventually be a Discography styled release in the future which will allows people to hear all of the bands material released before the Rolo Tomassi EP. On 7 August 2010 they played at the Hevy Music Festival near Folkestone, England.Throughout October and November 2010 Rolo Tomassi supported The Dillinger Escape Plan on their UK tour. The band were to play a free gig at London's Bloomsbury Ballroom on 19 December. Tickets have to be won through the Rolo Tomassi website.This is to be filmed, to create a high definition DVD to be released with their next album, due in 2011, However, the show was cancelled due to the ill health of Eva Spence and a new UK Tour has been announced for May. The title of the next Rolo Tomassi record is "Eternal Youth" which will be an anthology of rare and non-album material. This was released on 18 April 2011.Their music has been difficult to classify simply because of the band's resistance to being identified with one single genre.They typically have been acknowledged as being mathcore, jazzcore and experimental rock; they have uniquely been defined by critics as progressive hardcore. Their mathcore influence is noted in their huge influence from The Dillinger Escape Plan. Their jazzcore style is shown in their use of jazz breakdowns and swapping chaotically between explosive mathcore, calm atmospheric experimental music and acid-jazz. Their music is also noted for using 8-bit synthesizers, sharing traits with nintendocore in terms of chaos and sound. The band have also named several other diverse influences, such as Mew, M83, Meshugah, Botch, Converge, At The Drive-In, Thursday and Goblin. The compilation album Eternal Youth by the band gave insight into their musical development since their inception in 2005 with their demos onto their latest b-side releases with Hassle records. Their earlier music is defined typically as closer to grindcore, where their music has developed as more experimental.

Video