Interview: Jeremy Bolm of Touché Amoré

Los Angeles very own Touché Amoré have hit Australian shores this July in support of their latest album, ‘Stage Four’. Jeremy Bolm, the lead singer of Touché Amoré took some time to speak with us about the current Australian tour.

How are you all feeling after traveling all the way to Australia?

The goal is to try and not think about it, we got into Brisbane around noon and did our best, passed out around ten and woke up around eight in the morning, so trying to pretend this is my normal life now. I’m sure just after the shows it will feel really crazy.

Touché Amoré last toured Australia in 2015 with Every Time I Die. Now coming up to being your fourth time here, what are your thoughts on Australian tours?

Yeah, you know I actually enjoy Australian tours, I sort of make the joke it doesn’t feel like it’s far from home, I feel like Australia’s sort of a big California with the weather and the environment and everything, but just a little bit more expensive, that’s the difference. I enjoy it, it’s fun and people are nice, I like it here.

What are Australian crowds and fans like for you performing?

You know, people seem really nice and energetic and you can definitely tell the differences in some of the cities. I feel like Sydney and Melbourne are more like the LA or New York of Australia, the shows are so busy and feel a little more people come out to those. I really did enjoy Perth though, it’s a very interesting place.

Any plans while Touché Amoré is in Australia?

Just trying to do as much as we can. A lot of the time we are driven into town and taken to the venue pretty quickly so not a lot of time to explore, but when we first got into Brisbane we sort of just walked around the area a lot and did typical things. Especially for me where I just went to Nandos immediately, so I’m a very typical person in that regard. Other than that just mainly got coffee and went to a couple of record stores including Rocking Horse Records which I don’t really get a chance to do in Australia so that was nice. I saw one record I wanted to buy but the hard process of if I buy one record I have to deal with taking care of it because my suitcase isn’t big enough, so it would have to be put in the guitar case so I feel that’s very stressful to take care of one record. If I go to another record store while we’re here and I find more things at least I’ll have a reason to stress myself out, but with one record I just couldn’t commit. It was actually a band from here in Australia Tyrannamen, I wanted their record because I feel Australia was the right place to buy it.

Your current tour is in support of your latest album ‘Stage Four’ so is there any hint to what fans can look forward to hearing you perform in particular?

We play a pretty good amount of the album, I think we play more than half of it so I feel like that’s a positive sign for us where we find ourselves writing the setlist doing a lot of it, rather than in the past focusing on also playing the older material. We are all very excited about playing these songs live. It’s hard to decide what songs to play because we can’t do the whole thing, but we do play a pretty fair amount. It can become hard because we are on our fourth record and you know you realise there’s people maybe that only like our first record, or only know our second record and so forth. So we try to please everyone the best we can.

That must be a pretty good feeling finally sharing ‘Stage Four’ with Australia live?

Yes definitely, always happy to get to go anywhere far from home and share it with anybody that’s willing to hear it, it’s a nice feeling. I don’t take it for granted for a second, I feel like a lot of bands go to Australia maybe once or twice in their quote unquote career, but for us to be able to of come back four times now that’s pretty special. We are happy to be here and happy to come and do it.

How has Touché Amoré changed as a band since your first album, ‘…To the Beat of a Dead Horse’ eight years ago?

We had a few member changes where we had a different guitar player and a different drummer at times. Our bass player moved to guitar, then we got a new bass player and now we have Elliot playing drums, and that was all just after that record came out. That’s probably the biggest change but other than that when you do anything as long as we have been doing this with a group of people you just grow tighter and know each other really well, know how everyone works and how they write. We just work a lot better now.

Touché Amoré’s Ambitions?

To bring out as many things on vinyl because a lot of us are pretty big record nerds we just appreciate the format and the art that goes into it. CDs have been pretty dead since the band started, it’s just kind of like a popular format in the United States. A CD doesn’t feel like much or as personal as vinyl, because when holding a record you feel like you’re holding a piece of art. Our guitar player Nick is our designer and he puts a lot of work into it. The art aspect has always been really important to us as well and the overall work we put into everything. Instead of just showing music after music for us it’s like the whole package is very important, the only thing we care about is putting out as much stuff on vinyl as possible and touring as much as possible so I think we have done both those things pretty effectively.

Any future plans for the band as of yet post-Australian tour?

After our Australian tour we get to go home for two months which is really nice, it’s just about the biggest break we’ve had since the record came out. Then we do a US headlining tour in the fall but after that we have zero plans, so we are all pretty excited to just enjoy the holidays and breathe a little bit.

Would you like to say anything to all your supporters and fans here in Australia?

If you plan on coming out to the tour we appreciate it and we are going to do the best we can to play the songs as well as we can and hope they are energetic fun shows.

Touche Amore Live Dates

WED 5 JULY
The Triffid, Brisbane
THURS 6 JULY
Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle
FRI 7 JULY
Factory Theatre, Sydney
SAT 8 JULY
Arrow on Swanston, Melbourne
SUN 9 JULY
Corner Hotel, Melbourne
TUES 11 JULY
Fowlers Live, Adelaide
WED 12 JULY
Amplifier Bar, Perth