When you think of Typhoid, you tend to conjure up images of death and disease. It’s not typically something positive. After listening to NYC based band Typhoid Rosie, you will have a whole new connotation for the word. This group has a sound that is extremely colorful and excitingly different.
Their debut release, The Music Album is an amalgam of intriguing and mind-bending music. The twelve-track album takes you on a wild musical ride of rock and roll. Their music makes you laugh and smile. The lead vocal stylings of Rosie Rebel will catch your ear and the smart guitar riffs and bass lines will keep you wanting more. Typhoid Rosie is reminiscent of Blondie meets something more, and all-around awesome.
Stand out tracks: “Secret Pocket,” “She Died,” “Citadel”
ESBMusic sat down with the band to talk about how they started, what to expect of their album and their plans for the future:
ESBM: How did you come up with your name?
Rosie: Typhoid Rosie is even better because Rosie is a sweet name juxtaposed with a dark word that is synonymous with a disease. Most people today don’t think about Typhoid Fever, but it is still very much alive in other parts of the World. In fact, I’m going to Peru next month and Typhoid is one of the shots to get. I’m really going to be Typhoid Rosie.
In many ways, music spreads like a disease. It is transmitted from person to person. That would be awesome if our music spread like that. I can already see it starting to spread, before we have ever done one show outside of the Tri-state area, our music is in Belgium, Germany, Australia, Scotland, England, and British Columbia.
I have been getting emails from people around the world telling me how much they enjoyed the Music Album. For our music to continue to spread like an epidemic as Typhoid Fever did, it would be an honor. We just need more carriers to be like modern tweeting Typhoid Mary’s: “OMG! The Music Album was the one thing that kept me going while I was quarantined!” I wish they would do that instead of tweeting things about Michelle Obama’s bangs and Charlie Sheen.
ESBM: How did you all come together?
Rosie: Ten years ago, I met Phil at Jammyland record store. He was the nicest guy I ever met in my life. Naturally, the first time we hung out, I got drunk, pulled him into a bicycle closet, and kissed him. I moved in with Phil in Brooklyn and for the following nine years, I did comedy and Phil made new music he would Buy Beats online and come up with clever raps for them.
All that time, I never thought of myself as a musician, or as a songwriter but I always loved music. Phil supported me while I found my way in life. I went back to school and ended up finishing my bachelor’s at Columbia. At Columbia, we had to take a mandatory music class. I got an A. The professor encouraged me to learn more about music.
There was something about this class that unlocked a hidden chamber inside of me. I started playing the ukulele alone. For the first year, I was too shy to sing in front of anyone else. Phil calls my earliest musical phase, “a raping of all of his senses.” One day Vic Ruggiero from the Slackers came over to my house and played music with me. It was a special moment because it was the first time anyone was like, “Hey Rosie I dig your music.” It meant a lot coming from him. After that, I founded Typhoid Rosie with band members Jack Wright, Matt Burdi, and El Jay.
We played one show then Jack and Matt told us that they wanted to focus all their attention on their main project, the Forthrights. Then Phil and Juan Cardenas joined the band. Once again, we needed a guitar player to replace the burning flamenco void that Juan left behind when he moved to Hollywood. Juan was followed out by El Jay who disappeared. We were just about to put El Jay’s picture on a missing milk carton when a mutual friend told us, “El Jay had his hands full. The man was swamped in pussy.” It was the nature of the business. We were lucky to find Patrick when we did. Not only is he a sick guitar player, he is hilarious.
Patrick: Steve Capecci was the link that introduced me to Phil and Rosie. Steve is one of the best reggae bass players in NYC. I play drums with him in Top Shotta Band and Phil was playing with him with Coolie Ranx when Phil told Steve that he needed a guitarist who played like an asshole, Steve wholeheartedly recommended me. I met Nate a few years back at a jam session and I remember saving his phone number because he was the only guy I had met up to that point who could play old school rock & roll (Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley type stuff) authentically on the bass, and that really impressed me. I didn’t even know Nate was into classical music and double bass until later.
ESBM: What are your musical influences?
Rosie: As far as musical influences go I love Alton Ellis, Skeeter Davis, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Killers, The Supremes, Bob Dylan, The Drifters, Roy Orbison, The Zombies, Ben E. King, and Sam Cooke. I love soul, punk, reggae, rock and roll, and even Beethoven. I get obsessed with songs. I will listen to one song on repeat for weeks. My most recent obsessions are: Garnet Mimm’s As Long I Have You, Paul Simon’s 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, and Johnny Cash’s The Man Comes Around. I spent my youth listening to punk, especially Cock Sparrer, Rancid, and The Clash.
As far as lyrics go, I have a gigantic lyrical crush on Leonard Cohen. As far as singers go, there’s an amazing singer now called Nicole Atkins, she is one of the best singers of our time. She taps into a pure source of raw emotion. I guess we can’t help but be influenced by all the things we’ve read, heard, and seen in our lives. I’m not trying to sound like anyone. I feel like the best musical influence is my own life.
When we went into the studio to record The Music Album, I heard my voice crystal clear for the first time in my life. It was crazy, it was like Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha when he sees all of life in one single river being carried through time. He hears babies being born, people dying, people laughing and people crying. I heard something similar in my voice, it completely matched my whole life. Having weathered all of life, my voice was everything it should be by now: All the joy, every sob, every grudge, every laugh, every storm, and every scream all left their scarring imprint on my voice. My voice is my own and that’s what makes it so unique.
Patrick: I’ve always played a lot of roots reggae, but it doesn’t influence my playing in Typhoid Rosie. I was always into punk rock growing up, I always dug the Dead Boys, the Clash, the Çramps, the New York Dolls, and Rancid. I’m also really into R&B music like Curtis Mayfield, Solomon Burke, all the Motown and Stax stuff, the Staples Singers. And of course Jimi Hendrix cuz he played Stratocasters and got all the girls.
ESBM: What is your writing process?
Patrick: When we first started, Rosie had some songs completely finished with lyrics and chords, and myself, Phil, and Nate fleshed out our own parts and helped arrange the tunes. Other times Rosie will come in with a line or two of a hook and we’ll write the song from the ground-up. We’ve also started with a guitar riff and built off of that. Everybody in the band brings something to the table during the songwriting process. Nate and Phil are big on instrumental arrangements and me and Rosie work together on lyrics, subject matter, and vocal parts.
Rosie: : When I’m out walking my dog or riding my bicycle, melodies and lyrics just pop into my head. I will record the idea on the spot in my phone, or else I will forget it. Later more lyrics will come. A friend of mine, Larry McDonald told me that songs come to him in pieces. It is very much like that, songs have a life of their own, they evolve. Wisdom doesn’t come to you all at once, it’s only at the right moment do you get another nugget of the puzzle. The song writing process cannot be forced. When we sit down as a band to have a song writing session, it never works out. I’m lucky that songs are pouring out me. Sometimes I will write the music on my ukulele, or on my great grandmother’s organ. Other times Patrick will come over with a guitar and I will sing a melody and Patrick will play guitar. I write the majority of the lyrics, sometimes Patrick will add a line here or there. Usually I will bring a melody and rough lyrics to Patrick and Phil first. Then we will play it as a band for weeks adding bridges, intros and out-tros until it is a whole song. We’re learning how to work this process together as we go along.
Some songs I wrote alone like El Toro. It was inspired by a trip to Andalusia, Spain with Phil. I saw the most beautiful vision of black bulls grazing in golden pastures near the sea. A few days later, I saw a bullfight in Rhonda. It was the most intense thing I’ve ever seen in my life. In a sold out stadium of cheering people, I cried the entire time, while some dolled up Spanish lady handed me tissues. I was deeply affected by it, I came home and wrote El Toro on my ukulele. We Killed Flipper is a very similar story. I swam with dolphins in Mexico. Then I saw The Cove, a film about the dolphin trade. As much as I love to hang out with dolphins, they don’t belong in cages with tourists. I wrote this song on ukulele, and Phil wrote the chords for the chorus. Heartbeat of the World was trickier to write, because it is the thing I care the most about. I wanted to say so much about the rapid destruction of the Earth. Patrick helped me to simplify the lyrics. We came up with the idea to make mother nature a character who is being killed, “They poisoned her blood (rivers), choked the air from her lungs (killed the trees)…but when you pull the plug, you killed all life, the Heartbeat of the World”. The ‘million dollar hook’ came to me while I was riding my bicycle months before the lyrics ever surfaced. When I wrote the chorus, I had the image of the evil monkeys from The Wizard of Oz in my head. The rest of the band came up with their parts based on the vocal melody. Our most fun and cheerful song on The Music Album, You Are Not the Father was written while I was cracking up laughing watching Maury Povich, “You said you did not bang so and so…and that is a lie! You are not the Father!”
One day at practice, we were playing a killer bass line and boom we had our best dance song, it’s our hit single. While we were recording it ideas were still coming. Patrick added the dirty panting and heavy breathing. I added the lines, “Doing the nasty” and Phil arranged them into the bridge. Already after one year as a band, we have a 12 track record and half of our second album in the works. It’s very exciting!
ESBM: What are your plans after the album release, will you be playing a lot of shows? Going on tour?
Rosie: People can buy The Music Album on CD through our website: www.TyphoidRosie.Com. In February, our music will be available on iTunes and Amazon, followed by Pandora. In the meantime, Typhoid Rosie will play shows mostly in New York City. We would love to go on small tours to Boston or D.C. Your best best of catching Typhoid Rosie is in the Tri-State area. Please write to me if you are interested: (RosieRebelYell@Yahoo) and I will add you to our mailing list.
ESBM: Any last words?
Rosie: I wanted to thank Jeanette and Eat Sleep Breathe Music for giving us this interview. We are always so grateful to people who take the time to appreciate our music. I extend my appreciation to each person who buys our album and supports our amazing band. I am so grateful to play music with these three guys. Patrick’s guitar solos will set you free. Phil is the best man I ever met in my life. I couldn’t think of a better man to back me on drums other than my husband.
One day in my dream of dreams, I will pay Phil back for a decade of support. Being in Typhoid Rosie is pretty awesome, we are playing and writing kick-ass songs. We invest our time and money into it, and it is even more of a blessing when you love it to. I want Typhoid Rosie to get to a stage where Patrick and Nate don’t have to struggle to pay their rent, and we can all continue to make music and live in NYC. Patrick will be able to buy his gold fronts, and I will pay off my Ivy League loans. Now that’s the life!
For more information on Typhoid Rosie check out their Instagram and Facebook page.
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Great thank you !