Ra Ra Riot Is More Than a Rock Band with Violin and Cello

Pretty much everything you can read on the Interweb about Syracuse,
New York, band Ra Ra Riot begins with a tragic story: In 2007, after
playing a show in Providence, Rhode Island, Ra Ra Riot drummer and
lyricist John Pike drowned off the coast of Massachusetts.

“It’s definitely a huge part of our history, and he was hugely
influential in the music and songwriting and everything, so it’s hard
not to talk about that,” said Ra Ra Riot guitarist Milo Bonacci.

Placed in this context, The Rhumb Line, Ra Ra Riot’s debut
full-length on Barsuk, seems almost elegiac at first glance: “St.
Peter’s Day Festival” begins with the line, If I go to Gloucester, I
know I will wait there for you/The Rhumb Line is waiting there,
too. Then there’s “Dying Is Fine,” with its musical adaptation of
e.e. cummings’ poem “dying is fine)but Death”: dying is fine but
maybe/I wouldn’t like death if death were good.

However, the fact is that Pike himself wrote those lyrics —
and Ra Ra Riot’s music, a blend of chamber orchestra, rock and dance
pop, is much more than the story of one member.

“It’s only in recent history that [the songs have] been
re-contextualized and taken on an alternate meaning,” said Bonacci.
“People just try to draw connections, even though all of these songs
were written before all that happened.”

The Rhumb Line, named after a bar in Gloucester,
Massachusetts, is ten songs packed with choral harmonies, dramatic
strings (violin and cello, specifically), pulsing rhythms, poetic
lyrics delivered by vocalist Wesley Miles, heartbreak, and rapture. A
comparison to the Arcade Fire seems apt for the first four minutes of
The Rhumb Line (“Ghost Under Rocks”), but then “Each Year”
brings in a vibe more in the New Order realm. A Kate Bush song —
“Suspended in Gaffa” — works into Ra Ra Riot’s aesthetic
perfectly, and “Winter ’05,” with its chorus of, If you were
here/winter wouldn’t pass quite so slow, can easily take its place
in a long line of classic love songs.

And those “elegiac” songs? They’re the poppiest rockers on the
record: “Dying Is Fine” even has its own twist on a slow-fast-slow
structure.

Ra Ra Riot is a collaborative band through and through: This is why
the loss of one member is unsettlingly traumatic, but it’s also why Ra
Ra Riot can move on.

“John and Wes, for the most part, wrote lyrics together, or a couple
of songs were mainly John or mainly Wes. Now, obviously, it’s all Wes
who’s writing the lyrics,” explained Bonacci. “The way we would be able
to get feedback from each other and come up with ideas has changed,
because one of the members is no longer with us, but it’s different
people now giving input and opinions. The songs are obviously going to
develop in a different way.”

It’s evident from a song like “Oh, La” that Ra Ra Riot carefully
decides which instruments will play what when: With six different
instruments on every song, this balance is important.

“Since there are so many melodic instruments, we do have to sort of
step aside from time to time to make room for the other people,” said
Bonacci. “That’s something we try to pay a lot of attention to —
we don’t want to clutter the mix up with too many independent melodies
or anything like that.”

On “Oh, La,” Alexandra Lawn’s cello and Rebecca Zeller’s violin play
the dominant chords as Mathieu Santos’ bass and Bonacci’s guitar stay
mostly in the background — but when Miles’ voice comes in, the
strings fall back, and the cello steps forward. The guitar gets its
moment in the spotlight halfway through, playing a melody that slides
between Lawn and Zeller’s strings, and the drums start and stop,
carefully enhancing the rhythm only where it feels right.

Part of the allure of Ra Ra Riot’s music is this careful balance
between instruments, but the violin and cello are front and center more
often than the guitar or bass. Using violin and cello to carry a hefty
portion of melody is what gives Ra Ra Riot its own sound. The strings
are crisp and technically proficient, which gives even the most
straightforward rock song a layer of complexity. While violins and
cellos are often used by other bands to add drama or melancholy, Ra Ra
Riot uses its stringed instruments to add excitement and exuberance
— just listen to how the cello jumps up and down at the end of
“Run My Mouth” for a good example.

All of this is why it’s hard to pinpoint Ra Ra Riot’s sound by
comparing it to one or two bands or a certain genre of music: It’s too
subtle to be rock, and too loud and happy to be another precious
indie-rock orchestral-pop project. Bonacci said that when he’s asked to
describe what kind of music Ra Ra Riot plays, he usually says, “We’re a
rock band with string players.”

But, he added, “It’s hard to say that, though, because obviously,
the string players, Allie and Rebecca, are a significant part of the
music — they’re not an afterthought or anything.”

Actually, nothing is an afterthought on The Rhumb Line
— even the songs that seem to speak to their bandmate’s death
were a long time in the making, some dating back to the band’s first,
self-titled EP in 2007. The band formed in early 2006 while the members
were still students at Syracuse University, and with so much history
already, the fact that their songs are the result of a slow and
thoughtful stewing process means that Ra Ra Riot have only begun to
show us what they’re capable of.