There’s personal music, and then there’s “Stage Four,” the fourth album by heavy Burbank quintet Touché Amoré, written in response to the passing of vocalist Jeremy Bolm’s mother from cancer on Halloween of 2014 while the band was onstage in Gainesville, Fla.
The album, which was released in September, is a powerful, searing, often gut-wrenching (“Skyscraper,” the last track, ends with an actual voice message from Holm’s mom) tour-de-force, from a band already known for its emotionally revealing lyrics and hearts worn on musical sleeves.
Touché Amoré performs at the Ballroom at the Outer Space in Hamden on Oct. 23. Bolm spoke with CTNow about “Stage Four,” his mom and his conversations with fans.
Q: In general, how do songs get written?
A: I wish I was the type of writer that came in with a notebook full of things I want to get done, but I always need music first. It gives me the vibe. It lets me know when I need to get louder and when I need to get quieter. It gives me an idea of what the message of the song is going to be. With this record, I didn’t want to start writing lyrics until we were probably about five or six songs deep. I didn’t want to open that valve or start that process of what I want to write about, because there are so many angles to the content of the record: “This song could tell the story of her life, this song could be about what I’m going through,” and so on. I think the first song I had words to was “Benediction,” and then “New Halloween.” After that, I lose track.
Q: Going into it, did you know it was going to be about your mom?
A: Yes. Way before we started the record, there was a conversation with the guys. I think they realized, without me even having to say it: “Hey, obviously this entire song is going to be about my mom…” “Yeah, of course, we sort of figured that.” They all knew my mom really well, too, and I’m sure in some way that helped them with the music they were trying to write, knowing what I was going through and knowing her as a person.
Q: Some songs, like “New Halloween” and “Eight Seconds,” allude to specific dates and places, which gives the album some sense of chronology. Did that affect the sequencing of the songs on the album?
A: Sequencing is always a hard but fun part for me. It’s the age-old process of building a mixtape, where you have to start strong, you have to go higher, and then you have to cool it down. In terms of lyrical content, the two that were very important for placement were “New Halloween,” because I mention the voicemail [from Bolm’s mother], and “Skyscraper,” where we include the voicemail. It gives closure to the record, in a way. To be honest, any song could have ended with the voicemail, but having that close out the record, and the mention of it early on, was important.
Q: Including that voicemail from your mother must have been a difficult decision.
A: It was, and I honestly waited until we were done writing and recording the record to even listen to the thing. I told myself, “Whatever actually gets said here will make me decide if it should or should not make it” because it’s also the crossing the lines into too personal. When I heard what it was, that it was just a passing message — it wasn’t a message from the last week before she passed, or something like that. I had that message on my phone for awhile, I just hadn’t listened to it. I make the joke that only parents really leave voice messages in this day and age. It was always a thing that my mom would call and leave a voice message, and I would immediately call her back, and then I would always get that message: “You have voicemail.” The fact that it was such a common everyday message made it a little more special, too.
Q: In “Palm Dreams,” you wonder what brought your mom out west to California. Since the album’s release, have you learned any additional information?
A: Funny enough, I assumed it was in the 1970s, but I just found out: I spent time with her high school best friend, and she mentioned my mom moved [to California] directly after high school, which would have actually been in the 1960s. That blew my mind: She got out immediately. That was nice to learn. I assumed she did some work around town and then just kind of eventually moved. That she just wanted to get out of this small town [Norfolk, Neb.] was a cool thing to learn.
It’s funny, saying these things out loud. You’d think you would know these things about your parents. It shows me that we were close in a lot of ways, but we didn’t really talk about ourselves that much. It makes me want to ask more questions about the people in my life. It’s a learning experience, but it’s one I wish I didn’t have to learn.
Q: When did you premiere the songs on “Stage Four,” and how did your fans react?
A: We did a short run out to a festival and back in August. We were playing “Palm Dreams” and “Displacement.” We’re on a different label now [Epitaph], with a wider reach to a different kind of person. There were people at the shows that maybe don’t know any of our other material and only knew those songs. Then we did record release shows in New York and California, after people had gotten to know the record a little bit. Seeing the reaction at those shows was very moving, to see people singing along to songs with much heavier context, especially “Palm Dreams,” hearing an audience sing along to the chorus of “on my own.” It was comforting.
Q: Your fans are extremely devoted. Is there a key to that relationship?
A: People connect with things that are almost too personal, when songs are so specific that they can tie things to. If you’re an adolescent having sleepovers with your friends, you divulge secrets, and then you have a bond. It’s like that: you connect to songs, or you connect with where you were when you heard them. There are artists like that for me that I love and follow to this day. That’s all I can imagine, but I appreciate it so much.
I’ve had more in-depth, personal conversations with strangers at our shows than I’ve probably had with the close people in my life. I don’t necessarily love it all the time, especially now, where I have a pretty much constant conversation with people telling me who they’ve lost. That’s not an easy conversation to have with strangers all the time, but also understand why they’re having it, so I don’t fault them for that. I don’t really know what to say except “I’m sorry,” “I hope you can find comfort in what we’re doing,” and “Thank you for coming into the show and buying the record.”
TOUCHÉ AMORÉ performs at the Ballroom at the Outer Space in Hamden on Oct. 23 at 7 p.m., with Tiny Moving Parts and Culture Abuse opening. Tickets are $15 to $17. manicproductions.com
Editor’s note: This story has been edited to correct the hometown of Jeremy Bolm’s mother.
