Each disk became a timestamp.
Jeremy Bolm talks about the 10 years of Stage Fourwhy grief is universal and what it means to give new life to songs that have never been played live.
Touché Amoré They have been building a discography that works like an emotional diary for almost twenty years. Jeremy Bolmits vocalist, doesn’t write songs: he unravels them. Each album is the result of questioning himself for months, of dissecting what he couldn’t express in any other way, of turning pain into something that other people can recognize as their own.
Stage Four (2016) is the deepest album of that excavation. Born out of grief over the death of their mother, the album became a reference point for those going through any kind of loss over the years, and now celebrates its tenth anniversary with a reissue and a tour where the band plays it from beginning to end. On August 8 they arrive at Indie Rocks Forum! as part of the celebration of the tenth anniversary of The Beast. Jeremy spoke with Indie Rocks! before the show.
Indie Rocks!: Throughout their entire discography, Touché Amoré is a band that speaks from the rawest feelings that few bands allow themselves to release. Where does that inspiration come from? Do you take a specific topic and work from there, or does life itself dictate what you write?
Touché Amoré: It’s probably not the most original answer in the world, but honestly, when it comes time to make an album, I just grab the pen and start thinking about what’s on my mind at that exact moment, what I’m going through. I am someone who has difficulty fully expressing how I feel in certain situations. So when it comes time to make an album, that’s when I start to investigate what’s going on with me, to dissect my real feelings about certain things. So unfortunately, when that moment comes, it’s usually not the most fun for me mentally, because it forces me to interrogate who I am in that period of my life.
GO!: And speaking of that specific period: the discography works almost like a diary. In that sense, Stage Four It became a reference point for many people grieving. How do you carry the weight of being that record for someone?
TA: It’s not something I consciously subscribed to. As I said, when the time comes to make an album, I’m going through what I’m experiencing at that moment. And when the time came to do Stage Fourmy mother had passed away about a year and a half before. He was still very involved in that duel. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to express everything I was experiencing in such an artistic way. I don’t know how I would have processed that grief any other way. So I’m grateful that this album was my outlet.
What I didn’t expect was the impact it would have on our audience. I knew that at that time many of our listeners were somewhat younger than me, our audience is usually between 20 and 30 years old. And I think a lot of people at that stage haven’t lost their parents yet; generally that comes more towards the mid-30s, mid-40s. So I thought I might be making an album that would alienate people. But then I realized that people lose loved ones much younger than you expect, or they use it as a reference for the loss of a relationship, the loss of anything, even a pet. I think that just confirms that grief is pretty universal.
GO!: AND Stage Four turns 10 years old. How does it feel to play it live again knowing everything it took to make it and everything it has meant since then?
TA: It has been very nice to revisit it, because there are many songs on the album that we didn’t play live very often, some never. So it feels like a really nice way to celebrate those songs that we’re really proud of, and it’s like they have a new life.
There are songs that we have played since the album came out: “Flowers in You”, “New Halloween”, “Rapture”, “Palm Dreams”. But having the opportunity to play songs like “Water Damaged”, “Softer Spoken”, “Posing Holy” It has been incredible. They have become some of my favorites on the album. And lyrically, I think a song like “Softer Spoken” It perfectly encapsulates what the album is actually about. It’s very nice to sing it live now and feel like it’s a statement about what the album really means.
GO!: They are playing the entire album on this tour and they are going to do it like this in Mexico City. How does the structure of the setlist when you play a record from start to finish?
TA: We do it simply from start to finish, without breaking the order in any way. Which is sometimes funny because the most popular song on the record is the first one we play, but in a sense it’s like, “let’s get it out of the way” and get everyone excited from the start.
What works in our favor, and this is something unique about this record, is that the album flows perfectly in terms of tunings. Normally in a set you have to stop to change tunings, change guitars. But Stage Four is structured in such a way that the first three songs are in standard tuning, the next three in standard tuning dropthen return to standard, and ends in drop. So the record flows very quickly and very easily without having to make many stops. Makes it surprisingly easy to play live. On the other hand, an album like I regret It has so many tuning changes that it requires a lot more work. So this is probably the easiest of our entire discography, besides our first album.
GO!: There is also a reissue with demos and remixes. How does it feel to listen to those demos 10 years later?
TA: Most of the demos are pretty close to how they ended up on the album. Those who were very different… “Displacement”for example, was much more chaotic, while we made the final version more direct. Revisiting that original version, it almost made me wonder why we changed it. I thought, “This is interesting, actually.” But that happens when you revisit something you wrote or recorded a long time ago: you listen to it with fresh ears and find value in it again.
With the lyrical changes I made between the demos and the album, I’m glad I made them, because I listen to some of those versions and think, “ah, yeah, that wasn’t so good.” Make the version stripped down of “Rapture” It was a very fun exercise to see if the song still had the same weight in acoustic format. And it was very nice to work with the artist. wisp to sing it together. The remixes were a breath of fresh air, hearing interesting versions of songs we love so much, from artists like Carrie of Deafheaveneither Sarah Taylor and Ryan of Youth Code. It was a really fun way to celebrate the record and give it some new life.
GO!: Since it came out Stage Fourthey arrived I regret and then Spiral in a Straight Line. How does Jeremy coexist with all those records? How did you evolve as a person through those stages?
TA: Four years passed between each album, right? Stage Four in 2016, I regret in 2020, Spiral in 2024. That’s four years of new life experiences. In that time I went through very big changes: relationships, self-discovery, love and its loss, all those things. Think about who you are and how much eight years can change you as a person.
Each of those albums ended up being a time stamp in my life. Whether it’s overcoming grief better, new love, the loss of a relationship. All of that makes writing an album a challenge every time, because you go through a lot, you mature, you want to be a better person and a better writer. I think it’s both a blessing and a curse to release albums with so much time between them, because that, fortunately and unfortunately, gives you a lot to question about yourself.
GO!: They have been making music for a long time. What is the secret to continuing doing it without falling into monotony?
TA: Find people to make music with that you really like. Fortunately, the five of us have such a good relationship with each other that when it comes time to start making new music, we just… I don’t want to say it’s getting easier because nothing is easy, but I think being a band for so long, and we’re pushing into our twenties, which is crazy to think about, our closeness and our musical language with each other has only become tighter and more defined. To the point where we inherently speak the same language when we make music together. So writing is almost a blessing. I’m looking forward to the next time we decide to start making a record.
GO!: Here in Mexico City, Mexican fans are very passionate about what we feel and we express it with great intensity. What does Mexico have that keeps bringing them back?
TA: It took us so long to finally start taking the trip that once we did, we can’t get enough. We love coming back. It has become such a beautiful place to visit and we love it so much. We are very grateful to have the opportunity to return so often. They treat us with such kindness and playing for that audience is something incredible. I love him.
GO!: For someone who has never heard Touché Amoré, what song do you tell them to start with?
TA: There are several, but if I have to give just one, I’m going to throw in a surprise and say the main theme of Is Survived Bythe song “Is Survived By”. I think at that point we had really figured out who we were, and that song implements almost everything we do.
Or a song like “Some Heroine”either “Kill Day” from the first album Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me. I think those songs represent very well all the resources we have: the quiet, the loud, the fast, the massive chorus parts. They have all those elements.
But if Is Survived By song is my answer, so one of my personal favorites is “Lamplight.” I love her very much.
GO!: Describe Touché Amoré in three words.
TA: Strident. Raw. Noisy.
IR!: Thank you very much for your time, Jeremy. See you very, very soon here in Mexico City.
TA: I can’t wait. And thank you very much for your music and for this space. See you soon.
