Rocket: the unlikeliest of indie upstarts are ready for lift-off

Sometimes when one door closes, another one opens. But that other door? It can take a while. Just ask Alithea Tuttle. As a teenager, the Los Angeles native was well on her way to becoming a professional dancer. She had trained her entire life in rhythmic gymnastics and would practice for hours after school at a local conservatory.

Then in 2016, it all came to a very sudden and unexpected halt. “I suffered a severe spinal injury. The doctors said there was a stress fracture in one of my lumbar vertebrae.” Her dreams of becoming a professional dancer were officially over at the age of 16. Reminiscing now over a Zoom call with the rest of her band, Rocket, she recalls a long period of reckoning, of feeling like “my passion in life was gone.”

Ironically, it was the pandemic – when so many career musicians had to put their lives on hold – that finally gave Tuttle the space to commit herself to something new. Her boyfriend, Desi Scaglione, had played guitar in local bands for many years, and during lockdown, he began showing her some of his newest demos with the idea that she might be interested in writing lyrics and singing.

Tuttle remembers being hesitant at first. “Playing music was something I had flirted with in my head, but I’d never expressed a desire because I was nervous about people making fun of it or not taking it seriously,” she tells us today. And Scaglione had some reservations of his own, though his were decidedly interpersonal: “You look at other bands that have had people in relationships and we just said: let’s make sure that doesn’t happen to us.”

Fortunately, both managed to get past their misgivings. Fast forward to now: Rocket find themselves on the precipice of a major breakthrough, with a slew of tour dates on the horizon, supporting buzzy NYC trio Hello Mary and fellow Angelenos Silversun Pickups. They were also recently added to the Las Vegas emo extravaganza Best Friends Forever Fest and hint at more festival appearances later this year. “The truth is we’re still in shock,” says Scaglione. “I keep my fingers crossed because I know these opportunities are hard to come by.” He’s not wrong and yet, listening to their spectacular 2023 debut EP, ‘Versions of You,’ it’s easy to see why doors have opened wide.

“Rocket’s songs were a combination of my favourite influences – I was stoked to be a part of it” – Baron Rinzler

Rocket’s songs feel like a revelation, especially for Scaglione, who credits pioneering DC post-hardcore band Fugazi for helping him “unlearn the way I learned guitar”. His father – also a musician – had encouraged him to play from an early age, schooling him on all manner of classic and psychedelic rock. But it wasn’t until the younger Scaglione stumbled onto Fugazi that he found his true gateway to a raft of heavy, ’90s-era guitar sounds, from the metallic din of Helmet to the undulating, sculpted feedback of My Bloody Valentine.

Scaglione became particularly infatuated with The Smashing Pumpkins, and their influence looms large over Rocket, in case the Pumpkins-song-title-as-a-band-name bit wasn’t a dead giveaway. But despite the obvious reference point, Scaglione savvily uses the Pumpkins’ sound as foundation on their EP, marrying super-saturated, ‘Siamese Dream’-era guitars to screaming, new wave-y power pop. That rhythmic drive will be familiar to anyone who cherishes The Cars’ classic debut; Tuttle confirms it was a sad day in 2019 when she and Scaglione learned that Ric Ocasek had passed.

When it came time to form the band and play live, there was only one logical choice for a drummer. Cooper Ladomade had not only been friends with Tuttle since elementary school, but she had also been the one to first introduce Tuttle to Scaglione their freshman year of high school. Finding a second guitarist would prove to be a bit trickier, but it just so happened that one of Scaglione’s older friends, Baron Rinzler, had recently returned from college and was looking for something new.

Once Rinzler heard the demos, he didn’t require much convincing. “Hearing the music for the first time just felt right,” he says. “It was a combination of my favourite influences that felt new and different, and I was stoked to be a part of it.”

“We incorporate everything we love as musicians into something that feels uniquely our own” – Alithea Tuttle

With the lineup set, it was unanimously agreed that Tuttle should front the fledgling group. There was only one problem: she had to learn how to both sing and play the bass from scratch. So the band rented a practice space in June 2021 and began rigorously rehearsing their set, often getting together five days a week. “We actually kept it a complete secret,” says Tuttle. “We didn’t tell our friends or even our parents.” Tuttle may well have wanted to give herself an out in case her nerves got the better of her – and she very nearly succumbed.

After several months and with Rocket’s first gig alarmingly imminent, Tuttle still hadn’t stepped up to the mic, even in the safety of their practice space. “Finally, Baron pulls me aside and says, ‘Look, it’s not scary. I’ll sing the songs once and show you.’ Somehow they all still had faith that I could do it, and I have to give them credit because if I was in their shoes, I don’t know if I would have had the patience!”

The band’s first show was scheduled for March 2022, opening for their friends in renowned local band Milly. Since rumours of the band’s existence had only begun to circulate a couple weeks prior, Rocket expected only a handful to show up. But much to their surprise: “I get up on stage and everyone we ever gave a shit about is there to see us.” Tuttle scarcely remembers the rest of the show – only that she “didn’t fall offstage”. But clearly, they did enough to impress Milly, who invited the band to join them on their full US tour.

When it finally came time to properly record the songs that would comprise their debut EP, the band found themselves at somewhat of an impasse. LA studio time is notoriously pricey, and they had no outside funding from a label (Rocket are still unsigned today). They did, however, have a practice space. Scaglione’s idea was to save up for a vintage Yamaha PM-1000 mixing console and to turn their space into a studio so they could record on their own, and get exactly the sound they were looking for – all without the added pressure of being on the clock. It was a fine idea, except for the fact that the console cost thousands of dollars and the band had, per Tuttle, “exactly zero” in the bank.

Then, one day out of the blue, Ladomade’s father told them of a garage sale happening at the church down the street. “He showed us a photo of this mixing board they had for sale, and the minute we saw it, we started freaking out because we knew it was the exact one Desi wanted.” After purchasing the Yamaha PM-1000 with a $100 donation they were amused to discover it had originally been the property of ’70s yacht rockers, Captain & Tennille, a duo who hit it big with ‘Do That To Me One More Time’ and ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’. Acknowledging yet another odd coincidence, Tuttle innocently offers: “I think they were a couple too.”

Recorded on that secondhand mixing board in their repurposed practice space, the ‘Versions Of You’ EP more than validates Scaglione’s DIY instincts. The skyscraping shoegaze of ‘Sugarcoated’ sounds epic and immense. Ditto ‘Normal to Me’, a last-minute addition which became Scaglione and Tuttle’s personal favourite.

But the centrepiece is undoubtedly the propulsive ‘Portrait Show’, which seems to replay Tuttle’s three-year journey from self-pitying what-ifs to the intra-band pep talks to her dawning self-belief. One minute, she’s stuck in the past (“I’m nostalgic for a life I missed”) and the next psyching herself up to take control of her future (“I’m the sharpest tool in the shed / I’m the brightest light inside your head / If I say it again, will I believe it then?”). “It started with me wondering ‘Is this good enough?’” she confesses. “And then I woke up one day and realised, ‘Yeah, it is.’”

Rocket show no signs of slowing down. Besides their touring schedule, they’ve already banked eight new songs from their first proper studio session. They are somewhat coy when asked what the new batch sounds like, but according to Scaglione, they venture well beyond their initial sonic blueprint. “Our taste varies so much that in order to keep making the music we want to make, we felt like we had to introduce some new elements to our songwriting.” Tuttle adds: “We tried not to lean on any one genre but rather incorporate everything we love as musicians into something that feels uniquely our own.”

As for when the new songs will see the light of day, it’s anyone’s guess. They’re trying to not get too far ahead of themselves. Tuttle and the rest of Rocket know all too well that sometimes it can take a minute for the pieces to fall into place.

Rocket’s ‘Versions Of You’ EP is out now

Listen to Rocket’s exclusive playlist to accompany The Cover below on Spotify and here on Apple Music

Words: Jonathan Garrett
Photography: Kristen Jan Wong
Styling: Isabelle Fields

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