Dave Chamberlain

Strictly speaking, We Ragazzi no longer calls Chicago home.

Last year, as the band was about halfway through writing what would become its most recent record, "Wolves With Pretty Lips" (Suicide Squeeze), We Ragazzi lost its local practice space. Almost simultaneously, lead singer/guitarist Tony Rolando and his girlfriend lost their apartment. With a tour already planned along the way to New York City for CMJ, the decision to relocate got a lot easier. "Basically we were getting ready to do this tour and just kind of decided on a change of scenery for a while," Rolando explains.

Formed in 1997 along with Colleen Burke and Alianna Kalaba, the band's latest fulfills every bit of promise hinted at on the band's two prior records. Though We Ragazzi is very much its own entity with its own unique sound, imagine a seamless combination of Liars and The Make Up, with more genuine electric energy; the post-punk idea is updated and intensified, keyboards are fuzzed and mashed, guitars sting more than sing. Rolando's vocals tease and prod everything forward with swagger and tangible emotion.

We Ragazzi's previous record, "The Ache," was released in 2002, and its debut, "Suicide Sound System," released in 1999. Unlike the time between those two releases, We Ragazzi did not split as a band this time around. "We actually did break up for a significant period of time after our first record," says Rolando. "At that point, the first date of the tour was in Chicago, which was sold out; so we were naïve enough to think that the rest of the tour was gonna be like that. Of course, it ended up being anything but. So I think, especially for me, it ended up taking a really heavy toll."

After an onstage blowup in Memphis, Tennessee, We Ragazzi officially parted ways. After a year, Burke and Rolando reconciled but Kalaba--at the time--was occupied as drummer for various other bands, including Mount Shasta and The Dishes, which necessitated enlisting a new drummer. After writing a new set of songs that would eventually become "The Ache," We Ragazzi went into the studio but ran out of money, forcing them to do it themselves. "None of us really knew what we were doing," says Rolando with a laugh. "I mean, I'd interned at studios, so I knew how to mic up a guitar amp. But man, I'd never mixed a record! It took us a really long time." In the very lengthy process, Rolando used more than 250 CDRs.

So with this still fresh in their minds, the approach to "Wolves With Pretty Lips" was much more direct. "This time we were like, whoever signs us is gonna put up the money for us to hire a real producer/engineer, we're gonna make the record in a week, and it's gonna come out as soon as possible," says Rolando. (Incidentally, the production of both sounds about the same in spite of the band actually having a real producer/engineer this time. "Yeah," says Rolando, "after 250 alternate mixes, you almost have to get it right.")

Well before variations on eighties music became the modern rage, We Ragazzi was presenting virtually the exact same sound that it does now. In fact, it's almost as if modern taste took some time to catch up with We Ragazzi's music. It's a point--or rather, a fact--that Rolando is aware of, but humble enough not to assert. "You always just sound like a dick when you do that," he says flatly.

Of course, only critics tend to notice things like that. The band has a much less egocentric approach. "I don't know that we're really looking for the audience that's into that," he says. "In fact, I don't know what audience we're looking for at all. At this point, we want to write really strong, really empowering songs that we love to play, and that hopefully, when people come out to see us, they also feel empowered by or it gives them something they can walk away with. And then maybe they sit at home and read the words and listen to them again; so instead of having a scene or movement, maybe just have these songs that will last beyond this current trend of eighties' rehash."

Records, trends, breakups and homes aside, the constant of We Ragazzi has always been an exceedingly intense live show--something the last two recordings seem to have captured to an extent. But for the first time, Chicago isn't the first city on their tour. Rolando says he believes the shows actually get more intense as the tour goes along, with songs becoming something like motor skills that allow for maximum emotion and performance. "In the past," he explains, "we've always started out tours [in Chicago]. This time, we've been working at it for a while, and we think we'll give the Chicago crowd an even better show."

Considering the band's previous sold-out record-release shows, and its genuinely loyal and occasionally rowdy audience, that's almost frightening.

We Ragazzi plays a record-release party for "Wolves With Pretty Lips," May 8 at the Empty Bottle.

(2004-05-05)

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