MASTEDONIA

Bullseye

*From Bullseye (Target) - Fall 2003*

*Typed by Brigitte*

ROONEY TUNES

BASKING IN THE GLOW OF THEIR DEBUT RELEASE, THE FLOPPY-HAIRED FIVESOME ARE GIVING THEIR FANS A BLAST FROM THE PAST

It's a chilly evening in Manhattan, but the girls lined up in front of the Hammerstein Ballroom don't seem to notice. Four hours before Rooney are scheduled to walk onstage, the girls are anxiously pogoing on the sidewalk - their purple sunglasses, glittery makeup, and halfshirts providing a breath of fresh California air on the filthy, gumspackled sidewalk. "We love Rooney!" they scream to no one but each other. "We love Rooney!"

This time last year Rooney didn't even have an album to sell, let alone a legion of rabid fans that pop up screaming anywhere Rooney set down. Backstage the band members - singer-guitarist Robert Carmine, guitarist Taylor Locke, bassist Matt Winter, keyboardist Louie Stephens, and drummer Ned Brower - lounge on couches and drink sodas, seemingly oblivious to the minor riot brewing outside. Still recovering from a night on the town, the boys exhibit the casual chumminess of a junior varsity team that has spent far too much time on long bus rides.

What they don't exhibit is a chip on their shoulders. With their stylishly mussed haircuts, vintage t-shirts, and careless demeanor, they could be any group of floppy-haired hipsters. They're hardly that. The group has become a high priority for its powerful label, Geffen Records, which expects Rooney's self-titled debut release to perform. If they feel the pressure, they're not showing it.

In fact, Carmine still claims the group was merely an "after-school activity" when it formed in Los Angeles four years ago. "We finished high school and didn't know what to do with our lives, so we did this band," he says in a slow-paced Cali drawl. "It just got serious pretty fast. I met these guys through mutual friends and a shared love of music, and we started playing these songs that some guy wrote for us. His name is Paul McCartney."

"He's new," deadpans Locke. "He's gonna be huge."

The truth is that Carmine wrote all the songs - creativity, you see, is in his blood. Until a year or so ago, Robert Carmine was Robert Coppola Schwartzman, nephew of Francis For Coppola, cousin of Nicolas Cage, and younger brother of Jason Schwartzman, the star of Rushmore and a pop star in his own right, with the band of Phantom Planet. (Carmine took his new last name as an attempt to make a fresh start for himself to pay tribute to his Coppola grandfather, whose first name was Carmine.) After dabbling in acting (he starred as the love interest in the Disney fantasy The Princess Diaries, Carmine decided that sweet pop songs he was playing to an audience of no one in his basement deserved better, and he hooked up with the serious Locke, who had played his first gig at the venerable LA club the Roxy at age 11.

Carmine may have dropped his family name, but not its influences. "My brother used to wake up everyday to 'Telephone Line' by ELO," he says, "So I had to hear it too, through the walls. I guess you could say that was my first pop memory."

There is a definite strain of '70's AM radio gold to Rooney's music-bursting, as it is, with ba-ba-bas, la-la-las, multitracked vocal harmonies, and choruses piled on top of one another like Lincoln Logs. But the five Rooneys are also young enough that "classic rock" means early Weezer, and their exuberance both live and on record make nearly everything they do seem fresh. The introspective "Popstars" pushes at the limits of fame, and the irresistible "I'm Shakin'" is a pure pop narcotic, as timeless as high school crushes, convertible, and the expertly faded corduroys the band members seem to favor. But Carmine's lyrics also reference more contemporary concerns, like wasting days watching the hokey '80s fantasy flick The Never-Ending Story, and escaping the cell phone-fueled gossip of his girlfriend's friends.

Rooney's quick to ascent into the national consciousness is also thoroughly modern - the group had its first fan website after only one live performance, and the members' dedication to their online fan community has given them a profile most bands don't earn until much later in their careers. Earlier this year the band played the enormous Coachella festival in California with heavy-hitters like the Beastie Boys and the Red Hot Chili Peppers; they were greeted by a delirious fans holing homemade Rooney flags in the 70,000-strong crowd.

"Our fans are great," says Carmine. "They're so hungry to talk to us, to take pictures. We see the same faces every time we play in a city, and next time those people have brought their friends with them, or their cousins. And next time we have the cousins' cousins. Eventually we have an entire gang waiting for us everywhere we go."

"They give us tons of stuff, too," says Brower: "a set of pillowcases with our names on them."

"Rubber ducks," adds Carmine. "Cartoons. Bracelets."

Locke chimes in: "We get lots of baked goods: brownies and cookies. We even have fans who make us dioramas." He shakes his head. "It's a little crazy." Veteran musicians have offered their share of tributes as well. The Cars' Ric Ocasek lent them a guitar, legendary industry figure Jimmy Iovine (producer of Fleetwood Mac and president of Interscope Records) personally produced "I'm Shakin'," and a motley crew of musicians have lined up to give them advice. To wit:

"Kirk Hammett of Metallica told us to always listen to our mixes on headphones," says Stephens

"Gene Simmons from Kiss told me to make sure that we do everything ourselves and never get lazy about anything," says Carmine.

"Lionel Richie told us to take one hook at a time," says Brower.

"And Grandaddy told us to make our own world," says Locke. "I still haven't figured out what that means."

"Maybe it has something to do with dioramas," says Carmine.

-Andy Greenwald