Festivals Touché Amoré: “I’ll look forward to walking around and hearing new music”

Almost three years on from the release of their most recent record - the Ross Robinson-produced ‘Lament’ - Los Angeles post-hardcore band Touché Amoré recently celebrated the band’s 15th anniversary in the best way they know how: by playing a string of packed out shows.

Now, a handful of months on, the band are currently in the midst of a UK and European tour which is seeing them pair frenzied club shows with the somewhat larger confines of festival stages.

One of those will be their first trip to Poland’s Open’er festival, which is set to host likes of SZA, Kendrick Lamar, Lizzo and Queens of the Stone Age this month. Ahead of their performance, we caught up with frontman Jeremy Bolm, to reflect on ‘Lament”s release, and discover what they’ve got up their sleeves for this upcoming festival stints.

Earlier this year you played some special shows in LA to celebrate the band’s 15th anniversary; how come you decided to put on those shows, and how did they go? Did that period feel like quite a nostalgic time for you as a band?
They went great. It’s near impossible not to embrace nostalgia like the rest of the world - we’re just as guilty of it as anyone else. With the last few years being as difficult as they were, you can’t blame anyone for wanting to live in the past. There’s a fine line between celebrating and capitalising, though, and I think we toe the line okay enough. It’s nice to be reflective of past accomplishments if you still stand behind them and aren’t doing it specifically for financial gain. We played four of our five records in full and it was rewarding to perform songs we never play and have them be met with an enthusiasm we’d never felt for them before.

It’s been a couple of years since your most recent record ‘Lament’ was released; how do you feel about the record with a bit of distance to it now? What do you think it’s come to represent in the Touché canon?
We’re all extremely proud of that album. I think it’s our collective favourite. It gave us the opportunity to explore new songs and work with Ross Robinson who really taught us a lot about ourselves and what we could accomplish.

Was it strange to release the record in the midst of the pandemic? Do you think that’s impacted your relationship with the album?
Great question. It was of course strange but we knew it was the right thing to do. With the longer gap between our albums, we couldn’t afford to wait any longer and we knew there would be an upside to releasing it because there was less “competition” for getting eyes on it - since so many of our peers chose to delay their release.

The way it impacted our relationship with it is tricky. It was difficult to wait as long as we had to to start performing it live. Even now that we’ve had the opportunity to tour on it a handful of times, it’s only now starting to feel like it’s run its course. We live to exhaust an album before we contemplate writing a new one.

And, as a band so focussed on the live shows, what was it like finally getting back on the road after all of that had happened?
It felt gratifying. Even though the landscape of touring is completely corrupted post pandemic - the performing aspect is as special as ever.