The Roland High Life

When The Roland High Life first started playing together in Boston in the mid-00s, the band had bonded over their scrappy emo/punk upbringings. As working class New England kids, they'd all played in bands from ska to folk-punk to hardcore. As a brand new indie rock band, they aspired to marry those sounds with the mature literary songwriting of artists like Warren Zevon, Elvis Costello, and Jeff Tweedy. That mix of high- and low-culture drove the DIY sound behind the band's debut EP, If You Really Want to Hear About It.