The Rapture

The story of The Rapture is an unusual one. Firstly, because it begins ten years before the release of their debut album, Echoes. Secondly, because it begins a world away, geographically and culturally, from the place it has become so associated with. And thirdly, because although Luke Jenner (vocals, guitar), Mattie Safer (vocals, bass & keyboards), Vito Roccoforte (drums) and Gabe Andruzzi (sax, keyboards, percussion) look and sound like a definitive band-as-gang, the line-up that’s now ready to rock our world with a bravura blend of punk, funk, house, disco, pop and psychedelic balladry came together through hardship, travel and happy accidents, rather than teenage ties. There is already a Rapture myth, which is, in many ways, a good thing. But there’s also the true story, which begins with 16-year-old Luke Jenner falling in love with local indie bands in his native San Diego.

“It was happening… in a small way. I got to see a whole bunch of bands play that were a similar age to me, which made it seem possible, unlike just liking a band like Nirvana and seeing them on TV. Truman’s Water were like the four dorkiest kids in high school but they had a shit load of energy. The first time I saw them there were only two or three people there, yet they put everything they had into it. It was quite inspiring.”

The first Rapture show was played in May 1998 in San Francisco, the city that Luke and his best friend Vito had decided would broaden their San Diegan horizons. The Rapture line-up featuring Luke, Vito, and Christopher Relyea released “The Chair That Squeaks”/”Dumb Waiters” (a cover of The Psychedelic Furs’ queasy sleaze classic) single on the self-financed Hymnal label later in ’98 (reissued in 2000 on Gold Standard Labs). 1999’s Mirror EP, which came out on Gravity complete with a Kid 606 remix, was recorded in the same San Diego session.

By the time the band had relocated to Seattle later that year, they had picked up a fourth member, Brooks Bonstin, who played on the Gravity sessions. “We left San Francisco because there wasn’t much of a scene…And because Brooks’ house burned down.” The Rapture stayed in Seattle for less than a year before deciding to try their luck in New York. Bonstin declined to join them. They paid for the New York adventure by booking a 1999 tour that ended there. “We barely made it out here and were shit poor the whole time. Any show we played we just said on the mic ‘Does anyone have a place to stay?’ Someone always did. We had $5 a day to eat with.”

One of the dates was at Washington DC, hometown of cousins Mattie Safer and newest Rapture member Gabe Andruzzi, who has previously played in bands such as the Abc’s, the Metamatics, and Bobby Conn. Gabe wasn’t there, but Mattie was. The gig ended up changing his and The Rapture’s destinies. “They had a great show,” Mattie recalls. “They had a pop sensibility, but with real aggression. Kind of unique. So I went and spoke to them. It was a funny first meeting. Luke was actually kind of standoffish. I was moving to New York to study jazz and it became kind of a joke between me and my friends…yep, when I move to New York I’ll play bass for The Rapture.”

The Rapture got to New York and happy disaster struck. “The guy who’d moved to New York with us left the band after two months. So The Rapture was Vito and I again. Mattie tracked us down. He used to go to Vito’s work all the time and just hang out there for hours and ask to play with us.” Mattie dropped out of jazz school and joined the band in October 1999.

The next major change was meeting New Jersey’s James Murphy and England’s Tim Goldsworthy, better known as Manhattan producers, DJs and entrepreneurs DFA

(Death From Above). “A friend of James’s was a fan of ours and came to our first NY show and every show after that. Once he brought James. The week after that we went over to the DFA studio and started a friendship. But James Murphy always approached us to work together. The friendship developed because for six months we did nothing else but sit around and talk about records.”

Luke explains the difference DFA made to The Rapture in terms of the obvious. “We’d never had the chance to truly explore the studio. So, besides DFA producing us and showing us how to do things we wanted to do, they gave us time for the first time. Also, when we moved to New York and Mattie joined we started to focus on dance music.” Aha.

We’ve looked at the punk — time to look at the funk. “Back in Seattle Vito bought me a book called Funk by Ricky Vincent. It opened me up to a lot of things I hadn’t considered. So I started buying tons of funk records in Seattle. From there I explored disco. Then, when I moved to New York, this house music DJ let me stay in his house. I’d be at home all day ‘cos I didn’t have a job, he’d come in and cook me this awful vegetarian food but he was the nicest guy ever and I’d grill him about house music. We met the DFA guys at about the same time and we shared our tastes and happened to be into similar stuff.”

Mattie sums up the gradual move in his own wry manner. “We reached little epiphanies every now and again. But nobody ever came in, threw down an 808 State record and said, ‘this is the new direction.’” The Rapture continued to tour and released the DFA-produced “Out Of The Races, Onto The Tracks” mini-album in May 2001 on Sub Pop. DC’s Gabe Andruzzi brought his sax, keyboard, and percussion skills to the band in July 2001.

From November 2001 until June 2002, The Rapture and DFA recorded their debut album. As The Rapture shopped for a deal, they released the highly acclaimed “House Of Jealous Lovers” in The UK on Trevor Jackson’s Output label (in association with DFA) in April 2002. They also released a limited edition 12” of “Olio” in July 2002, before signing a deal with Strummer Records in May 2003.

So, at last, Echoes is due.

Echoes is that rarity of an immediately strange record that still sounds like danceable, catchy pop music — a record for anyone and everyone rather than a cool, indie elite. Luke is constantly amused by the spot-the-influence game that The Rapture inspires in music critics. “That’s one of the reasons we can’t wait for the record to actually come out. At least it’ll broaden the hotch-potch of references. But the record’s broad enough to stop people saying it just sounds like The Cure or the Gang Of Four.”

In addition to the post-punks mentioned above, and the much talked about acid house element, you may hear Duran Duran, PiL, ESG, Killing Joke, Josef K, “The Idiot”-era Iggy Pop, Suicide, plastic soul-era Bowie, and early and deep Chicago house on Echoes. The slowies “Open Up Your Heart,” “Love Is All” and “Infatuation” may come as a surprise. “Love Is All” contains what sounds like a key Luke lyric: “Love is all my crippled soul will ever need.” Luke laughs quietly, but answers seriously, “I got married two years ago and found love, which was as big an influence as anything. I wanted to express that — the benefits of a stable life. I didn’t feel those kind of sentiments were valid before.”

Vito is also married, but Gabe and Mattie are “single, freewheelin’ dudes,” as Luke puts it. As far as inter-band relationships go, the band has already safeguarded against future messy divorce by crediting every song to all four, no matter which individual or combination came up with which song. “That’s the successful model.

Keeping it unselfish. Cutting someone out of the publishing is a major dent in the head. Like, ‘I have an apartment now and you don’t,’ y’know.”

Mattie feels the delay that’s made Echoes into the most literally long-awaited debut album in eons has had fringe benefits for The Rapture. “Having this period of reflection gave us a chance to understand what we’d done. One DFA twelve-inch and suddenly we were being flown around and courted. It takes a little time to adjust when you’re not used to that.” Luke is just relieved, but, understandably, a little nervous. “I hope it’s not too late, and that people are still interested.”

Interested? Is he kidding? We’re gagging for it. But the thing that makes all this especially thrilling is that The Rapture are gagging for us, too. We deserve each other.