Romeo Dixon on becoming an American rock sensation: ‘I spend a lot of time in my room’
He’s 25, calls his mom every Monday, and is the drummer and manager to one of the hottest bands out there, Heart Attack.��
It’s a Saturday morning, the sun’s been out no more than an hour, and Romeo Dixon holds out to me his backpack to hold while he tries his hardest to unlock the back doors of Heart Attack’s recording studio. It’s not actually theirs, he’s sure to make known. It’s just the space they’re using, thanks to the the band’s current recording label that found it for them. They get to keep their gear there sometimes, like now, when they’re working on a lot of music and need the collaborative space. He asked permission for access to the studio today he tells me. He wanted to be able to share where so much of the work is done. The studio is open 24 hours a day, usually, and Dixon is lucky that it is. The key’s not working. He apologizes twice before stepping off to make a phone call for someone to open the doors for us. When the doors open, he greets Joe, a recording engineer who looks like he’s been awake longer than either of us and is ready to go home. Dixon introduces Joe as “the guy who makes a lot of stuff happen around the studio” and then talks about how they had met when Heart Attack first moved in to work on recording there. Joe doesn’t stick around, he can’t, he tells us before rushing back to where he’d been working and disappearing from the halls of the recording studio. Even though he’s gone, Dixon has nothing but praise for Joe and the skills he brings to mixing and producing, continuing on about him. Joe hasn’t worked on any Heart Attack songs directly, but it’s less about what he’s done for Heart Attack at the sound stations and more so about how “it’s been an incredible learning opportunity to just be able to sit down with him and listen to him talk about what he does and the magic of it.”
Just walking through the halls, en route to Heart Attack’s dedicated space, it’s clear that the studio has an effect on Dixon. He’s more awake, energetic, and constantly trying to point out something on the walls that are covered from floor to ceiling in photographs, news clippings, and poster. His nervousness has been left behind at the doors and now he is full of endearment and gratitude towards everyone and everything around him. It’s almost surprising when he starts telling me about how he doesn’t often do interviews, and even more rarely individual profiles like this one. But he’s right. Most media coverage for Heart Attack has focused on the band as a whole or its stage dominating members. He doesn’t mind that he says, the others are better at it according to him.
Today is new for him, and he’s agreed to it for a reason that is all but clear from the way he lights up at each and every thing he shows me. Heart Attack is everything to Dixon, and while it’s a profile on him, he is intent on making sure I don’t miss a word that he has to share about the band, its members, and it’s growth over the years through his jumpy and somewhat frantic monologues. Just when he’s about to tell me about a photo on the wall of a smaller indie band, he’s distracted by the sight of a recording session in progress. He then follows it up by asking me questions, and lots of them, and as time goes on it’s not entirely certain who is interviewing who. Through all of his frenzy, I get a genuine look into who he is unobstructed by flashing lights and the cheering of fans. Romeo Dixon is just a guy that cares.
Dixon has been a musician since as long as he can remember, although he says he wouldn’t call himself that when he first started playing the piano at age four. In his own words, he thinks he “was much more of a noise maker than anything else. There wasn’t talent there, just a whole lot of key smashing.” He comes from an art inclined family, with his parents running their own theatre company for Shakespeare plays and more recently original works. He denies acting much, although not out of any stage fright that one might assume. The stage itself was never something frightening to him. It still isn’t, Dixon says, although he thinks it’s because he tends to be further back than front man Jesse ‘Mac’ McCoy or bassist Jessie Wilson. There’s some comfort in where he’s located. It allows him the best view of every show, and to continue experiencing the atmosphere of a live performance and the way people are brought together in the process. It’s a love that began when he was working alongside his parents as a kid.
By now we’ve moved on from the hallway, and are situated in the center Heart Attack’s space. In every direction there is so much character and life to the waiting and still instruments. It’s clear everything is well loved, and although it’s missing the rest of its band, the room is no less full of character. Dixon shows me all the instruments they have in the studio. Each piece is more coated in stickers than the last, and he can’t resist playing a few keys or strumming a small tune on each one.
I ask him if there’s any instrument that he doesn’t play, a favorite that has perhaps evaded his skill set.
He’s surprised at first by the question, a little lost how to answer, explaining first that, “you sort of pick up a ton of stuff when you’re making bands and producing your own stuff and that all sort of feeds into our sound too.” When it comes to favorites, “If I’ve got one it’s probably in the band. I’m no guitarist like the others but I play,” he says, modestly, as if he hadn’t just played the intro to one of their songs for me moments ago.
“I guess… I guess sax?” Dixon goes on to say. “I’ve never tried those types on instruments, the horns and the woodwinds and… I’ve never tried those. I’d like to for sure. We had a sax player join us for a bit when we were working on our recent stuff which was incredible. It was a whole new sound and… I don’t think I’m supposed to be talking about that actually. Forget that I said that. Or… no you can include it. We have a sax on a couple songs in this album. You can write that, just promise you’ll go listen to the album when it actually comes out. That’s all I’ll say. You gotta listen to it. It’s really awesome.” I promise him that I will.
Arriving at his drum set, he has an overflowing basket of drumsticks by its side. There’s so many, and they all vary in color, size, and age. When he sees me staring, he’s already ready to jump into an explaination about all of them. The brand he has the most is Vic Firth, a very popular brand amongst drummers of all levels, and they’re also the sticks he tends to prefer.
Amongst the pile, there’s a standout pair: custom Heart Attack sticks.
“They’re a gift,” Dixon explains. “Most of my sticks are, but these are probably the best gift I’ve ever gotten, and they were from Jessie. They got me these right around when they joined the band too so it was just an incredibly thoughtful gift from her.”
“So are sticks the perfect birthday gift for you?” I ask. He laughs at that, shrugging.
“I don’t know. I feel like I have enough sticks.” Looking at his basket, I’d have to agree. “I feel like birthday gifts are always a from the heart, from the other person sort of thing. it’s not something you ask for does that make sense? so picking a perfect gift is… What I need is a better car, but I’d never ask anyone for that. That’s a crazy expensive birthday gift.”
We finally finish up the tour of the space, although tour is a generous word. They may as well constantly be performing a tiny desk concert with the incredibly limited size of the space. They make the most of it, according to Dixon, and they have no complaints for now. In this city, and on their budget, they’ll take anything they can get.
I join him as he sits on the floor, although he offers me a chair and just about everything else first. The floor is a comfier than expected seat, and sitting at his level I can get a peak into what long hours must be like in this exact spot. Staring up at the ceiling, I start to ask him about the band, and what the process tends to be for all their music making.
“I don’t know what it’s like for everyone else on their own, we’ve talked about it over the years but the process has changed a lot for me at least that I imagine it has a bit for the others,” Dixon begins to tell me. “That and songwriting on our own is just so private, y’know? It’s something we all have a very specific ritual for and then when we feel like something could go somewhere, that’s when we come together.”
“I think when some of us were first getting into it we relied a lot on the word and advice of artists we liked, which is cool and worked to some extent, but as Heart Attack it’s something we had to figure out as a band.”
Most of Heart Attack’s members, current and past, lack a formal background in music, and they’ve previously credited a lot of their growth to each other, online resources, and trial and error.
“Sometimes we all just sit around a room, mostly this room, with our gear and it’s just about working in the same space as each other. We do that a fair bit because we like to bounce stuff off of each other. When we’re together, one of us sort of throws something out there and we sorta build on it, play around a lot with it and see where we can take it and then the song probably goes through fifty different changes in that process. It’s not even really a song yet, just something we’re all messing with.”
He asks me then what I like to listen to, or if I’ve gotten into any new music lately. I tell him about a couple artists, and he takes all the suggestions quite seriously, writing them down in his phone.
“A big part of making music is also discovering music. We do a lot of listening to other artists and genres and we’ll share a lot of recommendations and playlists with one another. It’s how we grow and figure out what we like and don’t like and also what we could be doing.”
On the subject of learning and advice, we start getting into Heart Attack’s influences. While Dixon has a lot of personal heroes, when it comes to music and the band, he says it’s mostly rock and roll.
“Mac and I are big fans of The Who, The Kinks, Ramones, U2. Crash likes a lot of stuff, they’re pretty all over the place. Jessie brings a lot more alt to it and I mean she’s really contributed the most to our sound lately. The influence list is sort of endless now.”
As to how it’s changed them, Dixon says, “the indie rock scene has been becoming a bigger and bigger thing in the last decade and it’s taken on a somewhat new meaning. you hear the words indie rock and there’s a certain idea or sound that comes to mind. That has taken a big toll on all of us as musicians. In a good way. The indie genre is changing, we’re changing. We’re going to keep changing and that’s okay.”
“Is your songwriting process different from what you do as a group?”
“That’s different. Yeah. That’s pretty different. On my own is hard to explain, like I said before, it’s really personal and specific. I record everything, all the time. That’s a very big part of it and it’s a little slow sometimes too.” He’s comfortable writing anywhere, especially in the studio, but what he needs most is silence. “Is that weird?”
“I think it makes sense.”
“And it’s still fun, it’s just not the same kind of fun as when we do it together. It’s a more individual personal fun when I write alone. I’m never miserable when I write. I don’t really write from that place, it’s not what our music is about usually.”
In the last year, anticipation has grown for the soon to be released Heart Attack album, and its fanbase has tripled. With the quick rise on the eve of the band’s album, I ask him how the fame specifically has changed things for the band, and for himself.
“We’re busier. I’m busier. It’s all very busy,” he admits.
“Touring and playing live is great. It’s really unlike any other experience, and I’m incredibly thankful that we have been doing it so much. It sort of changes the songs to do them live, it gives them a lot more depth and meaning and getting to see the love people have for them has us all pretty breathless by the end of the night.” There’s an obvious but coming despite his enthusiasm. He doesn’t want me to misinterpret the love and dedication he has to the fans. I assure him it’s certainly not lost on me, and only then does he nod and give me what’s clearly the second half of his answer.
“But there’s a lot of recovery we all have to do. The people are great, we all get along great, but we do all need our time after the shows and the recording sessions to just get back to ourselves and our lives. Jessie has some of their own stuff going on and Crash too, some of us are still working other jobs and there’s always family stuff going on and any number of personal things. So there’s that part of it.” He sighs, settling in. It’s off his chest now.
“I spend a lot of time in my room. I like to call my mom pretty frequently, we just talk all that stuff through. She gets it, cause she’s been there a little bit with the theater stuff and touring.” Since the band came together, Dixon’s spearheaded all their managerial responsibilities. It’s clear from the way he talks about the band and their future that although it’s taken a toll, he’s far from burning out. He just needs his alone time like anybody else. “It helps that I have good people, I have really good people in my life who listen, and also they don’t let me stay in my room forever. They drag me out to be a real person.”
“That’s important,” I tell him.
Dixon agrees.
Heart Attack’s third album comes out in August.
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5. …where it doesn’t hurt.
Oh what a tender choice, thank you for asking! Prompt taken from this; anyone can feel free to send other numbers in at any time.
Legolas was pacing. That was the first thing Gimli became aware of when he woke for the third time, his head finally clearing of the fuzziness of healing potions and injuries enough for him to focus properly on the world once more.
Legolas was pacing, which meant that he was worried.
The elf was almost never still, Wood-elves being apparently as prone to rustling as the leaves of their beloved trees, but it was a gentle, casual sort of motion, instinctive and subconscious. If called out on it, Legolas often evinced confusion, as if he had not even noticed the slight but unceasing motion of his lissome body.
Pacing, on the other hand...
Gimli tried to speak, and a groan emerged instead. Instantly, the elf was at his side.
"Gimli?"
The sound of that bright, cheerful voice drawn in to such a tight, tremulous trill of a word made Gimli's heart ache almost as much as his bones did right now. The sight of the elf poised on his heels beside Gimli's bed, his long fingers frozen halfway across the distance between them as though he was afraid of reaching closer; afraid of actually touching the dwarf, was even worse and the shadow of terror that flickered across his pale eyes was utterly unbearable.
Gimli forced himself up from the dregs of his drugged sleep and into enough consciousness to rasp, "I am well, Legolas."
It came out rougher than he intended, more of a hoarse croak than as actual words. He opened his mouth to try again and found the rim of a cool metal cup pressed to his lips instead.
"Drink," Legolas commanded.
It hurt, lifting his head enough to do so, even with strong elvish fingers supporting him from below, but Gimli forced himself to swallow the cold, mint-laced water. He flopped back to his pillows after a few gulps and cleared his throat. The results were pleasantly akin to a rumble of stone rather than a creak of brittle wooden timbers, so Gimli decided to brave the effort of speech again.
"I am all right, Legolas," he said.
"You are not," the elf retorted. "You are banged all to bits, and the fact that none of your bones are broken is nothing short of a miracle."
"Dwarven bones are strong," said Gimli.
Legolas snorted. "Yes, and their heads are hard—a fact with which I am both beyond irritated, and exceedingly grateful. Gimli, what were you thinking?"
"I did not expect the stone to break," Gimli murmured. Dwarven stone would not have broken beneath his feet; or if it had had no choice but to do so, then it would at least have warned him first. But the shoddy white stone with which the masons of Minas Tirith had built some of their more recent, less elegant and less impressive structures, apparently had no such concern for the beings what walked upon its pale surfaces, even when said beings walked with dwarven feet.
"No!" Legolas exclaimed. "No, I am sure you did not! Nonetheless, it did, and you took quite a tumble as a result!"
Gimli grumbled, and made to swing himself out of the bed. The world reeled around him and a hand like a splay of twigs against his chest stopped him as firmly as a block of granite.
"You are not getting out of that bed until Aragorn himself says you are well," Legolas declared, his lilting voice gone suddenly fierce. Then it cracked open like a wound as he added plaintively, "Gimli, you nearly died!"
"Poppycock," Gimli retorted, trying to hide the fact that he was panting from even that slight abortive effort. He sank back into the pillow and forced himself to breathe slowly.
"You fell almost twenty feet and landed on solid stone."
Gimli grunted. "Well, then of course I am not dead," he said. "Good stone would never break a dwarf that landed on it."
Legolas made a noise of exasperation that sounded comically similar to an angry bird scolding an interloper away from its nest.
"Hush," Gimli said. "Your point is made; I will stay in the bed and await the word of the healers." He was not sure that his body would allow him to do anything else anyway, but there was no reason to admit to that. It would only worry Legolas more if he did, and he would be surely be more mollified by Gimli's apparent surrender if he did not know that he was only acquiescing because he had no choice.
"Good," Legolas snapped, and dropped onto the floor beside the bed.
They sat there in silence for a few seconds as the aches in Gimli's bones throbbed and pounded, as though he were an anvil in Erebor's busiest forges. Either the draughts he could dimly remember being coaxed to drink by Gondor's kind were wearing off, or the pain was simply becoming more noticeable as his thoughts cleared.
He could not stop himself from groaning, although he clamped his lips tight over the sound as soon as it escaped—but too late.
"Does it hurt terribly?" Legolas asked. His voice had gone gentle again, small.
Gimli nodded, and regretted the motion with a wince. He screwed his eyes shut. "Yes," he admitted.
"Where?"
Light elvish fingers ghosted over Gimli's arm and up across his shoulder, their touch no more than the slightest breath of wind amidst slim treetops. The pain still seemed to dull a little at the touch, as though Aragorn's hands were not the only ones that held healing in their palms.
"Everywhere," Gimli moaned.
Legolas's fingers retreated at once, and Gimli could not help but sigh in regret.
"Well," he said, after a moment, "perhaps not quite everywhere."
"No?"
There was a faint rustle of movement, barely audible. Gimli could not bear to open his eyes and let the light in again, but he pictured the elf leaning closer and smiled at the imagined sight.
"My nose," Gimli said at last. "I think my nose is all right."
Legolas let out a surprised laugh, a burst of silvery mirth like the sudden ringing of clear bells.
Gimli's smile settled more firmly behind his beard. "Yes," he said. "My nose is definitely unharmed."
"And well that it is," Legolas agreed, gliding the faintest touch of his fingers across Gimli's cheeks and forehead before finally coming to rest against the side of his nose. "I would be grieved to see such handsome features mashed by such a fall."
"That's why I made sure to land on my back," Gimli teased. "To save my pretty face for you."
Legolas laughed again. The sound was watery, but stronger; the tremble was gone. "You are very kind," he said.
There was another, longer rustle of movement, and Legolas's hand fell away to be replaced by the light touch of warm lips upon the very tip of Gimli's unbroken nose.
In the darkness of his pain, Gimli smiled.
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I'm not anon but I think I understand where they're coming from. There are some people who refuse to put pronouns in their bio/pinned posts to make a statement that they shouldn't have to specify their pronouns because they are obviously male or female and that trans/gender-nonconforming identities are invalid and not real. Unfortunately this is more common with blogs that are openly religious, which might be why anon asked you that.
It sounds like your lack of listed pronouns is more so because you didn't know it is preferred to list them and not because you have any queerphobic intentions.
In your bio, which is the space under your blog title where you can add extra notes, people usually list their preferred name, pronouns, whether they're an adult or a minor, any extra key info they feel it is essential for people to know in order understand their blog (such as English is a second language, person is a system or autistic, blog includes nsfw, religion, continent of residence etc.), main fandoms (like LoZ/LU), and role in fandom (writer, artist, analysis post maker, meme maker etc.). Any and all of these things are optional, but at a minimum, I recommend listing your preferred name and pronouns.
Pinned posts are optional. People use them to add extra info (like do-not-interact lists, switch friend codes, other fandoms, etc.) and to list/link fandom contributions such as fanfics written or popular posts.
What you should not put in your bio or pinned post are your exact age, birthday, real name, real names of relatives, city where you live (even including state/province is not recommended), health info that isn't relevant, is excessive, or is TMI.
Look at your mutuals/friends bios and pinned posts for inspiration/examples and create your own bio/pinned post however you want.
Oooo thank you!
Yayyyy advice :)
You are correct, I don't know these things. I'm glad it was brought to my awareness in a nice way :D
I overreact and talk too much- I hope I didn't scare my anon off just from such a long response /j
I definitely do not want to be saying I don't think pronoun clarification is needed, or invalidating my trans friends. That's so awful??? I did not know, and never intended any such implications
Thank you for the advice it's appreciated <333
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