Interview with Nat and Rob Rufus | By Damian Burford
If you had cancer and survived, what would you do with your life? Would you stay at home and take it easy, or would you venture out and explore the world in a cramped, smelly tour van? Twin brothers, Rob and Nat Rufus chose the latter after Rob’s young adult battles with cancer. After a solid year on the road with bands such as Face to Face, Teenage Bottlerocket, and The Riverboat Gamblers, Blacklist Royals recorded Die Young With Me, a surprisingly honest, mature punk rock ‘n’ roll record that explores and their young adult experiences. We talk with the brothers about how those experiences shaped the music and their outlook on life.
These songs are about Rob’s teenage battles with cancer. Do they work as therapy to help deal with those lingering issues?
Rob: I’m 30 now. I got diagnosed when I was 17. I was pretty much getting treatment for that until and having surgeries until I was in my early 20s. Then we moved to Nashville. It was about 10, 12, 13 years ago. Our earlier records, we didn’t really touch on anything like that. When we were touring for our last record, I think that Nat and I were kind of at a shitty point and it was a subconscious thing. It was the first time I had ever written songs about that. When we got together, all the songs Nat was writing were based around our experiences with that as well. It’s like getting a weight off your chest, putting that out there. At the same time, it’s strange. I’m not sure how people are going to take it. Once it is out there, it’s out there. It is therapeutic in a way, and finishing the record definitely was. Making the record was as much a struggle. Nat and I, once we started writing these songs… We had a vision [for] this record that the band we had wasn’t into. We changed band members, we changed management, we changed record labels, we changed producers, we went broke like 20 fucking times. It was Nat and I struggling to get this record made and fucking heard. When we finally did it, and we left the studio, it was like the closing of a long 13 year chapter in our lives. It was pretty awesome.
Nat: We recorded the record originally a year and a half ago. We’ve been touring non-stop, like on that tour with Face to Face. When stuff started rolling again last year, we were playing mostly songs from the new album. By the time we went back into re-cut everything, and after all those tours and playing that many times, it was like going through the motions. We went back into the studio and were revisiting songs and adding new lyrics. Most of the songs streamed around [Rob’s cancer] and a lot of them were really personal. It was kind of like opening that wound back up a little bit in the studio. Like Rob said, when we finished this record, we got done tracking at 5:30 AM. I went to our hotel, got Rob’s bag and drove him directly to the airport, and it was fucking done. When we finally got our finished product and the mix and the actual album back, and I got a chance to really listen to it… It was therapeutic. It’s cool. It was done. It was off our chests. Like Rob said, it’s a scary thing when you put that much out into a song because you don’t know how people are going to interpret it. I know there are going to be critics and [laughs] haters out there. The hope is that some people hear it and, by trying to reach deeper into our own lives and experiences and write about that, it can kind of touch people on a deeper level and maybe they can relate to it. Maybe it will mean something more to them. The whole kind of idea behind it was that if there had been a record like this when we were younger and Rob was sick, it would have meant the world to us. The album isn’t for somebody who has been through that. It’s not tailored to somebody who is struggling with cancer like that. We really went for it and didn’t really hold back as far as song topics went. I just hope it pays off, and even if it doesn’t, if everybody who hears the record hates it… I personally don’t even care. I think, like Rob said, getting this done and having the finished product was taking us on to the next chapter of our lives.
Rob: We didn’t write it with an intention like that. It’s just one of those things where, a lot of the reasons you get into punk rock and that kind of music is because you can’t relate to anybody. So you find this outlet that you can relate to and it’s the best fucking thing ever. That was what Nat and I latched onto when we were kids. We started our first band when we were 13, and that was what we latched onto when I got sick. So now, there are other fucking kids out there who are going through the same thing, and how do you relate an unrepeatable experience? It’s a very unique way to go through life having two twins, where one is fucking terminally ill and the other isn’t. It was really important to us to be able to put that out there and hope that somebody can gain something from that. Or at least feel a connection to it.
This record is not a complete departure from your old stuff, but is it a more honest version of yourselves?
Nat: It is. Our last record, we recorded it four years ago. That was us going into the studio and making an album, not really knowing what we wanted to do. We had this rough idea of the kind of band we wanted to be, and didn’t really know what we were doing when we went into the studio. We were 23 and it was the first time we had ever gotten a chance to make a record. This new album, we [knew] what we wanted the band to be. When we got with Ted Hutt, who produced the record, and we started talking about stuff, he told us, “Send me records you love. Send me what you are thinking as far as sound. Send me whatever. I want to know you guys through the music you love and what you want the music to be.” Rob and I got together and sent him a bunch of stuff and when we got to L.A., he said, “I listened to the stuff you sent. I don’t know what band you think you are in. If you want this record to be like this, we really got to strip this down and we’ve really got to go in a totally different direction.” We said, “Yeah! Let’s do it. Let’s find this sound. Let’s find this elusive Blacklist Royals sound that we have not been able to nail down.” It was actually during pre-production that Rob and I were going through the songs together. He was playing drums and I was playing guitar. We were both singing. We were going through stuff and Ted told us, “This is it. This is the sound for this record. This is what makes it special. I want it to sound like two brothers playing music together in a room.” We kind of tried to make the record sound [like] what it’s thematically about. It’s about the two of us and those experiences. When he got sick, we were playing music, listening to music, and that was what we latched onto. So the real goal for this record, and sound of the record, was to not only bring out the influences we had, but the influences we were not utilizing or we didn’t know how to use. We really wanted to strip it down and make the record sound like what the songs were about. Two brothers, playing music together. I’m really happy with the [way that] direction turned out. We only had 10 days in the studio to re-cut the whole record. We pretty drastically changed a whole lot of the songs. There was a lot of changing of keys and changing arrangements. To be honest, we did it so quickly that, by the time I got the record, I had forgotten a lot of the stuff we had done or how we had changed stuff. I was listening to it, going, “Holy shit! I’m going to have to learn how to play this song again!” [Laughs]
Rob: We’re really happy with it.
Nat: When we did our first record, we didn’t really know what to do. So we would keep piling shit on and keep doing stuff and adding stuff. The first album was kind of just punk rock ‘n’ roll, kind of oldies throwback; Americana-esquire. It was us trying to find the sound of the band. If you are playing in a rock ‘n’ roll band, you are not going to be reinventing the wheel. The goal is to be able to do something unique, and we all felt like the story and the songs and the lyrical content was unique in that it is so personal and it’s a true, but unique story. We really wanted to hone in and make the record sound like its own world and have it be a standalone thing. If you listen to it with headphones, you are just in Die Young With Me, if that makes any sense. Honestly, when I listened back to it, I was so used to hearing the songs [the way the full band plays them], it’s kind of nice to hear the new versions. It was not what I was expecting. I don’t want to make it what people are expecting.
You guys have been working super hard to take this band to the next level. Does coming so close to death encourage you to work harder and push yourselves to do this now, while you still can?
Rob: It definitely manifests in different ways. On one level, yeah, when we got to the point that we could play again… During my treatment, I had to have one of my lungs removed. I have nerve damage in one of my hands. I have chronic back pain now. Even playing drums, for me, is something that theoretically they didn’t think I was going to be able to do again. Playing music is what pushed Nat and I through that experience. When we came out on the other end, it was really important for us to tour and tour and tour, and do as much as we could do, and play as much as we could play. I feel like half of that was escapism. When you are on tour, you can be whoever you want to be. You don’t have to deal with the other issues that are in your life. A lot of that was just an urge to leave some kind of legacy behind. You just want to do something. I still feel like that. I have to fucking do something. I’m miserable on tour a lot of the times, because of my health problems and issues. I still have continual health issues and side effects from all the intense treatment I had. I had stage four cancer, so I had serious fucking chemotherapy and radiation. I still have at least a couple of fucking doctors appointments every week. It’s ridiculous. Even though it is hard for me to tour, and even though Nat and I spread ourselves so thin, it’s really important for us to just do it. It’s like a “fuck you” to the universe, when you do something that you shouldn’t be able to do. We’re just going to do it, like we’ve always done it. Until you can’t fucking do it. You have to push back, and that’s what you get the urge to do when you go through something like that.
Nat: With this record especially, Rob had briefly touched on this, but [when] we initially recorded it, we had everyone in our band pretty much quit. Everything was going terribly. It really looked like Blacklist Royals was done. Rob and I went, “Fuck this!” It was kind of the same mentality when he was going [through treatment]. “Fuck this. We’re doing this. We’re making this record.” It was that important to us. Just being able to pick up the pieces and go on, and start getting on these great tours with these bands we had grown up listening to and I love. To get a new record deal, and get all this stuff, and then it starts happening and you have to now go out and play these songs. It was the ultimate fuck you to Rob being sick and the continuing issues. You take everything for granted while you are doing it. I still have those moments where it is amazing to even be able to do this. Having the new record finally come out, being about what it is about, I’m sure we’re going to be out there pushing it even harder, because all I want to do is get to play these new songs. Honestly, I listen to the record and I just want to go out and play these for people. It’s like a continual getting it off your chest type thing. I think touring and getting out there was, like Rob says, the escape and the distraction from all the things that were going on, which sometimes you just can’t. [Laughs] You have tragedy like that and there is just no way to square it and deal with it. You just have to move on and try to, in some way, make peace with it.
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