BIOGRAPHY
We all have routine faces we put on every day to hide who we used to be, who we really are inside.
When she was 18, Sahara one day faced the choice of buying school supplies or a birthday gift for her grandma. She chose to buy one and steal the other. And then she got arrested. Today, she’s still technically banned from Walmart.
Her community service, meant as a punishment, only reinforced her belief that hard work is often underpaid and money can’t buy you class. To this day, she has a blue-collar chip on her shoulder. Sahara’s songs are about growing up poor in the Midwest where she experienced bullying, assault, mental illness, hitting rock bottom, and the relationships that got her through all of it.
Sahara put herself through college by working two jobs and emerged with a lot of debt and a Master of Music degree in vocal performance. While studying classical singing and piano by day, she was performing in bar bands on weeknights, Cleveland Opera on weekends, and Ohio Light Opera in the summers. The result is a bluesy mezzo-soprano voice that’s influenced by the rock theatrics of Ann Wilson and Cyndi Lauper.
Rob is the co-writer and other half of Routine Faces. A former post-punk drummer in love with Fugazi and MF Doom, Rob spent plenty of time living in vans and playing in bands you’ve never heard of.
Together, Sahara and Rob wrote, recorded, and produced their upcoming album Us vs. Them in their Chicago studio. Their music takes cues from Journey, Heart, Fleetwood Mac, ABBA, Imogen Heap, My Bloody Valentine, and Radiohead, fusing alternative rock, indie dance, 60’s pop, disco, and shoegaze for the core of their sound.
Every song on Us vs. Them is a character study about a different experience: pain, overconfidence, revenge, jealousy. The different styles on Us vs. Them reflect how everybody is more than one persona, more than one emotion. The songs range from synth-heavy rock to Americana to school-yard call and response, to seasick walls of sound with memorable hooks in odd time signatures. On Us vs. Them, Routine Faces embrace the conflicts of their personalities and recombine them into an album that is best described as one big mood swing that challenges genre classification.
Sahara and Rob perform live with Joshua Rogers on drums and Kim Reuter on vocals and synths.