How do you stand out as a band these days? Do you need to make the catchiest songs possible? Do you have to play every venue on the planet? Those aren’t bad ideas, but they’re also not the best. When it comes down to it, you have to find creatives who enjoy making and playing music as much as you do, who want to band as much as you want to band. This brings us to Rohna, a five-piece indie-rock band based in Tampa, Florida. Since forming in 2019, Rohna has released their debut album, The Beautiful Ordinary, and two EPs that showcase their distinct alt-rock, psychedelic rock, and punk rock style. In between, they have shared stages with notable artists like The Black Keys, The Aces, Last Dinosaurs, and MisterWives, and have played significant festivals like the Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival, Gasparilla Music Festival, and the 97X Next Big Thing. It is a gift to see Rohna perform, as their passion for music and for performing in front of a crowd is unmatched. Before the release of their sophomore album last week, and before they headed out on a nationwide tour across the US, I had the chance speak with bass player Andres Hernandez about the new album, as well as the accompanying tour and thriving Tampa music scene.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and time.
Your sophomore album, Don’t Come Down, comes out tomorrow. How do you feel with it just being a day away from the release?
It feels good, honestly. It’s like one of those things that you kind of build up a lot of anticipation for, but I haven’t really listened to it in a little bit, which is nice. I kind of gave myself a little bit of a break from it, so it’ll be nice to finally see it on my phone and know that other people are able to listen to the full thing. We put out so many singles from it, but it’s nice to finally give people the option to kind of run it from beginning to end, so I’m excited to see how people receive it that way.
What do you want your listeners or your fans to take away from the album when they hear it?
That’s a good question. Honestly, I hope that they can kind of find different life experiences from it and maybe find different ways that they can relate to the life experiences we talk about in it because it definitely encompasses a pretty chaotic time in our lives—it hits so many different emotions, and the lyrics have so many different themes that I think that it’s very relatable. And the way that everyone experiences all of these different things, it’s not just a love album or a breakup album or anything like that. It really encompasses a lot of the human experience, so I hope that there’s little parts that people can directly relate to and maybe other parts that people can have their own meanings and own experiences and takeaways from it as well.
Do you have a favorite song or songs from the album?
Yeah, so I think lately, I’ve been liking “Threads” a lot because that was the last single we put out from it, and even before that, it was always just one that I kind of emotionally connected to a lot as well. But I think my all-time favorite one is probably the last one. That one is going to be really cool for people to hear just because it’s a little bit different from other songs that we’ve done before.
How long were you working on Don’t Come Down?
It took us about a year in total, from not having any songs written for it all the way to getting the final masters for it. We started writing it in late 2023, and then we really didn’t sit down and start recording it until halfway through 2024, and then we finally got it back earlier this year. So, it was pretty much a full year’s process, from starting to write all the way to getting the final recordings for it.
I read that you created the album in Tampa but then you had Austin Coupe (who’s worked with Silverstein; nothing, nowhere.) produce it in LA, so what was it like going back and forth with him and creating the album in this way?
It was an interesting process because it was like, when we started writing it and getting demos for it, he was still living here in Florida, and so we were going over to his home studio in Lakeland and doing demos and just kind of writing it all in-person from start to end. And then he also went through a bunch of crazy life changes and just ended up getting the opportunity to move to Los Angeles, so he moved out there, and by the time we finished actually writing and demoing everything for us here, we still wanted to work with him on it.
And thankfully, because of the magic of technology, we were able to still do it fully remote, so it would literally just be us in our home studios, him on FaceTime or Zoom, and then we would be using a few different technologies—we’d be using Zoom, there’s another one called Audiomovers that allows you to hear the audio from another person’s computer without any latency or without any degradation of the sound, so we were using that. And then thankfully, since we have enough experience to track ourselves, we were able to fully record ourselves. And then he would take it all, mix and master it, and get it all polished up from there.
I have this quote from him where he says about your band, “They’ve refined their sound and songwriting, showing a new level of maturity that makes this their most powerful work yet.” Do you agree with him that it’s your strongest project?
I think so. I think it’s nice that he said that because I’ve personally worked with him since I was 16-years-old, so he’s seen me play music. He’s seen all of my different bands record over the years, and then we also recorded the last round of music with him as well, which I think was all done during 2020, during the pandemic. So since then, we’ve really grown a lot as musicians, and so I think he’s really seen us be able to kind of hone in on our best versions of ourselves musically.
How long have you been playing together?
As Rohna, we started in 2019 when we really started playing shows, but I’ve been playing music with some of these guys since high school, early high school. So, it’s been a while, almost 10 years now.
What’s your favorite thing about making music together?
Honestly, I think it’s one of those things that, since we’re such good friends and have known each other for so long, there is that level of trust that you can kind of be open with one another. It is one of those things that you really feel interconnected in a way, not only as friends and the way that we all have this common goal that we’re working toward, but also when we’re playing the music live. It really feels like we’re all interconnected in this crazy way, and when the energy builds up from the live shows as well, it all kind of feeds back into itself. So, I think it’s one of those special, unique things that you really only get through music, and the fact that we get to do it as friends is really special too.
So, speaking about the live shows, you guys are going on the ‘Don’t Come Down US Tour’ in a couple of days. Are there any cities that you’re looking forward to playing, or are there any new ones you’re excited to play?
I’m really excited for the East Coast run specifically—a lot of these shows are different indie night shows that I booked myself through our promotional and live event side of things that we do. I always like going back to New York, which is fun. This time, we’re playing in Carrboro, North Carolina, which is like a little bit outside of Raleigh. They have a really cool music scene going on right now, so we’re excited to be a part of that for a night. And then the West Coast run of things is kind of an all new endeavor. We’ve never gone to Texas or California or anything like that, so all of that will be brand new cities that we’re going to. But we have a lot of friends in all those cities and some fans, so it’ll be nice to just explore some new parts of the country with them.
Are there any songs in particular from the new album that you’re most excited to play for everyone?
Yeah, on Friday when we did the album release show, we played “Haunt You” for the first time, which is kind of one of the “rockier” songs on there. That one’s fun because our drummer sings that, and so I’m excited to play that every night. It just has a lot of good energy, and it’ll be interesting to see how certain crowds react to that one. Really excited for that one, always like playing “Runnin’ Out of Remedies” because that one has a ton of energy, so probably those two the most.
So, you’re based in Tampa, and I know Tampa and St. Pete have a thriving music scene going on here, so is there anything in particular about Tampa and St. Pete shows that you like when it comes to performing here?
Yeah, I think honestly, it’s one of my favorite music scenes to be a part of—like Florida in general, but specifically Tampa and St. Pete. I think, at least for our shows, now that we’ve been playing this area so much, we’ve cultivated this community and this energy that no one really feels too cool to have fun or too cool to do anything at a show. I think that’s just ingrained in us from how much we’ve always loved music, and coming from the punk scene and coming from the DIY house show scene, it was always just ingrained in us to be yourself, have energy at a show, dance, mosh, crowd surf—do all those things that feel so normal and so fun at a concert.
In other cities, you can kind of tell that people are afraid to get out of their shells, but I think thankfully the Tampa music scene, it was one of those that it never really took that much to get that out of them. And especially now, we’ve just built the culture in it within our own shows that it’s like, we don’t even have to say anything, and it just all starts happening. It’s a beautiful feedback loop—everyone ends up hugging and being friends, and I don’t know, I think it’s just cool. We see so many people that either meet new people at shows or have long-lasting friendships and they’re kind of reuniting at our shows, and I think it’s a really special thing we have going on here in the Tampa Bay area.
Before I let you go, is there anything for the rest of the year that you guys are looking forward to?
Yeah, so the big part is all of the indie night shows that we have coming up, the full tour that we booked for the album… We’re doing a full Florida tour with Magic City Hippies as well, which is super exciting. We’ll have the whole album coming out, and then we’ll probably be taking some time in December to start writing some more new music or potentially playing some other shows. But really, just looking forward to all the stuff that we’ve been working on for the next few months, and getting to experience it and make it happen is going to be awesome.
You can listen to Don’t Come Down here.
Catch Rohna on tour here.
Keep up with Rohna: Instagram // Facebook // TikTok // YouTube // Website
