Today, alt-pop star No Rome releases new single and visual “Talk Nice”—the follow up to his critically acclaimed Crying In The Prettiest Places EP, which saw the 24-year-old artist amass a staggering 100 million streams globally.
The first track to be revealed from an upcoming EP, the immaculately self-produced “Talk Nice’ is a firm statement of intent from the young Filipino artist.
No Rome confidently manages to distill a hugely eclectic range of influences, from production genius J Dilla to shoegaze bands such as My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, through to irresistible pop melodies – cleverly juxtaposing high end, contemporary pop production with a rawer, guitar sound. The video forms the perfect visual companion for the track and showcases No Rome’s charismatic performance ability.
With a headline show to several thousand people in his hometown of Manila on Oct. 6, a new EP due later this year and support flooding in from High Snobiety, NME, The Guardian, The Fader, and Paper, to name a few, No Rome is firmly establishing himself as one of the most exciting, talented new breed of pop stars around.
Born and raised in Manila, No Rome, or Rome Gomez in real life, is a London-based Filipino musician. The rising music artist debuted with the single “Narcissist,” which features vocals and production from Dirty Hit Records labelmates Matty Healy and George Daniel of The 1975. The song is a single off No Rome’s EP RIP Indo Hisashi, which was released in August 2018.
In 2019, No Rome released his second and self-produced EP, Crying in the Prettiest Places with the acclaimed returning track, “Cashmoney.” Across the six tracks of Crying in the Prettiest Places, No Rome showcases as much sonic playfulness as he does raw lyrical honesty with unique, affecting results.
Born in a tough Manila neighborhood, Rome grew up keeping one eye over his shoulder.
“I grew up in such a dark, dark street,” he says. He stresses that this isn’t the experience of all Filipinos. “That’s the street I was in,” he says. “I’m not generalizing the Philippines.”
But Rome refused to live in fear of bullies. As an emo kid who’d wear skinny jeans and tight T-shirts, he started learning self-defense to protect himself. For a while he’d get into fights, but then his dad started teaching Rome the basics of music production software at 12 years old.
“Making music made me get so obsessed with it,” he says. “I was super into hip-hop and obsessed with J Dilla and Nujabes.”
His genre-blind early taste spanned Slipknot to 2Pac, and the New Order and David Bowie records that found in his dad’s stacks of vinyl.
By his mid-teens, Rome had moved on to shoegaze bands like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, eventually finding a niche in “shoegaze R&B” that he continues to explore. His early Soundcloud demos picked up attention from the likes of Ryan Hemsworth, members of Brockhampton, and – eventually– collaborator and friend Matt Healy.
“We both (Healy) make a genre-bending type of pop music,” Rome says, “We get inspired from places that you wouldn’t expect.” It follows, then, that Crying In The Prettiest Places is vividly strewn with sonic curveballs. Take opening screamo-pop anthem “5 Ways To Bleach Your Hair,” or EP highlight “Stoned In The Valley” — a breezy skatepark anthem that hybridizes millennium-era pop-punk sounds with a modern emo-rap.
“That’s the shit I grew up on,” says Rome of pop-punk. “That’s my Nirvana: Box Car Racer, Blink-182 and New Found Glory. I wanted to reference nostalgia, but [to be] more modern lyrically and a bit darker.”
No Rome recently made his Coachella debut alongside the 1975 and even touted as the first Filipino artist to ever perform in the biggest annual music and arts festival.