Today we would like to introduce you to the lead singer of Rome Music ” Roman Rodriguez”.
Roman, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My name is Roman Rodriguez, now known as “Rome”. I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas but I’ve lived most of my life in Houston, TX. I first fell in love with music when I was in 3rd grade & my dad got me a guitar for Christmas. Then I started singing in the 6th grade. I use to sing in a garage band with my brother and his high school friends. We use to do a lot of covers songs from bands like “Parkway Drive, August Burns Red, Through the eyes of the dead, Lamb of GOD, Job for a cowboy, all that remains, darkest hour, as I lay dying, etc. I come from a very athletic family. We were very involved with sports growing up. I had three older brothers that got division 1 scholarships for track and field & I followed in their footsteps. So when I got to high school I kinda had to put music to the side because sports would take up most of my time. I was the starting varsity quarterback for my high school football team & was an All-American in Track & Field. Even though I was Incredibly busy with sports somehow music would find a way creep back in my life. So my junior year of high school my older brother “Trey & I” formed another band that was more serious called “It Only Ends Once”. I was a 16 year old kid singing for a band full of grown men. I believe our drummer was like 32 at the time & our bassist along with the 2 other guitarist were over 25 years old. We would perform at local venues in Houston & even performed at some local bars. We had some potential & made some good material but never really took the time to get any of our songs professionally recorded in the studio.
Towards the end of my junior year of high school I knew it was time again to put music to the side cause I started to get some serious scholarship offers from many divison 1 schools all over the country. I knew college was coming soon & that I needed to focus on getting a scholarship and making sure my future education was going to get paid for. So I walked away from that band & put my focus on track and field and finishing up high school. My senior year I signed & Officially Commited to Texas State University on a track and field scholarship. At Texas state I was a two time all conference athlete and won two conference championships. Throughout College I started to re-discover my love/passion for music again but in a total different way. I started to get into hip hop. I started rapping & trying to make beats in the dorm room on my school laptop. I was not a very good rapper at all when I first started, but overtime I started to flow better and truly find my sound. Even though I was still a huge metalhead at heart, I had alot of respect & love for hip hop & the art behind it. I was heavily influenced by rappers like J.Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Joyner Lucas, Eminem, Logic, Lecrae, Andy mineo & Hopsin. My Junior & senior year of college I started taking rapping more serious & dropped two mixtapes that had a total of 40 tracks. My my official rapper name was “Rome Music” & I was really grinding trying to build a buzz & get my name out there. After I dropped those 2 mixtapes I began to grow a decent following on social media. After I graduated college & my athletic career was officially at an end. I knew music was my calling. Thats all I truly wanted to do.
So I moved back to Houston & got to work. I started writing new material and started dropping songs & music videos every two weeks. I started doing features for other artist and finally started getting paid to do music. I did some paid shows in Houston as well, I even made a song for the Houston Texans football team called “Battle Cry” that the city really got behind and that got my name buzzin a little bit. Then in late 2018 I started to experiment with a different sound. I always loved metal and I found a new love for hip hop, but I wanted to combine both sounds into one. So thats when I dropped the song ” Rorschach”. The song contains a heavy 808 trap banging beat with me rapping & screaming over it. One moment I would be rapping the next moment I would be screaming & I absolutely loved it! I truly felt like I was finally finding my sound & showcasing my talents. I felt like I had created something that hadn’t really been done before. In 2019, I really started to get a hang of making beats & making loops/backing tracks. So I began to start programing drums/trap beats and writing guitar riffs to drums along with adding piano/sythensizer notes in the backing tracks. I was starting to become a 1 man band. It got to the point where I had live drums and guitar riffs that I wrote incorporated my songs instrumentals & I would pay other people to pretend like they were playing my riffs in the actual music videos. So I thought to myself if Im having to pay people to make appearances in my music videos to make it look like I’m playing with a band , then “Why dont I just start a band” haha.
So in 2020, thats when I turned “Rome Music” into a full time band. The first song we ever wrote was “Controlled Chaos”. That song blew up & went spotify gold and now recently went Platinum on spotify with over 1,000,000 Streams. After that we dropped a few more big tracks that got us some really good exposure including our single “War Shack” that was featuring cash money records artist “Caskey” on it. Throughout 2020-2022 we had some band members fall out & had to make some replacements & now in 2022 “Rome Music” is truly stacked with talented/gifted hard working Inviduals Including “Jess Mieritz (Lead Guitar), Evonee Mitchell (Violinist), & Holden faust (Drummer). We just dropped our new single “Vengeance” that has been really making some noise in the industry. Within 1 month already has over 120,000 views on youtube & over 50,000 streams on spotify. We been working hard in the studio & have so much more material that were going to drop throughout the rest of 2022 and into 2023. The goal is to be headlining our first ever U.S. tour in 2023.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No definitely has not been a smooth road, but thats the beauty in the journey. Thats the beauty in the growth as an Artist & now as a band. I had struggles at the beginning of my career with people saying my music sucked & that I should give up. I use to pass out mixtapes in college and people would laugh & throw them in the trash. So I use to get depressed and doubt myself all the time & question my music if I should even do it anymore. There had to be atleast six different times were I’ve really considered quitting music for good. Right Now, the challenging part of being in Rome Music is staying on top of the band & every individual apart of it. I have to do everything I can to make sure we are organized and we are working as one cohesive unit. One vision, one goal. What even makes it more challenging is that our guitarist “Jess” & our violinist “Evonee” live in different states than Holden & I. So when we record and rehearse we have to to fly them down here to Houston & put many hours of work in during the few days their here. Even though its challenging we still find a way to make it work & always have a blast working & writing together. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I truly love each band member in this band & I see everybody as my family. We are brothers & sisters here & when we step on that stage we have eachothers backs 100%.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Rome Music is most known for our unique blend of different genres combined into one sound. We create music that most people would think could never be possible. Thats what separates us from other bands.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
Most people probably dont know that I was an All-American Athlete in high school & college. I threw the shot put, discus & hammer. In high school I was ranked #3 in the country for shot put.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.Romemusicstore.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/rome.music
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/romehtx
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/RomeMusicOfficial
Image Credits
Rome: Vocals Jess Lai Mieritz: lead Guitar Holdy “Holden Faust”: Drums Evonee Mitchell: Violinist
