Review Fix chats with Jay Manara (Tiger Rose) and Heather Janssen (Rikki Bloom), who discuss their debut single, “Hearts on Fire.
Review Fix: How did the band get together?
Bloom: We had known of each other just through the Toronto Music scene and had each other on Facebook. We were doing our own solo projects at the time. While Tiger was in LA recording his own single, he shot me (Bloom) a quick message asking if I wanted to do a writing session, and we met up once he came back to Toronto. As writers, we were used to collaborating with many upon many of other songwriters just looking to create. But we never expected to feel the creative connection that we did in that initial writing session. It was a matter of ying and yang, of having no ego, of simply just wanting to create great music and stretching our own boundaries as individual writers. From there we kept writing, and Tiger & Bloom was formed. (Bloom)
Review Fix: What makes you guys unique?
Tiger: I think the girl/guy dup dynamic instantly sets us apart from all the other pop solo singer songwriters out there. Visually, it’s just something different that people will remember. But really, I don’t think there is a girl/guy duo in Top 40 music that is dominating the charts yet. There’s an open field for us to play on, and we intend to take full advantage of it. Our sound as well – a mix of catchy pop, nostalgia anthem sounds – I think we’ve done a good job of carving our own sound that pulls from our influences (Fleetwood Mac, Depeche Mode, Coldplay) while still balancing a current feel. And we’ve created a story. You know, two characters – Tiger & Bloom; bold, fearless, unique – like something out of a story book, doing everything in their will power to make a dream a reality.
Review Fix: What groups inspire you?
Tiger: We definitely pull a lot of inspiration from Fleetwood Mac. They initially inspired the idea to us as a new-age Fleetwood Mac. Depeche Mode, Savage Garden, INXS, U2, Coldplay – they all have had a major impact on our music as well, sonically. We have heavy synths to chiming chorus piano, from busy pounding drums to bright bluesy guitar. We pull certain elements from the music we grew up on, but are truly just inspired by plain old good songwriting and production. If one day we hear an amazing bluesy Chris Stapleton tune, we’ll write a country blues song. We’re not limiting ourselves.
Review Fix: What makes this one special?
Bloom: We say it a lot, but Hearts On Fire really came out of nowhere. We had originally planned for another song that we were working on in LA to be the single. But HOF was a song that knew it’s direction, knew what it wanted to be, and once we got in to the studio, it all came together so fast. Ideas were flying, and through each sound and delivery of a lyric, we truly felt the emotion of the song. It was also a song that we did completely on our own in Toronto with our right hand man/producer Kevin Dietz. As a trio, we learned and grew together through the process.
Review Fix: How was Hearts On Fire written?
Tiger: It started off as a very slow piano ballad actually. It went through many many iterations, speeding it up, slowing it back down, changing this, changing that. Until one day we heard a song on the radio that give us a whole new inspiration and direction for the song. From there, we sat in the studio, laid down some piano, a beat, and the rest just came together.
Review Fix: What’s next?
Bloom: We’ve got a lot lined up for the next couple months! We’re exciting to get out and play the EP and some new songs locally in Toronto, Los Angeles, and across Canada. We have a very cool collaboration in the works with a familiar name, and are just excited to continue writing, and getting out there!
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