Nature of Rowland
by Grant Moser
October 1997
DCMusicwwweb
The man who came into the bar that night wasn't what I had expected. I had listened to the CD, Nature of the Beast, by a group named One Left. I had been so intrigued by the lyrics and the style I called and asked for an interview. Roland, the lead singer, agreed.
So as I sat there and waited for him to arrive, I looked over my notes I wrote while listening to the CD the night before. The musical quality was so different from what you hear coming out nowadays. It had a Leonard Cohen / Dire Straits / Velvet Underground tone to it, if you can imagine a blend of those artists. The music was real, and while good, chiefly served as a canvas for the words to spring off of. For it was the lyrics that got me. Covering two-thirds of the inside cover, each song was a dense paragraph, full of colorful words, literary allusions, and clever, intelligent phrasing.
So, what did I expect? Someone wearing hip second hand clothes, a ponytail; some sullen youth expressing his rage and disappointment with the world he was encountering. (Yes, a stereotype. And yes, I was proven wrong). In walked Roland, fresh from a bike ride in T-shirt and shorts, a normal professional haircut, and excited he was being interviewed. (He was also a little older than I had anticipated from listening to his voice on the CD. He gives his age at 35+.)
He prides himself on trying to be a "serious" musician, which I think he has accomplished. He is a bit more modest, still nervous about his creation, yet like a small child full of wonderment at doing something all on his own. According to him, Nature of the Beast is his angst, his view on the world he has encountered and lived in.
This CD is no poppy-let's-just-play-guitar-and-rhyme-some-words music collection. It is a serious look at what life is and what Roland has seen and felt and what he wants to share with us.
The title Nature of the Beast represents the 12 songs as a collage of what life is, of what living in this world means. There is an endless parade of people going by and Roland has taken the time to sit down and observe everyone he can. He wants to define life, love, loss; wants to discover what being "human" means. The front cover is a beautiful multi-colored mural of a faceless figure in a deserted market place. A wanderer, an observer, a timeless being floating through the world waiting and watching, for something only he knows. I see Roland as this character. Maybe he does too.
"Galileo's Eyes", the opening track, is about the search for the truth. Roland sees it as a cry for education, as it was Galileo who challenged the doctrines of the church to reach what he knew was really true. The song wants you to not fear looking at the truth that popular culture might not want you to see, to look through the eyes of a revolutionary. Like Galileo. Similarly, "The Demon Haunted World" (itself a haunting song) debunks myth and cults and astrology. The title is from a Carl Sagan book that Roland admires very much. It attempts to explain the universe, break it down to simple fundamentals, and cut through all the superstition and fog.
But the main message of the album is clear, (at least to me). Love is what the world needs. Maybe a little Lennon-esque, and even Roland at first didn't see it, until I told him how I saw it over and over in the CD. "Mi Carino Girl" is about how life is hard, life is following leaders that don't seem to want what we want, and about how your love can help you rise above it. "Gypsy Wine" is about the love of a woman taking everything away, all the pain and drudgery, "making it all right". "Babylon Walls" talks of a loss of a great love, and how the singer would give everything away, "even all the wisdom of the prophets" to get it back. And on and on throughout the songs.
It is not a whining plea for love, not sickly sweet. Sometimes it is even hidden in imagergy laden phrases and twisting stories. But is it there nonetheless. The fact is that love does help you break the monotony of life, help you get away from what the world does to you, acting as a redeemer, even as a savior. Love affects everyone, from children to adults. Growing in the light of love benefits everyone. Roland explains his views on life and love passively in the songs, sometimes with a sudden yearning exploding through. But he sings mostly about what he sees, and presents us with a reflection of the world we live in. His music, this creation of his, helps him break out of the monotony of life, the nature of life, the nature of the beast.
He has not given up on the world, but sees the direction we're heading as wrong. Life seems so full of bad conditions, bad actions, bad decisions, bad leaders that it discourages Roland. The recent death of Diana had him all fired up. He pointed to everything the world loved about Diana, her giving, her caring, her selflessness to everyone and everything. And then he looked at me confused, "So why don't we elect leaders with those qualities we obviously value so much?" I had no answer.
The imagery laden lyrics also reveal Roland's own closing off from others. While he wants to get across his feelings, he disguises blatant statements with words and allusions, not allowing everyone in all the time, maintaining some privacy for his inner feelings. The openess and giving he desires to see in the world, he himself is still searching for. But he is trying, and the music he and One Left have created is good, and real. The dichotomy evident from his closing off and wanting to be open at the same time is, in borrowed words, just the nature of the beast.