Everything is completely unpredictable about the music industry right now,” says Rod Pardey. “You really can’t know what’s going to happen.” Unpredictability seems to be a constant for the man otherwise known as Michael Valentine; somehow the Vegas-born-and-raised frontman of Romance Fantasy has wound up playing a March 15 South by Southwest showcase (at a joint called The Rio, no less) with only a self-titled EP to his band’s name.
Wes Anderson’s appreciation of the country-song parody “I Ain’t Ever Gonna Change My Ways” helped the group score opening slots for The Killers last fall. But Pardey and The Killers go even further back: Killers drummer Ronnie Vannucci and auxiliary member Ted Sablay were in earlier Romance Fantasy incarnations. Pardey’s brother Ryan is the band’s tour manager, and the song “The Ballad of Michael Valentine,” an embellished sketch of Pardey’s vagabond alter-ego, somehow became the B-side of early Killers single “Somebody Told Me.”
Now living in Los Angeles, the professional poker player says the band—singer/guitarist Pardey, guitarist Levi Stokes, bassist Frankie “Angel” Salvo and drummer Jason Blair—will record a full album by summer’s end. “Our goal is to appeal to an older crowd,” Pardey says of Romance Fantasy’s dark, twanged-out take on classic rock. “I don’t think we’ll ever have much about us in the New Musical Express.”
When he says of poker, “On any day no matter how well you play you could lose,” the same could apply to music. “Well, I definitely think it’s gambling,” Pardey confirms. “You put in a lot of time and effort most likely for nothing, but you take a chance that you’ll hit the big payoff.”