The Sophs arrived out of the great blue yonder,” say Rough Trade co-founders Geoff Travis and Jeannette Lee of the label’s newest signing, LA six-piece The Sophs. The band’s brutal honesty, flamingly intrusive thoughts, and broad genre-spreading caught their attention instantly.
Rough Trade heard creativity, variety, and a “don’t expect me to act pretty” sentiment that could land The Sophs — frontman Ethan Ramon, Sam Yuh (keyboards), Austin Parker Jones (electric guitar), Seth Smades (acoustic guitar), Devin Russ (drums), and Cole Bobbitt (bass) — on nearly any stage. “It’s rare that a demo sets your heart racing and sends you on a quest to track down its sender. But that’s what happened with Ethan Ramon,” Travis and Lee explain.
At any moment, The Sophs are entering pop-punk, blazing through funk, or talk-singing to the audience. “I want to steal and plagiarize and borrow,” Ramon says. “At the end of the day, the music is going to sound incredible.