Rooney singer follows family footsteps
By KELLY WILSON
Get Out

When frontman Robert Carmine and his poppy SoCal rock band Rooney began pursuing a musical career, his brother, actor and musician Jason Schwartzman, was there to lend a helping hand.

“We had some nice opening slots on their shows,’’ Carmine, 21, says of Schwartzman who used to play drums in Phantom Planet. “When he was in a band, it was good for our band to have a sibling in a band that actually had a record deal and was doing pretty well.”

Like his brother, who starred in the films “Rushmore” and “Slackers,” Carmine has acting credits. He portrayed the sensitive rocker love interest to Anne Hathaway’s princess in “The Princess Diaries” in 2001.
“I don’t feel like I ever got into (acting),” he says. “It really wasn’t that important. I was 17 and in high school and it was a good way to get out of school and make a little cash. The only problem with doing that was that I had to take two months off from my band.”

The singer says he wasn’t approached to reprise his role in the sequel to “The Princess Diaries” and hasn’t thought about acting since the movie.

“I don’t feel like I ever broke into that world or ever did anything too much in that scene,” he says frankly.

He’s much more into music.
“I’m a sucker for ’60s pop and the beginning of rock ’n’ roll,” he says of his influences. “I love glam rock. I love early punk rock. I listen to a lot of Motown music and a lot of different stuff. Really all the music we listen to has a good melody and a hook here and there and something different and cool.”

It’s clear on radio singles “Blueside” and “I’m Shakin’ ” that Rooney uses the same elements in their sunny, powerhouse hook-driven songs. Maybe that’s why Fox’s “The O.C.” centered an episode around the band last season.

“They asked us to play a song on the show and our answer was no right away because we didn’t want to do that,” Carmine says. “Then (the writer) said, ‘Oh, it’s about going to see Rooney play and you don’t have to do anything lame or talk. You can just play.’ ”

The singer says the band had another fun experience when they recorded the Ramones’ “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow,” which appeared on last year’s “We’re a Happy Family: A Ramones Tribute Album.”

“I saw Johnny Ramone in Los Angeles one night and we were in the middle of making our record and I gave him a demo and he liked it,” Carmine says of the guitarist, whom he refers to as “a father’’ to his band.

As luck would have it, Ramone was less than thrilled with a Motorhead version of a Ramones’ track and removed them from the tribute album which provided a slot for Rooney who were up-and-comers at the time.

“It was a killer opportunity just because we didn’t have a record out then,” Carmine says. “So we recorded the song and I gave it to Johnny and he thought it was better than their version ... The most important thing was he thought we played it like Rooney.”