Pom Pom Diary

In the fall of 2004, indie rock musician Paul Fontana of The Faders and Los Angeles based DJ Paul Finch began to entertain the idea of putting together a project that would marry both electronic and indie music. Finch was interested in combining the energy of a club into indie rock. Fontana, having had his rock music played on The O.C. and in movies such as Scott Caans Dallas 362, wanted to update the thumping beats and synthesizers of bands like New Order and Depeche Mode.

One late Saturday night, after Finch had finished spinning at The House of Blues and Fontana had played at The Viper Room, they got together and wrote a song called Like You Like Me. Feeling good about the track, they sent it in to Indie 103.1, the LA radio station that was dubbed by Spin Magazine as the best reason to turn up your radio. They played the track and in the next six months, Indie 103.1 aired every single track Finch and Fontana sent into them.

Having been received with on air enthusiasm, Finch and Fontana realized that their late night experiment had turned into a full-fledged band. They needed a name and after pouring through books and watching as many new wave French movies as they could stand, they finally settled on a name that would symbolize the explosiveness of their sound and self-conscious nature of Fontanas lyrics. They settled on POM POM DIARY.

By early 2005, POM POM DIARY was turning down offers to play from colleges and venues alike. Fontana and Finch were adamant about what they wanted their live show to sound like and although their recordings had provided them with exposure and fans, they were not about bring a computer on stage as a substitute for a full band. They began looking for other players while continuing to give away gigs to their friends bands in Los Angeles. They needed a drummer who understood the elements of groove and style, and they found that in Charlie King. King had been in the Los Angeles music scene for a few years, but had never really settled on one project. He heard the CD, played with POM POM DIARY a few times and found it was a perfect match. Now that a drummer had been found, POM POM DIARY could focus on finding a bass player who could double on guitar if needed. For the most part the bass lines in the music had been created by Finchs synthesizer and POM POM DIARY needed someone who could translate those keyboard parts into full bass lines.

Ryan Tomlin had spent most his life playing in country rock bands while living in his native Alabama, yet his musical knowledge went far beyond his southern roots. He had moved to Los Angeles only two years before meeting Finch and Fontana and once King played him the POM POM DIARY demo, he was hooked. After only a year, POM POM DIARY had received substantial radio airplay, licensed four songs to the director Wayne Reynolds for his film Sweetzer, signed a distribution deal with Burnside Distribution out of Oregon and was selling records across the nation. They had entered into the top three most downloaded New Wave artists on the Website Download.com, second only to The Faint and had shot a video for their track Thursday. All this before they had a full band, but by the winter of 2005, all the elements were there for POM POM DIARY to start performing live.

Having played LA venues such as the Viper Room, The Roxy, Club Moscow and Spaceland, POM POM DIARY is poised to continue moving in fast forward, only stopping to expand their catalog of contagious indie-synth-pop.

While POM POM DIARY may remind you of the past it certainly has no intention of staying there. The synths are retro, the guitar is almost common and the drums are simple, infectious beats that one can dance to--but doesn't have to. New Wave is something POM POM DIARY hears a lot when they are listened to or played on the radio, then sometimes they are simply part of that all encompassing now ultra-important Indie scene. They are alternative, but they would hope you chose them first. In the end POM POM DIARY is all of these things so listen up.