Absence makes music fresher for bandleader

Rod Pardey hasn't picked up his guitar in more than a year.

He doesn't feel like the same man he was when he touched it last.

And that's the point.

"I've read from a lot of people who are songwriters that sometimes you need to evolve as a person, develop to the next stage, and then come back to it with a new perspective," says Pardey, frontman for rootsy, Vegas- born rockers Romance Fantasy. "I sort of felt like I had done that and had said what I could say in an old perspective. Now I'm trying to do some new stuff with my life. I want to come back to it fresh."

And so three years after his band played their last show, Pardey has reconvened Romance Fantasy, initially to play a friend's 40th birthday party, scheduling a pair of gigs, one in Los Angeles, where Pardey now lives, and one in his hometown, tonight at the Royal Resort.

The group was formed in 2001, when Pardey ran into an old high school buddy, future Killers drummer Ronnie Vannucci, at a concert.

"He said to me, 'Are you playing music,' " Pardey recalls. "And I hadn't played music in like three years. I said, 'Well, I do have this one song that I've sort of been working on.' And so outside next to a car, I took a guitar, and I played him the first verse and chorus of (future Romance Fantasy tune) 'Whiskey & Wine.' He said, 'I love it, let's start a band.' "

Pardey would adopt the stage persona of Michael Valentine for Romance Fantasy, later immortalized in the Killers song "The Ballad of Michael Valentine."

"I don't think I really understood at the time what Michael Valentine was," Pardey says. "Looking back on it, maybe I felt a little insecure about being a frontman. I sort of felt like, 'Well, I know who I would like to be and who I would like to project myself as.' I think that's what Michael Valentine became, 'I'm not as cool as I'd like to be, so I'm going to create that.' "

With Valentine singing of sleepless nights and black hearts, playing dive bars and chasing wayward women, the band veered from dusty Americana to raucous, throwback rock 'n' roll, all with a distinct storytelling bent.

They'd later move to L.A., then Austin, Texas, before going their separate ways (Vannucci had departed by 2003).

Pardey, son of professional poker player Rod H. Pardey, tried playing poker in his late teens, and had some success, but he keeps coming back to the music.

And why not? He's got the tunes - even if they come with some nerves these days.

"There's a little anxiety, but at the same time, I've been going over the songs and they came back to me real easily," Pardey says of revisiting the Romance Fantasy repertoire. "I do feel like they held up and in a way, I'm kind of surprised that I did that. It's fun to listen to it a few years later and say, 'Oh that's good, man.' "

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.