Boston-based band Ruby Grove (2023- now) is a six-piece indie alternative musical project rooted in an indie rock feel and inspired by a wide variety of indie and alternative rock, psychedelic rock, trip-hop, soul, indietronica, and jazz-fusion influences. Focused on creating an alternately funky, soulful, and mystical atmosphere, the band delights in playing with combining genre in each of their songs. Ken Sears of Boston music magazine If It’s Too Loud said of Ruby Grove, “Nothing else in the city [of Boston] sounds anything like Ruby Grove… almost impossibly infectious.”

Lead singer and keyboardist Melissa Nilles brings a wide-ranging musical background to Ruby Grove from years of fronting indie bands in New York, California, Japan, and Massachusetts (including Boston’s notable and eclectic art/alternative rock project Miele), as well as singing and bellydancing with middle eastern music and dance troupes. Nilles’s unique vocal style was described by the Boston Survival Guide as “travelling effortlessly through many moods- forceful and determined, melancholy and dreamy, exotic and magical”. Bassist, session guitarist, and backup vocalist Cedric Lamour hails from previous projects Miele and Teardrop Tank, and brings a masterful, lively rhythm bass to the band. Ruby Grove also includes drummer Travis Rowland Jr., flutist Meredith Blankenship, and saxophonist Gabe Stillman.

Ruby Grove members Nilles and Lamour first met during their time moonlighting with epic, edgy Boston-based band Miele (2014-2020), whose music was described by the Boston Hassle/Compass as a “a call to local music everywhere to get risky, develop a deeper understanding of the listener, and in the end, truly explore the complexities of being human.” Miele disbanded like many similar local bands during the pandemic, leading Lamour and Nilles to collect the echoing ashes and form a new project based around the increasingly soulful, intricate, melodic, soothing, and groove-based sonic landscape they were already heading towards before Miele even ended. Lamour and Nilles also began their 7 year relationship during this time, and are currently engaged, citing their love of music as a significant role in bringing each other together. The two were playing a battle royale magic-based video game called Spellbreak, and found an unusual form of refuge in a land of ancient castles, big red trees, and treasure chests called Ruby Grove. This “safe zone,” a metaphorical place to collect yourself and take in the beauty around you before heading back out to battle, acted as a multi-layered name and foundation for the Somerville-based project, where a sonic cocktail of indie alternative with rock, pop, trip-hop, and neo-soul grooves would provide a soundtrack to help its members and audience heal past traumas and combat burnout from an increasingly stressful and antagonistic society. 

Part trippy magic, part empowering balm for the soul, Ruby Grove’s first hypnotic 2023 single “Maybe It’s Time” served as a powerful, funky anti-anxiety anthem in a post-pandemic world. Described by frontwoman Nilles as “the sonic lovechild of Beats Antique, Portishead, Jamiroquai, Gnarls Barkley, and Gorillaz”, the track featured sassy and soulful vocals where Nilles both teases and encourages the listener to release oneself from inner traps and experience creative rebirth and expansiveness with Patti Labelle-esque refrains and harmonies over a funky, vibey bass and drum groove. Jed Gottlieb of The Boston Herald said of “Maybe It’s Time” prior to Ruby Grove’s appearance in Boston’s 2024 Rock and Roll Rumble, “Ruby Grove matches the silky smooth with glitchy beats, creaks, and guitar growls. And “Maybe It’s Time” is a wonderful reminder that rock can absorb so much and keep on rolling. This hypnotic track synthesizes trip hop, electro, lounge jazz, neo-soul, goth, and more into a fabulous fever dream. All of it made more trippy, catchy, witchy by Melissa Nilles’ call of, “Maybe it’s time/Get rid of those nightmares/Takin’ up your time/Everything is within reach… Everything.””

In 2023 Ruby Grove was nominated for Rising Artist of Massachusetts by the New England Music Awards following their releases of “Maybe It’s Time” and “TVtocracy”. Ruby Grove followed up these locally successful releases with several daring and uniquely different singles including “Crystal Land”, “TVtocracy”, and “Ocean Sun”, off of their 2025 EP Ripple Effect. Boston music magazine Rock and Roll Fables described Crystal Land as “the kind of tune that immediately stands out and, in this case, followed the debut release of “Maybe It’s Time” with the same kind of sonic subtlety as Lady Gaga unleashing “Bad Romance” following The Fame.” Ken Sears of It’s Too Loud praised “Ocean Sun”, saying, “we've always loved how Ruby Grove have been able to weave together multiple different sounds and genres into a new sound completely their own… this is the best that Melissa Nilles' voice has sounded.” Michael Gutierrez of Boston’s Hump Day News griped that Ruby Grove was one of the bands that should have been nominated for the 2024 Boston Music Awards, and described “Ocean Sun” as “an aquatic musical wonderland… washes of synth that sound like waves crashing.”

Rock and Roll Fables lauded Ruby Grove’s 2025 EP Ripple Effect as having “big grooves from Cedric Lamour and Sage Gibbons” while “Melissa Nilles’ vocals present[ed] a soulful boom like a siren as the keys play[ed] out a timeless melody”. Recording Artists Guild Digital Magazine also wrote, “This record bears so much psych-rock, soul, indie rock, cinematic spaciousness, character, and heart that it feels like you just watched a play that took you to different worlds”. Frontwoman Melissa Nilles described Ripple Effect in an interview with RAGMAG as a “soul-searching journey… to heal my traumas and my burnout and to potentially help others do the same through sharing that journey through music”, and cited its primary themes as “an ode to mindfulness and nature, collective consciousness, universal connection and loneliness and belonging, burnout and capitalism, reclaiming your mind, soul and body, falling into old patterns that are no longer serving you, and breaking those cycles one day at a time”. Blending indie rock with touches of psychedelic soul, jazz-fusion, pop, and trip-hop, Ripple Effect sonically and thematically explored the idea of "ripples" and how small internal and external events can shift our lives and perceptions.

Following the successful release of their 2025 EP Ripple Effect, Ruby Grove performed at Salem, Massachusetts’s and Windham, New Hampshire’s Pride Festivals and New London’s Make Music Fest, and toured in New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and multiple cities across Massachusetts. Additionally, in response to political unrest, systemic injustice, and violence against marginalized communities in the United States following the appointment of Donald Trump in January 2025, Melissa Nilles of Ruby Grove created and hosted the first ever Dream A Better World Fest in Somerville, MA in August 2025. Featuring musical acts Evan Greer, Ruby Grove, Lonely Leesa and the Lost Cowboys, Linnea’s Garden, Chris Walton, Why Try, and Songs of Liberation (for Palestine), and speakers or poets Victor Infante, Fight For the Future, Willie Burnley Jr, Meredith Blankenship, Mass Peace Action, Art Stays Here, and Somerville for Palestine, Dream A Better World Fest was described by WBZ Radio as “a social justice musical event [that] features talent from across all genres who are using their art to address the oppression they are feeling and to inspire change.” Organizer and Ruby Grove frontwoman Melissa Nilles said to WBZ about Dream A Better World Fest, “a therapeutic thing right now is to be like, what can we find that you can do to respond to this that's within your control, right? And when we think about it, we do have a lot of power even though some things are out of our control." Self-identified as a bisexual neurodivergent creative, Nilles has since positioned herself as an outspoken and fierce advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, disability advocacy, climate change, solidarity against fascism, and protecting Boston’s arts communities, from her extensive activism in 2018 fighting for the preservation of the EMF music rehearsal building to her current creative and activism involvement with Extinction Rebellion Boston, 2026’s Dream A Better World Fest, and her new arts/activism/communal healing workshop The Dream A Better World Collective.

In 2026 Ruby Grove made multiple lineup changes and expanded their lineup to a six-piece act, saying goodbye to guitarist Sergio Romero and drummer Reed Farhat, and adding drummer Travis Rowland Jr., flutist Meredith Blankenship, and saxophonist Gabe Stillman. The anticipated release of their first full-length album “Burn The Old Away”, with lyrical themes related to shedding old, unhelpful identities and misaligned connections, uncovering and fortifying a badass new version of yourself, fighting injustice, balancing inner resilience with reasonable rage, and finding hope, meaning, and a path forward through fascism, trauma, and political upheaval, will be in early 2027. Early previews of tracks “Cut The Cord” (psychedelic rock/pop rock) and “District Street” (jazz-fusion/hardcore/rock) foreshadow Ruby Grove’s foray into a mix of raw, visceral truth-telling, and mystical empowerment despite the odds.

Vocals, Keyboard, Trumpet / Melissa Lee Nilles
Bass, Guitar, Backing Vocals/ Cedric Lamour
Drums / Travis Rowland Jr.
Flute/ Meredith Blankenship
Saxophone/ Gabe Stillman
Guitar/ TBA (Rishava Green filling in at live shows)