It seems like an eternity since Warwickshire based singer-songwriter Lucy Rose was best known for contributing backing vocals to Bombay Bicycle Club albums, having since forged an already promising solo career with the release of debut album ‘Like I Used To‘ back in September last year.
The songs comprising that album were endearingly relatable tales of forlorn romance which, when coupled with well translated live performances, have seen the Rose fanbase continue to blossom to the point where her name now appears ever present on the list of many notable gig and festival announcements.
The allure arguably lies not only in the delicately constructed, heart-warming melodies comprising her music to date, but also in her conduct away from the spotlight. Whether it’s regularly keeping in touch with her steadily growing number of followers on social networking sites – including a respectable public stance against ticket touts and exploitative ticketing franchises – or selling her own blend of tea as part of gig merchandise, there is something altogether down to earth about Rose which becomes further apparent in her candid demeanour during interviews.
Rose sat down with Live4ever during her recent stint at Austin, Texas’ South By Southwest festival, talking of her introduction to the event as part of her attempt to filter into a previously untapped US market. She also reveals thoughts of a contrasting experience in moving from an unsigned singer/songwriter before eventually signing to Columbia Records, making an album which has propelled her into the alternative music scene limelight on these shores, alongside revealing her plans for the future.
How has your Austin trip been so far?
So far so good, I’m getting confused about what day I’m on at the moment! We flew in on Tuesday then did a show, three yesterday, a show today, and we have three tomorrow, two on Saturday, then I fly to New York, Boston and Canada.
Obviously in England you’re more known than in the US, but you’re going places. How do you feel about your rise?
I suppose at places like SXSW you don’t get a second to think about it, you just think, ‘I’m a tiny fish in a massive ocean here’. I’m just coming here for the first time trying to lay down some foundations in a way so that I can come back and grow it. In the UK it took a long time to reach the point I’m at now, which is still pretty small, and that was just from going again and again and touring more and more and putting out stuff. It’s hopefully the first trip of many and I just want to build it as naturally as possible. It’s almost overwhelming because there’s like 5000 bands here, and all of them are like really f***ing good!
Hopefully over a period of years you can see what you accomplish out of it and know what you want a few years down the line?
I’m just trying to learn about how it works in America, it’s a totally different kettle of fish.
In the UK you’ve got Radio 1 and that goes out to the whole of the UK, and then here you’ve got tons of different stations, with countries almost within one country, so you’re trying to always work out whether anyone likes you.
We read that you recorded the album at home?
Yeah, I decided I wanted to do the album and I was still unsigned. I didn’t have any money so I persuaded my parents to let me use their family room, so I just moved their sofas out! I had a great producer (Charlie Hugall – Ed Sheeran/Florence and the Machine) who had done the first single, and he wanted to do the album with me, having enough faith in the music that hopefully by the end of it we’d get signed, so we finished the album and then suddenly labels were into it and wanted to sign us.
Then you took the tracks and finished it off in London?
I mixed it in London and got it mastered at Abbey Road, which was totally not in line with how we’d recorded the album, it was cool to go there, but was just pretty bizarre. I’d initially had a low budget and wanted brass on some songs, so I put something on Facebook saying I was looking for some brass players, offering to pay for a train ticket and asking them to come up and stay with us for a few days. People were getting back to me so I had these random people shipped into my house, string players and brass players who I’d never met before, and we recorded things like the drums in the village hall, normally used for the Women’s Institute!
How did you feel about the outcome?
It was everything I wanted it to be really. I kept saying I wanted it to be low-fi, you know when you hear things recorded nowadays, everything’s too good, like I’d say to Charlie I only wanted to mic up the drums with two mics, instead of doing the whole kit and it being perfect, I wanted to get more of an old school feel. For the situation we were in I was really pleased with how it all came out.
The record is at times a brutally honest tale of fractured romance, is there ever any fear in exposing such intensely personal aspects of your life to the general public?
Yes, there often is.
I think when I was writing when I was younger, most of the songs on this album were written thinking no one was going to hear them, which is why I’m sure the next album will be different.
I couldn’t pour emotion into something knowing they were going to play it to loads of people, because a lot of these songs were written just for me at the time. Playing the songs for the first time like ‘Shiver’ and ‘Don’t You Worry’, I felt like ‘why am I doing this? This is excruciatingly embarrassing.’ You write a song feeling that emotion and when you sing it live with that emotion, that’s the most difficult time because you still feel like that, then obviously you move on, so then singing it isn’t as difficult.
Will your next album have a different theme or approach?
I don’t really think about themes or concepts, this album’s just different because I’m writing it on the road, the last time I had all the time in the world to write as many songs as possible and now I don’t have any free time whatsoever.
You mentioned yesterday at the show that it’s quite difficult to get used to writing on the road?
It’s difficult, but it’s good. I think in this circumstance, on other show days when you’ve got sound check, once I’ve finished I’ve got a whole band there. Such as the last new song that we played, I remember being in Milan and I just picked up the bass and wrote a bass line and then I’ve got someone who’ll just play it straight away, so suddenly I’ve got a bass going, like having an 8 multi-track going on, and I could sit on the drum kit and write the drum beat for it then I’ve got a drummer doing that. Over various sound checks, such as a verse in Milan and a chorus in Vienna, once we had it all we recorded the song on the iPhone, and then just on the plane over from London to LA I had 12 hours, so I wrote all the melody and lyrics. That’s something I’ve never done before, but it was really fun and then we played it for the first time here.
Are you still working with Bombay Bicycle Club?
I’m still very good friends with them yeah, they’re starting to record their fourth album, so theres talk of doing stuff on it.
So what are your plans as of now? You mentioned album number two?
Hopefully yeah I’ll start that, I go back home on the 9th April to have five days off, and then I go on tour with Counting Crows, which is pretty sick, and then the day it finishes I start my UK tour which is five weeks long. Then we’re in June and festival season, so hopefully I’ll start recording music in some free time between festival weekends maybe.
Do you have a favourite festival you’re going to appear at?
Glastonbury, that’s the best one. I think I’ve got a slot there but trying to get another one maybe, there’s loads of good stuff going on, but I don’t even know what gigs I’m playing tomorrow!
Thank you and good luck with the rest of your tour!
Here’s a look at the endearing Lucy in the music video for her single ‘Bikes‘ off her debut album ‘Like I Used To‘:
Lucy is currently finishing up her US/Canada tour. Catch her at the cities below!
March
26 – 7th Street, Minneapolis, MN, USA
27 – Tonic Room, Chicago, IL, USA
28 – Czar Bar, Kansas City, MO, USA
April
01 – Reef, Boise, ID, USA
03 – The Media Club, Vancouver, Canada
05 – Barboza, Seattle, WA, USA
07 – Hotel Utah, San Francisco, CA, USA
