Rose Paradise dropped her debut album Over The Hill earlier this week, April 8th. She talked to us over a game of chess in Herbert Von King Park and told us about how much work went into the album and the overall state of music today.



So what are you up to today?

I'm in the park right now playing chess with you. Then I'm gonna go home and get ready for work. After work tonight, I'll probably go to bed early unless something crazy is happening and I want to go out.

What is your go-to meal?

It used to be a very egg-heavy diet. My go-to meal before the eggs disappeared and someone stole them all was eggs and a tortilla. Sunny side up, eggs, a tortilla, salsa, spinach, mushrooms, and maybe protein like sausage or chicken or something.

What is your favorite movie?

Almost Famous. I just love the romance of it all. As corny as it sounds, that era is so nostalgic to me. So nostalgic of something I wish I was a part of and music was a language that was different than it is now. Band culture, although inappropriate at times and definitely not always great, had more mystery back then. The way that we digested music and the way that we followed music was different and fandom looked different. I love the character portrayals in that movie and I love the music. Also I really just want to go on tour like that with my friends. And with hot groupies following me around.


Rose by Sofia Ziman



What's your songwriting process like?

It varies. If we're looking at the album I'm putting out, some of those songs started as poems and then I found chords to put over the words. Weight of the World, for instance, started as a chorus that I was singing in the shower and I had the whole chorus written in the shower. Set wave too– I had written the whole chorus out in the ocean and I came back and found the right chords to put it over. Some of them started as chord progressions and then I came up with lyrics. It varies, but I just have to be in the mood.

Tell me more about what made this album’s process special.

I'm really proud of what we accomplished without anyone besides my band being hired to come in and be the adult or be the producer. It was just us and that's an experience that I don't think I'll ever get to have again but it was so incredible for what it was. I got to record it in my hometown at the studio that I grew up working at and doing it with my best friends. It was really intense. It was really hard. It was a lot of work. But if anything, it proved that we are capable of doing that.

It was so fun, but it was hard and it feels good to have accomplished something. We recorded it in six days, I think 11 songs in seven days maybe. It was a lot and we did it all live in the room together. The vocals, the drums, the bass, the guitar, and some of the piano were all live. I'm so grateful to have done that. That's how I always wanted to do it because I wanted to be able to capture the essence of what we do live and not be so nitpicky about how my voice sounded and feeling it like in a live performance.

I feel like a lot of that is what's missing today. Not many people do that.

I agree. I just did a songwriting camp this last week with She Is The Music and it was incredible to see how many really talented musicians and really talented producers there were. But it was like, wow, we're working in the box. Recording a vocal take is kind of not fun and the way that we made that album for me was so fun like, “All right, guys, are we ready? We're gonna do this full live take.” Now we're all collectively getting our energies calm together to proceed and make something. Then we take five takes, six takes, three takes, and then we have the take and that's the song that we'll put out. Obviously, there was a lot of overdubbing afterward that took a lot longer than I was expecting. We recorded the album last March and we've been working on it until around a month ago we finished the last song.

That's the other thing, that's what I'm learning about music– when you invite musicians into your music, they shape how the songs come out. My songs, although I wrote all the lyrics and all the chords, technically would not sound the way they do without Emma creating the rhythm that she does or Lucas coming up with that guitar solo or the rhythm that he's playing, or Jason coming up with the pedal steel part. Their souls are in the music just like my soul is in the music so it's an incredible experience. Again, I feel so grateful and so lucky to have done it that way.

There are kids all over the country in their garage recording their music live with the band but it's definitely the minority. When money does get involved and the man, it gets more complicated. But it felt like everyone wanted to be there based on the love of the album and that's special.

Do you have a favorite song on the album?

Again, it varies. Some of the songs I wrote over three years ago now. So some of them I'm so unattached to, like Now That You Know, but it’s still a very important song for me, and what I've experienced and who I was then. It needed to go on the project, but I'll Be Fine I wrote almost three years ago. I started writing that when we were in Berlin, but I love how it turned out. I think the ending, Lucas’s solo, and the way the band played together really makes me feel something. We just put a ton of stuff at the end to epitomize the entire album. Is epitomize the right word? Yeah, so it's overwhelming and I love the natural, raw sound of the gang vocals. We recorded those as a group of kids in the studio, singing the song, and we were all kind of drunk at that point because it was in the night. It just sounds so real it makes me emotional listening to it.

How do you feel about the direction that music is going in?

I am hopeful. It's very discouraging sometimes and there's a lot of noise. Everybody and anybody can be an artist and anybody can pick it up and decide they want to start putting out music. I think that's an incredible gift that we as a generation have been given because there should be no boundaries to art and everybody should be included, but it can feel overwhelming.

Platforms like Spotify are taking advantage of artists and prioritizing those with money. Labels, I don't trust but also, it's impossible to stay independent because it does cost money to make music.

I've been lucky with this album, to do it independently and to have friends who wanted to be a part of it and make it happen with me. I was able to crowdfund for the album but I'm still going under with it and I can't afford to do that for the next one. It's hard because there's nothing else that I want to do.

Trends in music are also interesting and how that can be so overpowering and people get so lost in that. But there are still some trailblazers and it's incredible to see and be a part of. There is a really interesting renaissance right now with folk music that I'm excited to hopefully be a part of. There are so many bands that I follow and look up to that are on the smaller end that inspire me.

Social media, although it can be toxic, is a really amazing connector. I've met so many musicians through social media and have created connections through that. So I just try to stay hopeful because I definitely am never gonna stop. I do have faith and believe in myself and I back myself, but some days are harder than others.