Interview by J Poet.
Although she lives in New Orleans, singer and songwriter Esther Rose draws her inspiration from country music’s golden age. There’s nothing retro about the sound she creates with her band, but the songs on How Many Times, her third album, often recall the early hits of Kitty Wells and Wanda Jackson. While there is a lot of lap steel in the arrangements, it’s played with a rock edge, avoiding the clichés of long, mournful sustained notes.
“I don’t consciously aim for any particular sound,” Rose says. “The music is the product of the band’s considerable experience and how we phrase our playing together. We’re all millennials and listen to lots of music. I remember going to the library to borrow CDs. I’d get hung up on a record and listen to it for years. I’d know every nuance, every solo, every syllable. I don’t do the Spotify playlist thing. I want to hear entire albums, the songs in order. I spend a long time working on the sequencing of my records. I want them to tell a story, and it’s in there, if you listen.”
Rose made How Many Times in New Orleans, writing and recording over a three-year period, finishing up just before the COVID lockdown of 2020. The songs were cut live— the band playing and singing together in one room— direct to analog tape.
“We added vocal harmonies on a few songs, but everything else is live,” Rose says. “Analog makes everybody play their best and streamlines the mixing process. You have what you have. I don’t like waste. Maybe it’s my Spartan mentality? I love listening back to the takes on the reel to reel. It’s magic to watch the reels move and hear the songs. You feel what you did when you were playing.
“Like, I decided to do a high harmony with my fiddler to close ‘How Many Times,’ the opening track. I thought we might have to overdub, but we decided to see if we could get it live first. We did. I always want the songs to represent how I play, think, and feel in the moment.”
Many of the songs on the album explore failed affairs, missed connections, and the grief one feels at the end of a relationship, but Rose says it’s not a breakup album, as such.
“As I was writing ‘How Many Times,’ [the song] I had a breakthrough moment of being. I realized the feelings at the end of a relationship aren’t about numbing out, but going to a deep place in your soul and finding resiliency and beauty there. I was dealing with jealousy, loneliness, fear, and mourning, and tried to go straight in and feel those things more than ever. When I was finished writing it, I was so lost in the joy of singing and playing music, I was carried out of the crappy mood I was in when I started writing it. At the end of the song, there’s a lot of joy.”
“I write for myself and I know what works for me, although being too vulnerable can be a mistake,” she continues. “I have a hard time separating my personal and professional lives. I don’t want to be a confessional artist. I want to be a songwriter for all people. I don’t want every song to be a gooey narrative of what I’m going through.”
Listen to How Many Times below, and follow Esther Rose on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter.
Images courtesy of Esther Rose. Credit for all photos: Akasha Rabut.
