Interview: Caitlin Rose

Abbas Ali chats to Nashville singer songwriter Caitlin Rose about her country roots, Amy Winehouse, and porch swings.

Music fans in the United Kingdom have always had a strained relationship with country music. We may be familiar with it through the ironic listening of Billy Ray Cyrus ‘Achey Breaky Heart’, but it’s a maligned form, and artists such as Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton are more likely to be heard at the local British legion or working men’s club than in the hipster bars of Hoxton. Artists that have do have a cool cachet, such as Johnny Cash, Gram Parsons or the alt. country revival of Ryan Adams or Lambchop are few and far between on this side of the Atlantic.

In such a context, young singer songwriter Caitlin Rose offers an apparent hard sell, if it weren’t for the coincidence of other factors. The emergence of a series of highly successful female artists in the UK in recent years has opened the door for variety, as listeners and A & R men seek to find a unique proposition. Something different to the 60s girl group soul of Amy Winehouse, the politicised trans-global hip hop of M.I.A., and the precocious, introspective folk of Laura Marling. “There is a lot, isn’t there?” she says, when I mention this outpouring of female talent from the UK in recent years. “I’ve heard of Florence and The Machine, and Laura Marling, she’s been in America a bit. I wanna meet her. She seems really neat”.

We move onto talk about the earlier wave of pioneering female artists that began breaking barriers back in the mid-noughties, which, she feels opened the door for women to express themselves more fully. “I loved Amy Winehouse. Poor girl. She’s a still a mess too, right? I don’t buy the tabloids, but I’ve been walking into stores to buy a toothbrush, and I’m like ‘she’s still...oh god.’ Cos she’s so talented. And interesting. And Lily Allen I always thought was really cool too. They’re a couple of years older, but I still think they’re badass, and I think they changed music. I think they made it a little more open to daring subject matter, which is awesome.”

Clearly an Anglophile, Rose’s accent has picked up a hint of English in her short time here, though it is her third visit in a year. While on her Facebook page she shares of love of Noel Fielding on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, and refers to hunting around Bristol for places where Skins was filmed, it becomes apparent that Europe may be becoming something of a second home for her. Indeed, in another interview her US manager suggests that many Nashville acts now see breaking the UK as the way forward, before cracking the stateside market, following the success of Kings Of Leon. Rose couldn’t see herself ever leaving home full time, though. “I couldn’t live in London or New York. They don’t have porch swings. I can’t live without a porch swing”.

Born in Texas, Rose moved to country music capital Nashville at the age of seven, where her father worked as a record executive, and her mother discovered a talent for song writing in her thirties. Indeed, the latter went onto write for a series of artists, culminating in her recently winning a Grammy for writing for teen sensation, Taylor Swift. Asked how Caitlin herself was influenced by growing up in such a musical household, she reveals that, surprisingly, she wasn’t pushed towards playing instruments and performing. “It was sort of a secret for a while. I was playing shows in punk venues, so it wasn’t the sort of thing they’d be showing up to. I like the fact that my mom has had her own career, so it’s not like she’s a soccer mom”.

Though her mother may not have directly intervened or encouraged Rose’s song writing, some of the classic formalism of the craft can be heard on her debut album, Own Side Now. Released last month, the record has gained glowing reviews, and songs such as the title track and ‘For The Rabbits’ recall the seminal heartbreak pop of 70s acts such as Carole King and the Carpenters. And of course, Rose’s hero, Linda Ronstadt. The rich production of the LP and its professionalism is a world away from last year's EP, Dead Flowers, a stripped down collection of songs, written while she was still her teens.

“These are really thought out songs,” Rose says of the new record which is released in this country on indie label Names Records. “I’ve been listening to a lot of seventies pop and that’s the point, to make them sound as good as possible.” The young singer has worked hard to get to this point, and is clearly proud of the progression in her sound. “I read reviews that hate the new record cos they love the old record. Personally, I love the new record and hate the old record for the same reason.  I feel I’ve done a good job.”