Interview with Rock n Roll Artist Alabama Rose

We are sharing our recent interview with rock n roll artist Alabama Rose

Twist Online : First of all please introduce yourself to our readers.
Alabama Rose : My name’s Brittany, affectionately known as Alabama Rose in the music world. I’m a rock and roll artist from Birmingham, AL. I carry around a band of awesome people who help me make cool music.

Twist Online : Who or what inspired you to get into music industry?
Alabama Rose : As funny as it sounds, it was the California Raisins. When I was a toddler, I was quite a handful according to my parents. I pretty regularly ended up in places where I wasn’t supposed to be, but when California Raisins came on, I was glued in place. I had t-shirts with the Raisins on them, the little action figures, all of it. Around age 2, when I got fully engrosed in that show, I started telling my parents that I would be a singer when I grew up. That show had a huge impact on me as a child.

Twist Online : Tell us about your recent release ?
Alabama Rose : My single Come With Me has come a long way as a song. It was originally called “Leavin'”, and I wrote it in 2014 as I was struggling with my identity in the working world. My dad was a coal miner for 47 years, and so was my grandfather. I grew up in a tiny coal mining town with about 400 blue collar people. My family were very “do what you gotta
do” oriented, and it was important to them that I had a successful job and could stand on my own two feet. They were really afraid of the idea of me being a musician professionally.
So in 2014, I was struggling between living their idea of a successful life, verses my own ideas of success, which meant playing music and following my dreams. I’d work 50 or 60 hours a week as a Store Manager in retail, living about 2 hours away from my family. But every week I’d give myself one day off, and I’d drive back home and have rehearsals with my band. I’d spend the night at my drummer’s house, and leave the next morning to make it to work at 9AM and start the whole thing over again. At one point I was even living in Florida for work and still coming back to rehearse every week. So I wrote this song during that time. I was exhausted, I cried a lot. To make it worse I was dating a guy in a band that played around the world, so I had to watch someone else so close to me living my dream while I was holding it down at home. My friend Blake Loveless, who played rhythm guitar with me, really pushed me to keep this song in my books for the future. He passed away last year and I wish he could see what the song has become today. It means a lot to me because it marries a lot of the things I grew up thinking about as a young person.

Twist Online : What kind of response you have received from the release?
Alabama Rose : Well, it drops on Tuesday, so I guess we’re about to find out. I’ve been playing it live with my band for a year now and people seem to really dig it. I had a guy cry when he listened to the part of it that talks about working til your hands hurt. I think a lot of people, especially the older generations that people like myself grew up looking up to, can really identify with this song.

Twist Online : What’s the best part of being a music artist?
Alabama Rose : I’m still figuring out that part too. But I guess you always are figuring it out. I used to say it was all the places you go and people you meet, and I still feel that way, but over the last year, I’ve started to really just appreciate being able to make music and write songs as a tool to cope with life. If you take away the traveling and playing shows and meeting people, you can still have something really personal and special if you’re making sounds for yourself. So I guess right now, to me, the best part of being a music artist is the music itself.

Twist Online : Performing on stage or working in studio, what do you enjoy the most?
Alabama Rose : Honestly, I can’t really have one without the other. I don’t like to write new songs and play them live when they aren’t perfect, and being in a studio environment helps me to take my initial songs and “grow them up” I guess. On the flip side, when you make those songs you want to share them with people. And there’s something about the adrenaline of playing live and connecting with the crowd that really lifts me up. It’s like lighting a dull torch all
over again.

Twist Online : Have you set some goals to achieve?
Alabama Rose : My most recent goal has been to record new music and release each song as a single with a music video to accompany it. It has been slower going than I initially thought, but I realized I needed to take some time to get my mental and emotional health in order. People need a breather from time to time and you can’t really rush that. Now I feel a lot better, and this week I’m putting out one of those videos. My team and I are mapping out the other videos right now, which is exciting. I’m really happy to be back in the creative seat again.

Twist Online : Are you working on any new project?
Alabama Rose : I’m evolving this thing I’ve been doing for a while, and myself as an artist, so while I don’t really consider it to be a “new project”, my goals and trajectory are certainly different from what they were when I first started writing under this moniker.
I’m more content oriented and less tour oriented than I used to be. I’m excited to see what other things I’ll add to my ever-evolving “to do” list as an artist.