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Rose Pedal’s debut single How Did I End Up Here? marks the start of something bigger, an EP years in the making, with plans for a sci-fi comic book universe to bring the project to life visually. We caught up with the trio to talk about how they collaborate as three distinct artists, their influences, and what’s next. Here’s what they had to say.
Rose Pedal, welcome to VENTS! Firstly, we want to congratulate you on orchestrating one of the most stunning singles of the year with How Did I End Up Here! How do you feel now that it’s out in the world?
Thank you so much! We feel a sense of relief, which is immediately followed by excitement. We spent years creating our debut EP, so it felt amazing to get it across the finish line and release the first single! We have four more songs that will be released soon and we’re so excited to get our music and our creative vision in front of as many eyes and ears as possible. We understand that this is an incredibly daunting task. The music industry’s barrier to entry has never been lower, which is cool and has allowed an explosion of new artists, but standing out and getting noticed has never been harder. We plan on doing everything we can to find our people out in the world and carve out our little corner in the music industry.
When did you realise the single had real potential behind it?
We always liked this song, but I don’t think it jumped out at us as the lead single until we started working with our mix engineer, Kennie Takahashi. He called this one out and we worked with him on making some arrangement changes that made the song feel much better and more complete.
As a trio, you all have your own distinct influences and styles, which, on record, works incredibly well; does it ever create friction in the studio or when you’re writing music?
All the time! Most studio sessions end in a fist fight! No, we are all very eclectic music consumers and creators. We do each have our own specialty that we bring to the table, but we’ve known each other for so long that collaboration usually comes pretty easy to us. As the producer of Rose Pedal, the thing that interests me the most is attempting to create something unique that could only exist by combining our three perspectives.
How does a song usually piece together between the three of you?
There isn’t one good answer for this one. Some songs are led by production with a cool loop, others are led by a piano or acoustic guitar part. No matter how a song starts, we usually begin laying stuff down straight away. We don’t write every part and rehearse before going to the studio, the way a typical band might, we’re completely focused on the record, so we jump right into recording and we’re not limited by what we could pull off live. All of our songs go through many iterations as we write, arrange, record and build simultaneously. Once we’re done tracking, I go into edit mode to make any final changes and additions.
It’s quite the feat to create something so unique at this stage in the music industry’s oversaturated game; where do you think other artists are going wrong?
Well, the first half of this question makes me really happy! Thank you! The second half is tough and surely I’m not qualified to answer. It’s like you said, there’s just so much music and content now that it’s almost impossible to be unique or to stand out in the crowd. There are so many talented and skilled artists in the world, and as a global community, we’ve never been more aware of this fact. I think people just need to love creating and making music for themselves rather than for an audience, which is becoming increasingly challenging in the social media age. However, this is a bit paradoxical because although we are so happy with the music we created and we definitely did it for ourselves, we also genuinely want it to connect with others and the only way to do that is to put yourself out there and be vulnerable.
For now, you’re a studio-only project; is there scope for Rose Pedal to become a live band too?
Absolutely! We have no immediate plans to play local gigs or put together a regional tour or anything, but if a cool opportunity presents itself, we’d be all about it.
You could, and will, draw in fans from all across the music spectrum, but if you could open for any artist to tap into their fanbase, who would it be?
The answer has to be Gorillaz. Gorillaz is definitely our biggest inspiration. In our opinion, they’re the best at combining indie rock, pop, electronic and hip hop. Or if we could tap into fans of Danger Mouse, that’d be awesome! He has been a huge influence on me and I love how he spans so many genres so authentically. It’d be a dream come true to get a chance to work with him.
What inspires the lyrics to your songs?
Some of our lyrics are based on real life experiences, but others are more fictional with some cinematic flare. “How Did I End Up Here?” is more literal and was inspired by us questioning our decision to live in L.A. We spent a couple years living together out there and that song is about our struggle to fit in. Our upcoming songs are about depression, loneliness, hope, fear and death. Some of which is drawn from life, but we allow ourselves to embellish and get more poetic.
You started experimenting with music together in high school; what was it like to all come back together after you’d cut your teeth so impressively in the industry?
Honestly, it was just the most fun ever! I feel like we’ve come full circle. We’ve spent a lot of time working apart and we’ve all learned so much and we’ve each had really awesome experiences and some really terrible experiences. We’ve gone through many chapters and matured as songwriters, producers, musicians, artists and now I feel like we’re just back in high school again, but we have so many more tools in our toolbelt now.
What’s next for Rose Pedal?
So much! We’re currently working on our next batch of songs. The first single to follow the debut EP is a really awesome song that brings an entirely different energy and Dan Konopka from OK Go is playing drums on it. We’re writing and producing our second album with 2x Grammy winner, Kennie Takahashi (Gnarls Barkley, The Black Keys, Norah Jones, Beck and more), who also worked on our debut EP. Our biggest future endeavor is the visual aspect of Rose Pedal, which is an original sci-fi comic book universe with characters that represent the band. We’re working with another high school friend of ours that has created, illustrated and published several comic book series, Nate Xopher. We’ve finished the main character designs and we will be rolling out more incredible artwork over the next several months to accompany the music. This will be the digital representation of Rose Pedal. We’ll continue to develop and expand the comic book universe and we hope to print physical comic books as well. We are so excited to continue bringing our creative vision to life!
