Q&A: Dancing Through Life on ‘Riverside Drive’ - Annika Rose Stuns on Sophomore EP
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY NICO CHODOR ☆
Credit: Tanner Deutsch
“WE COME INTO THIS WORLD A BLANK SLATE,” says Annika Rose. “Unadulterated, unscathed, to learn to love, to learn to live, to surrender to the journey.” She has been surrendering to the journey and coming of age through incredible ups and downs in the music industry since first signing to Simon Cowell’s record label at just 13 years old. Now, roughly 10 years since the rock-influenced girl band that never came to be, Rose tells me she has landed on musical autonomy.
Her YouTube covers and originals found me right before she signed with TaP Records to put out her first EP Ventura Boulevard. This was released in 2019, raw yet polished and deeply personal all at once. She captured what it feels like to be a 17-year-old girl who wants to keep feeling, growing, loving, and finding her place — all things which COVID-19 made that much harder to navigate. Like so many others, she was dropped by her label during the pandemic and began to experiment with very limited resources. By 19 years old, she was offered another deal to fund her next body of work, with heavier emphasis on A&Ring the songs, not to mention blending pop with indie alternative elements. Rose has since tumbled back onto the stage as an independent artist, joining close friend Jonah Marais at the El Rey Theatre in September, and then more recently popping out for G-Eazy at the Shrine.
For the second time ever, her journal entries have been turned into a musical world all their own, one that producer Austin Ward so expertly helped bring to life. She dives into young adulthood with sophomore EP Riverside Drive, reflecting on every moment that got her to this point and the overwhelming power in terror that comes with knowing how many possibilities await.
Track 4, “Crawling,” is an ode to extended adolescence: the ballad of your early twenties. She breaks down the rollercoaster of milestones passing you by, not wanting to outgrow the fortress of youth because it’s all you know — and more or less grappling with the Peter Pan of it all. From the blue skies of teenage romance, lyrics dip into heartbreak, feeling “all grown up but still crawling,” and perhaps missing the novelty of sharing teenage gossip by flashlight. Rose crescendoes into Verse 2, followed by a much lustier rendering of the chorus that demonstrates growth beyond missing someone who no longer serves you.
Annika does flips on Riverside Drive, both physical and mental gymnastics if you will. Her vocal range is acrobatic with lyrics shining brightest on “Seasick,” a gut-wrenching reflection on how the industry can break young women down, strip you dry and then ask for another demo. “On My Way” is her pledge to keep making music, and more importantly to keep playing it live, no matter the circumstances. Production on this track, and project at large, preserves the teenage dream fantasy of chasing 17, albeit Rose challenges that version of herself in order to break into the discomfort and possibility of the future.
We talked growing pains and the importance of creating art you can dance through life to, as well as surrounding herself with those she trusts most when making this EP. Read below to uncover the effervescence behind Riverside Drive, where years go by and time stands still with the lovely Annika Rose.
LUNA: What does Hayley Williams mean to you?
ROSE: Oh my god, starting off strong. I love it. Honestly, she’s just my biggest role model. And I think she carries a lot of significance, because it feels like she grew up with me somehow, and she was almost this figure in my life that felt like a guiding light. And I think you hear so much growing up about how treacherous the music industry is, and how it fucks so many people up, which is true. It does. And I think to see a woman existing in the rock, punk, Warped Tour space, and leading a band and being this fucking powerhouse vocalist and someone who, like takes up space, and is also very well-rounded and grounded and smart and just kind of checks all the boxes of the qualities that I want to have as an artist…to see that, especially as a young, developing and aspiring artist, it was just like, oh my god, this is possible. I can be smart, I can have two feet planted on the ground. I can take up space. I can be loud.
LUNA: What about musically, the way she writes and how she tells her stories?
ROSE: She tells really, beautiful, melancholy stories, but she’s also giving them life, and not taking an acoustic guitar and matching the sonic to the lyrical content. It’s more like, okay, here’s this really devastating song about heartbreak and my life, but I’m also screaming it at the top of my lungs and kicking. She means so much to me. I truly feel like she’s like a spirit guide, even though I don’t know her, and there’s been a lot of weird synchronicities, like meeting her, performing with them, like just really random things. I met my best friend through Paramore. So, it’s just a lot of good stuff. Hayley is number one, the best.
LUNA: That was a beautiful, beautiful answer. How would you describe your sonic development from Ventura Boulevard to Riverside Drive?
ROSE: Well, for one, I think my taste in what I listened to evolved tremendously. My musical horizons expanded. And also, you know, I started working with a new producer. And I think the thing that Austin, who I’m working with now on all the new music, has really been able to accomplish with my stuff is, like, all the ties that I have to playing in bands for five years, and growing up, you know, listening to Paramore and Dave Matthews and Fleetwood Mac. Austin started making things that gave flavors of the things that I grew up listening to and it feels really good to be able to imagine how the music I’m making in a small room translates to a stage, because that’s something you don’t really take into consideration unless you start playing your original music for an audience.
LUNA: That makes a lot of sense.
ROSE: Yeah, and I think for me, for somebody who has like, so much pent up energy ready to explode by the time I get on stage, I can’t just have an acoustic guitar. I can’t have the sort of narrow pop thing, like, it needs to feel big and bombastic and like you can kick and scream to it. And not every song has to be at that level. But I think when people think of me, that’s what they should think of: the live show.
LUNA: How would you describe playing live at El Rey last month then?
ROSE: It was amazing. I think it felt so good because I hadn’t played with a live band or a full band in a live setting in five or six years, which is insane, because I played in bands for so many years growing up. I got off stage and I was like, Okay, finally, I’m making music that translates. I’m making music that I can move to. I always felt so uncomfortable or like not knowing what to do with my body in the past, and I didn’t know why, but it’s just because I wasn’t making the kind of music that allows for me to naturally and intuitively be big and bold.
LUNA: Just like Hayley.
ROSE: It’s the best form of escapism, and it’s simultaneously the best form of connection to yourself and other people. And I love sharing energy with other people. It’s the greatest feeling in the world. So it was really, really good to be back on stage, and now we’re planning an LA tour.
LUNA: Oh my gosh, that’s amazing.
ROSE: Can’t go on a real tour, but we can do an LA tour. It’s going to be very DIY, but it’s going to be so fun.
LUNA: I’m so happy to hear that, mainly because so much of my consumption of your music has been digital. LA tour is huge. You get to continue transcending the stage. That’s gonna be awesome.
ROSE: Yeah, I’m really excited. If you know anyone who designs tour posters, let a gal know.
LUNA: Definitely will do. What do the two physical street names of each EP represent for you?
ROSE: Ventura Boulevard. was where I lived when I wrote everything on the first EP, and it was just my little strip, like my studio was on Ventura. My coffee shops, my favorite restaurants, the first kiss I had with someone. A lot of just important, pivotal little moments in being a teenager and growing up. Riverside (the EP) is still very much like a coming of age, sort of, “ohh my god, I’m growing up.” The stakes are getting higher. I think there’s a lot more to lose, and the magnitude of that loss feels so much greater. It’s intense. There’s been a lot of goodbyes in the last few years, like friends leaving for school. And then it’s interesting to circle back four years later and observe the changes in other people. It’s really crazy and beautiful, but just strange, especially because I’ve been here in LA the whole time. I also just think every body of work is a little time capsule of the time that you were creating it. And I feel like these songs really capture what it’s been like living here the last few years. The emotional turmoil and the pain and the loss, but also like really beautiful self-discovery.
LUNA: Yeah dude, growing up is terrifying.
ROSE: Right, like your world is expanding, but you’re also still like a kid, somehow. I feel permanently 16.
LUNA: I feel permanently 14, that is so real. Change is so strange.
ROSE: It’s strange but so important, and it’s so good. For one, specific to this EP, I didn’t have a label. And it’s the first time I put out a body of work without one. When you work with a label, there’s a lot of constant opinions and people telling you what they would do. You always listen, you always sort of stay open to the possibility of things changing or being different. It’s never about closed-mindedness, but you start to recognize patterns in how people present their opinions. I think it’s just about recognizing that somebody’s opinion is not the ultimate truth, and you don’t have to bow down to somebody because of who they are or their status or what you think they can do for you. And now I’m at a point where, like, I got to pick all the songs for the first time on the EP. I got to do my own A&R, and like, stand over Austin’s shoulder and give him notes. It was a little scary, but so cool to have that sort of ownership and autonomy over the project. And you know, that obviously bleeds over into other parts of my life, so it’s been powerful over the last few years for sure.
Credit: Tanner Deutsch
LUNA: How does this level of creative control compare to the first EP?
ROSE: I actually was very lucky with Ventura, because I was working with TaP Records, and they’re my favorite people I’ve worked with, and they really did give me a lot of control. I was also 16/17 when it was happening. I was super young, plus the reason no music came out before Ventura Boulevard is because I hadn’t had enough belief or faith in the songs I was writing at home. That they could actually have the potential to turn into something that the world heard. And so TaP gave me that opportunity where, like, all those songs came from me. In my bedroom. On Ventura Boulevard. This time, it was just me and my managers who have been working with me since I was like 15, and Austin, my producer, who I trust unconditionally. And my friends! Like, I would just ask my friends, do you think this is good?
LUNA: Yeah, that’s huge. Turning to friends who may not have the necessary vocab or music lingo, but who know what good music sounds like regardless.
ROSE: Totally. Absolutely.
LUNA: Walk me through Riverside Drive’s first track, the introduction.
ROSE: The intro is called “Riverside Drive.” (Laughs) Super creative, I know, and that is actually a funny story. So, when I was doing the El Rey show, my musical director, his name is Rich. He’s awesome. Shout out, Rich. He was like, “Okay, I think we should open with ‘Stories.’ I took one of the stems from the song and made this, like, weird sort of eerie thing. Do you want to, just like, freestyle something over this little stem that I put together so that before you get on stage, this is what’s playing?” And I was like, fuck it. Sure. Yeah. So I just like, sat on the couch and wrote something in my notes super quick with all the titles of the songs on the EP, and recorded one take into a microphone. And then we just uploaded it with the rest of the EP.
LUNA: I love the spoken word element. And general spontaneity of it all. Next comes “Stories,” and then “Mental Gymnastics,” both of which get a little existential, but tell me about “Crawling.”
ROSE: I literally have 10 versions of that song that all sound completely different. And part of what made it so difficult was that it was so special just as a standalone acoustic song. I knew that it needed more punch and more life behind the top line, though, and the workaround to fucking getting there was such a long process, maybe the longest process on a song ever. It was hard and long and a little bit grueling sometimes, but Austin and I had a great time just trying a bunch of different shit. And eventually he played that guitar line that comes in for the intro. I had just recorded vocals for like, five hours, and I was like, Oh, that’s it. That’s the song. It was a really fun challenge. And, yeah, that song is the epitome of growing up.
LUNA: How so?
ROSE: I remember going to my history teacher one time and asking her why my friends were being mean to me. I was sad, and she basically explained how when you are in eighth grade, you know that your friends are going to be leaving you, and you’re going to separate after spending so many years side by side. She said there’s an unconscious preparation that’s happening when you know you’re going to have to say goodbye to somebody and it manifests in like, the traditional sort of teenage, angsty ways, like drama and middle school gossip. But really it’s just coming from that place of unconscious preparation.
LUNA: For saying goodbyes at different stages of life.
ROSE: Exactly. So the lyrics, like the “white lies in Lola’s bedroom,” that whole verse was born from my 8th grade history teacher. And it’s literally one of my favorite songs ever. I got my friend Chris to play sax all over it. There’s actually sax on the whole second half of the EP. And then “Seasick” is about my experience in the music industry, and the kinds of people that you have to interface with constantly. I had an experience the last couple of years where I was deteriorating from the inside out, and they were watching and enabling it. So the lyrics “I can’t swim with the tide, and no one notices I’m seasick” are about working with people who saw me struggling, saw that I wasn’t healthy and kept things moving regardless.
LUNA: But here you are. And that backstory makes “On My Way” that much more magical.
ROSE: “On My Way” is actually a fucking awesome story. Last year, my childhood best friend came and joined me in Switzerland, he’s also an artist. We drove to Italy, and we just spent like, a week together in Europe, just like frolicking and playing guitar, singing in the rain and having the most magical time. And we brought an acoustic guitar with us everywhere we went. On one of the first nights in Italy, we started playing the first two chords of the main verse, “I’ll be on my way, to you,” and we just kept singing that melody over and over, but we started writing lyrics that were so shitty. I took a voice memo, though, just singing the melodies, and it’s a really, like, untraditionally structured song. There’s kind of no chorus, there’s kind of like a weird sax solo break, plus an outro that’s very theatrical, I don’t know, it’s weird and all over the place, but in a great way. When I got on the plane to go back to LA, I was listening to the voice memo of us doing the melodies, and I just literally wrote all the lyrics in my journal as a poem. It was magic. Such an important song to me, and I got to put my friend Zander Hawley on it, too.
LUNA: Fantastic. Truly fantastic. I just have so much admiration and respect for how hard you work and have been working. I’m so excited for everything that’s coming your way. You’re on your way, for real.
ROSE: (Laughs) I am on my fuckin’ way. LA tour in January. You guys better pull up.
Riverside Drive is out now.
