Today we’d like to introduce you to Rose Alaimo
Hi Rose, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve always loved music and recall writing little songs on an old piano that we used to have in the house when I was 4 years old. We moved out of state not long after and the piano was given away which was really hard for me (the loss of the piano that is, not necessarily the move LOL). Then the 90s came and I dove into grunge and progressive metal and started picking up instruments to learn. First it was the bass at 13, then I started learning to sing by singing along to my favorite bands while playing bass. I taught myself how to read guitar tab and play guitar chords at 16 by learning songs from Soundgarden and Dream Theater songbooks and at some point was also heavy into playing drums. The little Muse in my head that picked up songs from some unknown frequency never stopped working away, even after the piano left my life, and I was motivated to learn each of these instruments so I could get the songs out of myself. I took all my savings at the age of 20 and bought a computer with my first DAW and started recording my songs and basically haven’t stopped since. :)
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I can honestly say that my musical journey was NOT a very smooth road until I decided to make it one. My beloved piano getting ditched in my family’s move was the first of quite a few struggles. When I was a young teen, I told my parents I wanted to be a musician- meaning, get a PhD in composition or similar (I was always an academic geek and loved learning). What their perception of this was, however, was that I was going to be a miserable starving artist, and the blowout that ensued pretty much shut down any hopes of me pursuing music as a career and this argument persisted for years. When I was a kid I wanted to be a vet (because what kid DOESN’T want to be a vet at some point? LOL) and that was what their plan was for me. I was not a confident soul when I was younger for many reasons that I won’t go into here, and I was constantly riddled with anxiety and worry, and even though I wasn’t really on board with this future, I pursued it. It was the “safe” option, the one that a “good daughter” would pursue, the one a “responsible” person would go for, as opposed to pursuing art which was pretty much seen as a waste of time and only meant for lazy, irresponsible people. (Interestingly, every other option I looked into was viewed similarly by the fam, including becoming a math or philosophy professor).
I was lucky that there was at least a small, stubborn voice in my head that wouldn’t let music completely go. In college I spent my free time recording my original music in my mom’s basement (couldn’t do it in my dorm room… LOL). We did not have a music program at my college so I found an amazing private guitar instructor, Bill Hoffman, to teach me more about guitar and music theory. And, when I was a junior in undergrad, my physics professor found out I played guitar and I ended up playing in his working band, and we had a BLAST playing regular shows until I graduated. My inorganic chemistry professor was a progressive rock NUT and introduced me to the amazing world of prog rock, everything from old Italian prog a la Banco and Premiata Forneria Marconi to the newest stuff by bands like Dream Theater, which became a favorite. There were, thankfully, still opportunities around me to keep the music thing somewhat alive.
After graduating from undergrad I kinda tried to sabotage the vet path by only applying to one school, the Royal Veterinary School at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, thinking I would never get in, but I did. And I went, and then I quit, and spent two years wondering what to do with my life. In the end I was accepted into the veterinary program at Cornell University and my main reason for enrolling was, literally, this: “I’m just going to go to vet school and get it over with and make everyone happy… but then I’m going to work my *ss off when I graduate to pay off my student loans, I’m going to buy a small house and get rid of all of my debt, so I can use my veterinary degree to financially support my music and my life and then I’m going to do whatever the hell *I* WANT to do.” And that’s pretty much how it went! LOL! :)
Vet school killed the muse. It was so insanely rigorous and exhausting that I had no brain space left. I stopped hearing music in my head to write, and I had zero desire to play music for several years after graduating. One morning, though, I woke up with a super cool riff in my head as I was coming out of a dream. I grabbed my guitar and wrote it out. That song was “All You Need is One” and ended up going on my first album. Songs started popping into my head more and more, and I started writing them down. I started to play music again and get excited about it.
As these new songs started to manifest I upgraded my DAW and started to record them, but I had been recording music since I was 17 and had no plans to ever release them. When I met my current partner 6 years ago, however, I let him hear some of these songs and he became obsessed. He told me I should publish the album, and I had a million B.S. reasons not to, all of which were messed up excuses that were created from a lifetime of struggle around my love of creating music and what that would mean and what that would MAKE me. It’s amazing how the past sometimes will not let us go. It hit a point where thankfully I realized that I had an opportunity to stop holding myself back from what I wanted, and from what I HAD wanted for the last 20 years (and possibly longer).
So I published the album- it was “The Importance of Centers”… and that’s when things started really going my way. HAHA! :) It is truly amazing that when you finally own something, and commit to it, and walk up to the world and say “HEY world, THIS IS WHO I AM AND THIS IS WHAT I WANT,” that things really do start to come together! I started meeting other indie artists like me. And I knew I needed help with my production. I could write and play and arrange, but making it SOUND good in a recording was not something I was great at (I mean, go listen to my first album LOL!). One of these indies I met, the incomparable Ben Shaw, listened to my plight and introduced me to his producer, Jamie Hill at Department of Energy Management in Tacoma, WA. Jamie offered me something beyond my wildest dreams- he offered to become my production mentor. Basically, he would mentor me through the production and creation of my next album, Grow, teaching me all about sound engineering in the process. And it went beyond just this- he helped me navigate royalty collection, helped me get my music into a sync agency, helped me set up my publishing company through ASCAP, helped me with album art, and most importantly he helped me further legitimize what I was doing with my art TO MYSELF, because I still needed some help with this. We have so far done two albums together and are about to start working on another, which will be my fourth solo album.
Meeting Jamie was a huge open door, and it wasn’t the only one. After my first album was released, I was contacted by several other artists for session work, meaning they wanted to pay me to do a vocal track for them, or a bass or mandolin track, or whatever. I also spent some time in between albums doing production for other artists which was a real blast. In the end, I have been blessed with opportunities to create music with other artists all over the world, from Australia to South Africa to Paris, LA, Alaska, and beyond.
If I could go back and tell my younger self all of the cool things that were going to happen with her music, my younger self would never believe it. I’m really not sure if I can say that I regret anything that happened… our choices make us who we are, and I’m happy with who I am right now and how things are going. But the lesson was learned- we have one life to live, and we need to live it and make it the best one we can. It took 20+ years of struggling with my art to realize this, but better late than never I suppose. :)
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am an independent musician, session artist, and producer-in-training from Ithaca NY. I call myself a “one-lady band” because I do everything on my albums- I write the songs, sing them, play all the instruments, program the drums, and record them in my home studio.
My own music is a diverse amalgam of alt rock, blues, psychedelic rock, and folk. Lyrically I tend to hover around pretty existential themes and I trend toward the creation of concept albums to more fully explore ideas and themes. I’m also obsessed with creating complex vocal harmonies, so expect to hear a lot of those in my songs.
As far as what I am most proud of, I would probably say my most recent solo album, “A Place to Go When You Need to Hide.” I feel like it’s probably my best work yet, but I hope to say the same regarding many more projects which I have not even dreamed up yet. :)
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I have a huge veggie garden on my property and grow most of my own food. Sometimes I wish I lived further south so I could have an easier time growing things in winter, but I love living in the northeast so I guess I can let that go. :)
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosealaimomusic/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RoseAlaimoMusic
- Twitter: https://x.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2FRoseAlaimoMusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoEZJpWVQuUWs8SirCe2x9w
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/rose-alaimo-193128131
- Other: https://linktr.ee/rosealaimomusic
Image Credits
The headshots of my were taken by me. The three others were taken by photographer Kate Catalano-Collins @kcollins213