Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Rose Alaimo. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Rose, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

Cool question… in my case, I’m not sure the timing was ideal, but I’m inclined to think my creative career had to wait a bit and follow the circuitous route that it did.

I remember writing songs in my head when I was 3 or 4. I would hear them, run to the old piano we had in the house, and play what I was hearing. When I hit the age of 13 I learned the bass and started playing in a band that had our first gig at an old shopping mall in my hometown. At 16 I learned the guitar by teaching myself Soundgarden songs from a book, and by 19 the songwriting muse was so loud in my head that I took all of the money I saved from working in a local vet hospital and playing with my band and bought a new computer to dip my toe into the home digital recording scene.

I always kind of felt like I needed to be an artist, but there were people around me who thought otherwise. They had the best of intentions, but it was a struggle for me growing up feeling a bit more pressured to enter a career in veterinary medicine than to go and get a PhD in music composition or similar. When I was younger I was kind of a mess (as so many people are in their teens and early 20s LOL!) and I didn’t have it in me to go against the grain. It was something between fear of making my own decision about pursuing a career in art (because I mean, this sounded pretty unstable and unorthodox?) and worrying about not being a “good person” and pursuing something more productive, or serious, or the thing that other people *thought* I should do. When I was growing up, art was not something that was really encouraged and the taste put in my mouth was that it was kind of a waste of time, or it was for lazy people, or whatever.

So I caved and went to veterinary school. I dropped out my first time around because it didn’t feel right. Then I caved again and enrolled a second time around and before I started I pretty much knew I would have to put the music stuff behind me indefinitely, but somewhere in my head I had this dream that, once I became a vet, I would have the freedom and financial stability to then get really serious about my music. I would maybe have a home studio and maybe have the means to learn more about production. But it was only a dream and I did not expect it to come true.

Being in vet school beat the muse right out of me and I completely stopped hearing songs in my head. For 9 years I had zero interest in writing or playing my guitar. I would TRY, but it just sounded fake and dull. I took up knitting, and vegetable gardening, and yoga, but I always felt like there was a piece of me that was atrophied, like a limb or a muscle that was dying from disuse. I could not force myself to be interested in music again.

Then one night as I was falling asleep, a really cool song popped into my head. I grabbed my iPhone and hummed it into the voice notes and the next day I went and wrote out this song and it ended up on my first album 3 years later. A week later, the same thing happened. Gradually, songs began showing up more and more around me- in my dreams, while hiking, while driving around town. I was elated that they were back. I promised myself I would not let them go unheard again and would cultivate space in my life where they would always be able to come and show themselves to me (in my case, that space is quietude- the louder and crazier my life is, the less creative I feel I can be).

It’s funny how once you commit to something, doors seem to open. The first result of my commitment to my music was my first published album, “The Importance of Centers.” It was through this that I landed my first session gig- an artist in Australia heart the album and reached out asking if I would be interested in recording some acoustic demos for her. Heck yeah! I was also introduced to so many new friends and other indies like me. It was through one of them that I was introduced to producer Jamie Hill, who knew I was interested in learning to produce my work myself, so he offered to teach me about sound engineering and mentor me through the production of my next album remotely from his studio in Tacoma, WA (Department of Energy Management). The product of this was my second album, “Grow.” This album started to get me some real attention and landed in a sync agency (a big dream of mine). I just released my third solo album, “A Place to Go When You Need to Hide,” with Jamie’s sound engineering mentorship and the album is flying.

So, do I wish I had started my creative career sooner or later? I honestly don’t know. For years, I had regretted not making a serious attempt at it when I was younger. I was resentful to the people who pushed for me to go into a direction I did not really want to go and I was even more resentful toward myself for not being stronger and for letting other peoples’ plans for me influence my own so much. But then I remember my little dream that I planted before going to vet school, when the muse seemed to leave me for a time, and I look at my life now and realize that what I wanted back then kind of happened. I am a practicing veterinarian. But, I now have the financial stability and the time to really, fully pursue my music in a way that feels less stressful, more focused, and more sustainable to me. There were points in my past where I *was* supporting myself with music and there were so many things about it that I did not like- spending night after night playing cover songs in seedy, smoky bars, touring in general (I am a real introvert LOL!), or spending a bulk of my time doing production or session work for *other* artists to make money, all of which left me with much less time and creative space to focus on my *own* music, which was all I wanted to do. (Side note- I DO enjoy playing live, doing production for other artists, and I LOVE doing session work for other artists. I just had stress doing the amount of this work that I needed to do to make ends meet financially while I also tried to find time for my own work). And I am also able to afford to pay my production mentor something for the hours and hours he spends teaching me about sound engineering and for the incredible help he has been to me and my music.

I may or may not have “made it” as an artist if I had started my creative career earlier and I will never know. Maybe I would have had a massive music career and it was a mistake to not try. Or maybe it just had to wait a little bit so I could do it in a way that felt more comfortable for me overall. Maybe the time I really committed to doing it 7 years ago was the “right” time. Sitting here now I guess I feel like I’m glad it started it right when I did. I feel like the things I went through have really inspired my music and given it a weight that it might not have otherwise had. No regrets.

Rose, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Rose Alaimo and I am a “one-lady band” independent musician, a session artist, and a producer-in-training from Ithaca, NY. I have probably been a musician my whole life and recall hearing songs in my head when I was as young as 3 and running to the old piano we had in the house to play what I was hearing. Through my teens I taught myself to sing and to play the bass, the guitar, and some percussion, and dabbled with some other instruments as well. My life seemed to be pushing me to go to veterinary school, but my heart was pushing me toward music, and the short story is that I did go to vet school and, after that experience left me without a creative drive for a few years, I finally rekindled my relationship with my muse about 7 years ago and my music and I have been inseparable since.

My main musical focus is on my own original material, which is a pretty eclectic stew containing everything from folk and a cappella to rock, grunge, and blues. I am obsessed with creating intricate vocal harmonies and the adjective that has been most used to describe my voice is “honest,” and I’m really proud of that. :) I’m told my work is emotive, hopeful, and positive. I write and sing my own songs, play all the instruments (as many live as possible including guitars, basses, mandolin, banjo and some percussion- I do program my drum tracks and use MIDI keyboards for strings and such), record and co-produce it all in my home studio. I call myself a “producer-in-training” because I am still learning about sound engineering. It is a lifelong study and I am currently remotely mentoring under an amazing producer as I move through my albums, learning more and more about production in the process. This awesome producer’s name is Jamie Hill and his studio is called Department of Energy Management in Tacoma, WA.

Lyrically, I tend to focus on creating concept albums to more fully explore ideas, and they generally contain pretty deep, existential themes (it’s my main outlet for an undergraduate degree in philosophy that I absolutely loved getting). :) My second album, “Grow,” is a straight-up rock album that explores emotional, mental, and spiritual growth and the difficulties that may lie therein. Growth can be very hard and very uncomfortable, but I do believe it is a choice we can all make and I do believe growth and change are possible. My new album, the introspective “A Place to Go When You Need to Hide,” is a story about the high highs and low lows of life and how it can be very hard to not lose ourselves in the waves, and how we all have a space inside of ourselves where we can go when the world gets to be too much and, from here, we can actively *choose* how we want to move through whatever is happening around us. It was inspired by many of the events that have happened since 2020 both on a global and personal scale.

While my own studio work is my main focus, I do enjoy being a session artist as well, meaning other artists/bands will hire me to do vocals, instrument tracks, etc to use in their own work. It is always fun working with other musicians and I am really proud of some of the songs that I worked on with artists in Australia, Paris, LA, Alaska, and South Africa, among other places. I also occasionally do production/mixing work for other artists as well which is also very rewarding.

When I am not working on music I enjoy spending time on my little vegetable farm and growing most of my own food, reading massive books, hiking, and working part-time as a small animal relief veterinarian.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

As someone who has a pretty split life between art and science (I am an independent musician but also a part-time relief veterinarian) it has been interesting to see the reactions some people have when I tell them that I am a full-time artist.

When a veterinary practice is in need of more help than I can offer in a given week, they will often ask, “I don’t get it- you are only working two or three days that week, why can’t you work more?” My response is that I cannot work more because I have another career as a musician and I need those other days that particular week to work on my art. The reactions I get from this response are sometimes incredulous, and I think I can understand *why* they are often shocked to hear this.

First, I think the general feeling is that it is an unfathomable thing to go and work as an artist half of the week when it does not *pay* as much as being a vet. People, especially in this culture, seem to place such massive importance on a job that pays a lot regardless of what it does for their soul or their happiness. I spent 11 years working as a full-time vet because I was raised to believe that financial stability and having a prestigious job title were some of the main goals of life. And guess what? I was miserable and went through a burnout that was so bad that it upended my entire life and I had to leave the veterinary profession entirely for a while. I barely recognized who I was anymore. Is financial stability important? SURE it is! But I had worked so hard by that time that I had paid off my debt and there was no good reason for me to continue working 50+ hours a week in a high stress profession when I could sustainably rearrange my life to include my music and, between my art and my vet job, life a simple and comfortable life. The lesson I learned was that it’s not all about money. If I can make enough to live comfortably and responsibly, then why wouldn’t I spend more of my time pursuing what I love more than anything else? Life is short, you might as well spend more time doing what makes you truly happy.

Second, I don’t think people have any idea how much time it actually *takes* to sustain a legit career as an independent musician or artist. One time a co-worker asked me, “So, what do you mean that you *work* as a part-time musician? Like, do you just practice guitar all the time?” It was a valid question but the answer was so huge that it took me a minute to get my head around it (and, the funny part is that I actually can’t remember the last time I even HAD the time to sit down and just practice an instrument!) :) Each of my albums takes me roughly two years to create. I do all of my own material- I write it, sing it, play the instruments, and co-produce it in my home studio. Creating an album takes an enormous amount of time, and, when I am actively working on one, I will generally spend many of my non-vet days working in my studio for 8 hours or more. Part of this time is also spent learning about sound engineering (which is basically what makes the music *sound* good). I have been mentoring under a producer in Tacoma, WA named Jamie Hill for a few years as I continue my study of the subject, and there is a *lot* to learn. After the album is released the promo begins, and this is so endless and time-consuming that I can’t even begin to touch on it in this piece. Suffice it to say it goes on for months to years and takes up hours of every single day between interviews (like this one!), managing my five social media sites, pitching to select radio stations all over the world and Spotify playlists and everything in between. And you need to have a YouTube presence, so then I need time to create music videos, each of which takes between several days or weeks. You need to get your music out there so playing shows is important. When I am actively playing gigs I spend about 8 hours a week or more practicing the show for weeks to months leading up to it to get my vocal endurance up to speed. Then there is the actual show, which often involves an entire day’s worth of time between loading equipment, hauling to wherever you are playing (in my case it’s often an hour or more away), setting up, playing the 2-3 hours set, then hauling everything back home. In short- in order for me to actually pursue my art the way I want to, I actually DO need all that time outside of my “real” job.

I feel like sometimes people have a view of artists that is not very flattering- that they are lazy or flaky or couldn’t land a “real” job, and I find that a bit distasteful. All of the artists I know are working really hard to pursue their work in a culture that is at times not very kind or respectful to them. It may be helpful to remember that we are all very different souls and there are many different ways to live life and we are all doing our best to navigate it.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I tend to be a very left-brained person and this was greatly encouraged when I was younger as it often is in our science-and-not-art based society. Up until my mid 30s I tended to navigate life with my head and not my heart. I would do things that made sense on paper even though my body was screaming at me to *not* do those very things.

After landing myself in yet another situation that seemed good in theory but was not at all good in practice in my early 30s, a really god therapist helped me to see what I was doing. That the stomach aches/ muscle tension/ head aches/ shortness of breath/ panic attacks/ anxiety/ depression I was experiencing might be a result of my not listening to all of the parts of myself. It’s like pressing the gas pedal with the emergency brake on. I was not moving full speed ahead.

Learning this about myself was a game-changer however. I started actually paying attention to my “gut” and my “feelings,” as subjective and unimportant as I always felt that they were relative to my logical brain. When I started seriously pursuing my music, I intentionally used it as a way to continue to access and be receptive to my feelings and what FELT right. Over the years this practice has grown and I have changed immeasurably as a human. It has affected my job, my relationships, and how I view and navigate life. I do my best to remind myself of this when I am creating my art or navigating my creative life- “I know this EQ adjustment SHOULD make this sound better… but it does not. Since it doesn’t feel right, I’m going to drop it.” Or, “This PR company SEEMS really legit and their stats are amazing, but I have a weird feeling about it… so I am not going to go with them.”

I have a few goals and missions regarding my art, but listening to my heart is at the core of them and I hope to continue to maintain this practice.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rosealaimo.bandcamp.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosealaimomusic/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RoseAlaimoMusic
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/RoseAlaimoMusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoEZJpWVQuUWs8SirCe2x9w
• Other: https://linktr.ee/rosealaimomusic

Image Credits
The one with me playing the guitar is a still from a music video for “No Resolution” created for me by Dutch videographer Jos Houtzager. The other two photos are promo pics for my new album and were taken by Kate Catalano- Collins @kcollins213