After overcoming the unimaginable heartaches and tribulation of life- Americana-blues man D.L. Rossi lets it all pour out in the name of survival with his new album A Sweet Thing out April 12th. Rossi has learned the hard way in the wake of a very painful divorce- that you can’t rush recovery. On the verge of burning out completely, he turned to music as a way to cope and confront his past. His new album A Sweet Thing is a cathartic emission of everything he thought he knew about life, himself and what it meant to process such overwhelming heartache.
Despite it all, or perhaps because of it, he’s amassed an impressive resume. His first big break was when he became a member of the Free Credit Score band. Yep–you remember that commercial, right? He has also shared stages alongside such acts as Better Than Ezra, Liz Phair, Mayday Parade and Citizen Cope and made appearances on the George Lopez Show and at the Sundance Film Festival.
Glide is proud to premiere “This Road” from A Sweet Thing” (below) a stormy anthem of heartbreaking melodrama with a lonesome soulful cry that recalls shades of Isbell, Orbison and Brooks. Rossi however has a natural storytelling ability that puts him as one of the new Roots Americana voices to be heard in 2019.
“This Road” is a tune I wrote after being at the Opry Mills Mall during a shooting that happened there,” recalls Rossi. “I was in the food court getting a coffee and all these people started running out of the door screaming “Run!” but no one would say what was happening. So, I just assumed the worst and ran out the door out to the back of the parking lot and tried to call an Uber. Once I got out there I realized Ubers wouldn’t come to the Opry because the police had already shut down all the exits. So, I walked up Briley Parkway and started calling my family because I was so shaken up. While walking and making the calls I realized how lonely I was, how much at that moment I wanted someone closer than family to be there for me but I was alone. This song is about me reflecting on that walk along Briley Parkway.”
“I wanted this song to feel effortless, and easy to vibe with. Very much like a Ryan Adams’ song like “Ashes and Fire,” “Out Bound Train,” or “Let it Ride” in how the rhythm and the melody kind of sweep you up and the lyrics don’t even hit you till later. Lyrically, I tried to capture something that was very stream of consciousness. As I was walking up the highway calling my family I wasn’t communicating well, I was pretty shaken up, I was only speaking in fragments and I kept ending my sentences by saying “I don’t know.” I wanted to create that same sense of fragments in the words to this song and combined with the music and melody take you somewhere that felt contemplative.”
Rossi has weathered the unimaginable, including a bout with testicular cancer, and those crippling, yet necessary, experiences have only equipped him with the resolve to take his brokenness and make damn good music. “I lost a lot / But I also lost myself / Doing things I never thought I’d do,” he teeters on the brink of sadness and regret with “Better.” In between gently-wavering guitar tremolo, ethereal keyboards and a slow-burning melody, he makes a charge against himself that there’s no better time than the present to change. His tipping point came at a crucial moment in his life when booze and women were only delaying the inevitable crash. “I started letting myself down in how I was acting,” says Rossi, whose voice seems to crackle under the fire. “I was getting in this pattern of going out, getting drunk, meeting people and going on a date.”
“Right around this time last year, I had gone on a string of dates, and I just acted like a complete asshole. That was not me,” he says. Previously, he had never been one to overindulge and fly off the rails, but his misery charted a one-way train to hell. “Something was happening to me. The freedom I was allowing myself, which was a good thing at first, got to the point where I needed to get my shit together.”
Years before pursuing music, he displayed a curious disposition for adventure and often gave himself permission to trust his instincts. Youngest of three siblings, he was homeschooled and raised in a predominantly Christian household. His father played countless shows in the local bar scene around Metro Detroit, and once a month, his buddies came over for off-the-cuff jam sessions of old Beatles and Chicago records. At just 11 years old, Rossi’s older brothers started a band, and the seeds were planted for Rossi’s ongoing love affair with music. “I was the little brother hanging out at all their shows,” he recalls wistfully.
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Later, at 15, his parents bought him a drum kit, and he soon took lessons. After only a few short months, he hopped onstage with his brothers’ band after the former drummer departed. But it wasn’t until he turned 18 that Rossi’s artistry really began to blossom, and he started to come into his own as a storyteller, exercising his penmanship with much of the band’s material. He stayed with the group for five years, and even though they received several offers from smaller record companies, released two albums and an EP and felt the high of local fame, their time was up.
Rossi remained involved in the church for a time, started doing his own music and attended college. Alongside his oldest brother and other players, he mounted a new project called the Victorious Secrets (Later the name was changed to “The American Secrets” for legal reasons) and went on to win a local Fox Sports affiliate song competition. They also tried their hand at writing a jingle for the national Free Credit Score ad campaign. Sailing through the online submission round, they boarded a flight to Los Angeles to shoot a commercial. They were then selected to become the face of the brand for a one to two-year commitment. As a result, they made several TV appearances, including on the George Lopez Show, and played gigs at SXSW. They eventually landed on Mayday Parade’s Fearless Friends Tour.
During such exciting artistic endeavors, Rossi’s health took a dark turn. He was diagnosed with testicular cancer at 27. Following a recording session at NYC’s legendary (and now-defunct) Magic Shop, he returned home for surgery and was laid out for almost two months afterwards. The cancer was fortunately discovered in stage one, and it proved to give him the jolt he needed to focus his attention on his solo music. “I realized I wanted to do more than what I had been doing. I really wanted to start writing my own music and see if I could do this,” he remembers.
He released his self-titled album in 2013, but his church community didn’t take too kindly to such a brash, punk-ish record that sought to question his religious beliefs and upbringing. “I released the record and got completely booted out of the worship community. They were friendly but passive-aggressive about it,” he says. “Some people didn’t like it; others didn’t care. Some thought it could be threatening to some people. It was the first time I was choosing to be honest as a songwriter.”
Nearly two years later, he underwent a nervous breakdown that shattered his love of music completely. “I got super depressed and suicidal, and I decided to give up music and try to get my life back together. I stopped playing and got a job at a Starbucks. I would play drums here and there if I could make money.”
He got married soon after, but it, too, was short-lived. “In the first year of marriage, shit hit the fan,” he admits, “and all of a sudden I was writing songs to cope with my life.”
A Sweet Thing is not only wrapped snugly in post-divorce trauma but also in a new-found appreciation for life itself. “I called my mom, called my dad / Let ‘em know I made it,” he weeps, his tears flowing profusely down his face. “This Road” opens the record with a soul-shattering story about his close encounter during a deadly shooting at Opry Mills Mall in Nashville. “I was there in the food court when it happened. There was a wave of 80 people running and screaming, ‘Run!’” he recalls. When the stampede made it out to the parking lot, no one could escape as all the exits had been closed.
So, he kicked up gravel. “I walked down the freeway to get to a point where an Uber would actually want to pick me up. There was a weird moment when I was calling my family and saying, ‘Hey, none of you know what’s happened, but I just have to call and talk to somebody,’” he continues. “It was a bit of a lonely experience for me. Coming out of a divorce, there was a moment where I was like, ‘Oh, something shitty could have happened to me, and the only people I have in my life right now that I want to call are my family, and they didn’t know where I was today anyway.’”
Rossi’s gutting performance sets the tone for the entire record, evoking a ghostly Townes Van Zandt-like quality. The heaviness in his heart spills out onto the record in spades, but A Sweet Thing is never overwrought or too grim. Rather, it’s as much an emotional release for the listener as it is for Rossi.
Photo by Reuben Bidez.
One Response
i absolutely cannot wait for this album to drop!