Roses & Cigarettes’ music is an eclectic blend of roots rock and Americana; a perfect recipe for the classic California sound. The band’s name was inspired by the Ray LaMontagne song of the same title, formed in Los Angeles in 2013. At that time Jenny Pagliaro was a vocalist in a local cover band who auditioned Angela Petrilli for a vacant guitar position. Pagliaro and Petrilli immediately bonded over a common desire to create and perform original material, and Roses & Cigarettes was born.
Roses & Cigarettes released their debut album in May of 2015 with a promotional tour slated for the Fall of that year. Unfortunately, those plans were interrupted when Pagliaro was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer, and immediately began a tumultuous round of treatment. A year later, and with another tour in the works, Pagliaro was again handed bad news–the cancer was back, and this time it was Stage IV. Despite this life-threatening setback and another round of new and grueling treatments for Pagliaro, the band hit the road and completed a successful tour.
Roses & Cigarettes has opened for Billy Bob Thornton and the Boxmasters, Jim Lauderdale, Luther Dickinson, Marc Broussard, Radney Foster, Elizabeth Cook, The Record Company, Amanda Shires and others. The band continues to open to growing audiences. They released an acoustic EP in March 2018, and are set to release their second full album, Echoes and Silence, on February 22, 2019.
Roses & Cigarettes, who are now set to release their sophomore LP Echoes and Silence in the midst of singer Jenny Pagliaro’s battle with Stage IV breast cancer. Although cancer has spread throughout her body, she continues to fight for her music which includes a much-anticipated album release performance this Friday at the Mint in Los Angeles. Roses and Cigarettes’ sound transports our ears to the big-hearted radio melodies of Sheryl Crow, Melissa Etheridge and Martina McBride.
Glide is very proud to stream Echoes and Silence in its entirety below. If you think your problems might be big, there is perhaps nothing more unimaginable than the obstacles Roses and Cigarettes faces now as Pagliaro fights for her life. In spite of these hurdles, Echoes and Silence encapsulates a kaleidoscope of rock genres that makes for one of 2019’s most listenable releases and a record that will continually be re-discovered.
“Our songwriting has really grown since our first album. That’s not to say that we don’t love every track off our debut album, because we do. But we both believe that life experience and allowing yourself to grow from a lot of different angles will ultimately keep giving new depth to what you’re writing about,” says the duo.
“This time around, Angela and I were handed a big huge bag of challenges. A terminal cancer diagnosis and a will to make it not so. I think you can hear that interwoven in the songs but we didn’t want this to be a “cancer” album. We have a lot to say as songwriters and the cancer is one of the major stories for right now. Hopefully not for always. I think in this batch of songs you’ll find more intricate guitar work from Angela and possibly a more mature sounding Pagliaro. We write most of our songs together but also separately. Sometimes we are in the same room, sometimes we are playing musical mad libs by ourselves coming up with things. But ultimately it is ALWAYS collaborative.”
