The Olympia, Washington-born Indie band Oh, Rose, recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of their debut EP, That Do Now See, by re-releasing a remastered edition on cassette, but also combined that celebration with the release of a new single and video, “The Call”, and with the announcement of the upcoming fall arrival of their new album, Dorothy. Oh, Rose will also be hitting the road on tour with Future Islands in September throughout the Western United States.
Coming off the tumultuous years of the pandemic, Olivia Rose found that some down time brought needed clarity about her rationale in making music that guided her toward the new collection. There are emotional connections between all of these events since Oh, Rose’s debut EP captures a special time in their formation, “The Call” reflects on their long road together, and their upcoming album, Dorothy, feels like an artistic call-back to the days of making their debut. I spoke with Olivia Rose about the confluence of these major events and also about how the band approached writing and recording Dorothy.
Hannah Means-Shannon: There’s a cluster of exciting things happening, with the EP re-release on cassette, the new single and video for “The Call”, and the announcement of your upcoming album, Dorothy. Does the cassette format have a special meaning for you?
Olivia Rose: We actually recorded that album to cassette ten years ago, so the first release was a cassette release. That felt like its form, the one in which we created it, so it made sense to do it again with some updated mastering and artwork.
What were you particularly looking for in the remastering process?
A mutual friend, Fred Thomas, remastered it, and he’s also mastering our new record. He definitely said that it was a challenge as far as the mastering side. Recording it on cassette, the textures are somewhat blown-out, so we were trying to boost it where we could while also trying to preserve this quality that’s textured. You can’t really take the 4-track aspect out of it.
How does that relate to digital at all? Are there plans to release the remastered EP also?
Yes, it will come out on digital platforms as well.
Are these songs that you regularly play live still, or were they further back in your mind at this point?
We definitely still play “Prom” live, and the other one being “Out of Sight.” That’s been really fun to play live, because we can do four-part harmonies. “Prom” has been a staple throughout our set over the years.
I know a lot of people would be tempted to tinker with the past and change the way that they did things back then, but it sounds like you’re honoring that time in how you handle this music on the EP.
Absolutely. The only way that I could really imagine re-releasing an updated form of those songs would be through a live recording. I’m really proud of those recordings because it captures this beginning. It’s precious and important to steward that, in a way.
I heard that you did new press photos by revisiting some locations associated with the original recording of the EP. It’s so wild to go back to places in that way, like one’s childhood home. Was that emotional?
Yes, I still drive back to my childhood home, for instance, whenever I’m back in Asheville, actually. I feel that, for me, the idea of home has always been something as a concept that’s a through-line in my art. My high school senior quote was just the word “home.” I’ve been trying to navigate that and connect it. It’s an interesting thing.
It’s such a big concept with so many possibilities for expression. Some of this conversation does remind me of this new song and video for “The Call.” It touches on the idea of the ten years that you all have been doing this. It’s not spelled out, but it feels poignant.
Yes, it’s the admission that we’re still doing it. There have been so many times where I’ve tried to quit music for different reasons, and I just can’t. It’s just that calling. You can resist it, but it’s just going to keep knocking, is what I’ve realized.
It’s this idea that if you lose something that’s really yours, it’ll come back to you.
[Laughs] Yes. Every time it returns. I’m so grateful that every time where I’ve felt like it’s the end, something comes knocking at that door. I have to make a decision, and I’m going to take the call.
That’s a great image, too, by the way, of taking the call. Because we all live on our phones. The call comes through, the caller ID is there, and we have to decide whether we hit “accept” in that moment.
Yes. I guess all these years, I just keep taking the call! [Laughs] It’s cool. It’s special.
I heard that the song “The Call” relates to the time of the pandemic. Did that period make you think that music was over for you? A lot of people did in independent bands, thinking, “Is this it?”
Our last record came out in 2019, and we were going to tour that in March of 2020. I was actually driving back from Portland to go on tour in a week when Washington State shut down. At that point, I was so exhausted, and I really didn’t want to tour that record. It was a really big sense of relief, honestly, for me. I think I needed some distance from it.
When it did stop, I was able to take a break, and not have to do anything like promote. I wasn’t in the grind, and it allowed me to go back to why I started making music in the first place. That’s there on the EP. For me, music is a really big source of community, and so when you capitalize on that, it’s like capitalizing on a sense of home. And that felt really inauthentic to me, and my art, and just who I am. It was nice to have some distance around that.
For “The Call”, we literally got a call from Future Islands. Their support in 2021 was not able to make it into the country. They asked if we could jump on this tour and we had just had our first band practice in a year and a half. In three days, we were driving down to Anaheim to play the biggest shows and stages and shows that we’d ever played in our entire lives. [Laughs] I was thinking, “What is going on?”
My thought is, “How brave of you to say ‘yes’!”
And every bone in my body was saying such a hard “Yes.” There was still fear. Everyone was still masked in 2021 and Covid was at the forefront. I had been through this process of trying to come to terms with this idea of music being done for me, but that call, in particular, was a gift. I also love Future Islands. We’re like family. It was epic.
Part of the answer to that situation is that if you all had not had so much experience playing live in the past, you could not have answered that call.
Totally. Future Islands are also just road-dogs, and especially touring with them is really easy and comfortable. I can’t really imagine what it would be like in this era if we had just released our first album, though, and it had blown up. You see these young artists who have blown up, but have never toured before. What a shock to the system that would be. Touring can be really brutal, though also really amazing.
It used to be that the statistics of even really well-received bands breaking up after their first tour was very high. I don’t know if that’s still true, but probably. The experience and difficulty is so intense.
Stuff comes up on the road. When we released the EP, it was going to start as a solo project, and then friends were around and played on the EP. Then I said, “Okay, if we’re going to be a band, then we’re going to go on tour. I’m going to book it.” I booked our first tour myself, and it was for two months. My logic was that if we could not tour for this period of time, and come out of it, and still be okay, and still love each other, and still be friends, then it was not going to work, and it was sustainable. And luckily, we’re all really good on the road together.
I feel like the video shares that mood because of the informality of the interaction.
We’re so easy. It’s so comfortable.
What’s the musical side of that like? Does everyone have similar tastes and bring ideas to the table?
We definitely have similar tastes, but we are all different. Oh, Rose, is my project, I would say, but each member has their own projects, and multiple bands. For songs, I’ll usually write the lyrics and the melody on a guitar and then bring it to the boys, and they add their touches to it. Then we workshop that.
We’ve heard that you used a four-track on the first EP, but what do you do these days when you’re recording?
For the new record, this is probably the longest we’ve spent on an album. The album is called Dorothy, and that was my grandmother’s name. She was from the South, and she was a big quilter and sewer, and for this album’s recording process, I feel like it was really similar to making a quilt.
We recorded it at four different places over the span of almost two years. The other ones were more like one session of recording, then the mixing phase, and a little bit of overdubbing, with a lot quicker turnaround. For this one, we really took our time. I think that’s something, too, with Covid, and having this distance, I got to get away from the pressure to produce music quickly. That was good.
Do you mean “produce” in the sense of writing or “produce” in the sense of working on Production?
I think both. I didn’t have to just get it out there and say it was done. I could say, “If it’s not a ‘Yes,’ let’s work on it, until it’s a ‘Yes.’” And now the whole record for me is a “Yes.” It’s a “Hell, yes!” On all the other ones, except for the EP, it was really difficult for me to listen to my own music. And this is the first time, with Dorothy, that I’m obsessed with listening to it. I feel like I’ve made something that I want to listen to, versus making something that I didn’t want to listen to.
That’s so awesome to hear. Since the songs were recorded at different locations and times for Dorothy, were you trying to get a unified sound among them, or did they each have their own thing going on?
They each have their own thing going on, which I think is kind of our thing, but there is a blanket palette of cohesion that makes it make sense to me. They are all in their unique pockets, but the way in which everything is intentionally woven through means, as a whole, the project makes sense and is cohesive. It’s a through-line that happened with care, and intention, and time.
