I walked up to Barboza last week three hours before the show, and already, there was a line of eager fans sitting on the sidewalk waiting for the doors to open.
Blake Rose’s manager came out to get me for our interview and I was led backstage. The artist originating from Perth, Australia and I sat down and had the chance to chat before all the fans outside were screaming inside on the dance floor.
Rose released “Suddenly Okay” March 22, the first of three EPs he has planned for this year. “Suddenly Okay” explores Rose’s experiences with love in a deep and intrinsically personal way.
The choice to release three EPs in a year came about because Rose has been writing a ton of music that is exploring the styles of folk, rock and his signature indie pop. In the background of these EPs, Rose has been exploring what a potential future sound for his music could look like.
“I have so much music that I’ve been writing that I wanted to put out still,” Rose said. “But it didn’t quite feel like album one to me. So I wanted to split it up between a few EPs. I have gone through a lot of experiences over the past couple of years that I wanted to write about. It just for some reason doesn’t feel like the album yet.”
The following is an excerpt from the interview.
SA: Why did you choose to relocate from Australia to LA?
BR: I realized that where I was in Perth, specifically, just wasn’t conducive to trying to build a music career—specifically in the pop space. There’s a pretty big indie scene there, but even then, a lot of those bands end up moving over east to Melbourne or Sydney and exploring that world. I thought about moving to Melbourne or Sydney, but I ended up meeting some friends who were down to travel to LA together. So I took that opportunity and went with them and as soon as I came to LA for the first time I was like, oh, this is definitely where I need to be. There were opportunities flying around everywhere. It felt like an endless pool of opportunities to explore. Whereas Australia to me didn’t, didn’t necessarily feel like that.
SA: In between moving to LA and now going on your first tour, what happened to get there?
BR: So basically, when I was first traveling out to LA it was probably my third trip out here. I went to this place called Winston House and I met this lady, her name’s Amanda and she was a publisher at Kobalt at the time. I met her and she invited me to come into the office and play some music. So I did. She was blown away and then introduced me to my now manager Brandon. My plan was to build a team around me before I put music out so that when I did put music out I had minds that knew the industry to help guide me in how to do it properly and in the most effective way. I started working with Brandon properly. He started building a team around me and it just kind of grew from there.
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