Q&A with joyful Americana duo Roswell

Posted By: Martha Blake
February 22, 2024
Interviews

We got to chat with Roswell around the release of their latest track ‘Arabella’ – an example of the duo’s joyful, harmony-infused Americana sound. Roswell’s signature lush vocal harmonies glide over atmospheric guitar, ringing double-string ukulele and bluesy piano, and yet the down-to-earth lyrics speak to earnest sibling love.

– Hey Roswell! Can you please start by telling us how the duo came to be?

Zoё: We met by total chance at an outdoor food market in Cambridgeshire, when a mutual friend invited us for coffee. Our friend insisted we try singing a song together right there in the market, and it just clicked with our voices and harmonies, so we decided to stay in touch and try out some more songs together at a local open mic. We loved performing together at the open mic and it all went from there!

– Tell us more about the inspiration behind your latest track “Arabella”?

Jasmine: I wrote the song ‘Arabella’ for my sister – it’s a love song to her, essentially. We both struggle with our mental health from time to time, and she was going through a rough patch. I wrote the song simply to tell her I love her unconditionally, and I was there for her. It was a cathartic process for me because it can be really hard watching someone you love suffer so much, and I needed to get that feeling out of my system so I could process it. I wanted to ‘fix’ the problem for her, but of course I couldn’t, it was her journey. So the song lyrics in the chorus, “come and stay, I’ll cook you dinner” and “let’s watch trash TV together” were my way of saying I’d be there for her in small, everyday ways while she struggled and eventually healed.

– Jasmine, you said that you wrote “Arabella” for your sister during a tough time with anxiety. Could you elaborate on how personal experiences influence your songwriting process?

Jasmine: I’m quite an open book when it comes to songwriting, I’m very confessional. I write about people I love, I write about my mental health, I write about my political views. I’m writing a song right now about feeling awkward at parties. I kind of feel like I use songs to tell secrets about myself that I hide from the world normally. My songs are kind of my pep talk to myself to just be who I am and enjoy it. I always say to our audiences that you get to know me very quickly through my heart-on-the-sleeve lyrics. It’s a cliche to say “write what you know”, but it really works for me – especially as I’m very comfortable being honest in my songs these days, although it’s taken me many years to reach that level of vulnerability. I actually almost gave up music a couple of years ago because I was having some minor stress-related problems with my voice, which really fuelled my anxiety. But I took myself off to therapy, got some singing lessons with a brilliant teacher, and I climbed out of the hole I’d dug myself – and wrote a song about it called Out Of The Dark. I’m so glad I felt scared but continued performing anyway – it’s made me stronger as a musician and holistically. And I think it’s important for musicians to find ways to be honest about how hard it can be to be a musician. I want to help normalise that conversation, that honesty.

This songwriting process is probably one of the ways in which Zoё and I differ creatively; my basis has always been to write about my very personal experiences and interior emotions, whereas Zoё is a fantastic Folk artist with the rich tradition of storytelling that comes with that. But over the years together, we’ve both taken leaves out of each others’ books, and even ‘swapped’ styles on occasion. We’ve also written more songs together, and those are becoming increasingly political – we’ve written about capitalism, feminism, plastic pollution, ocean conservation, self-esteem, and the societal expectation and pressure to be productive.

– How has your journey as a duo evolved since your debut, especially considering your recent successes with EPs like “Remedy” and “Come Home”?

Zoё: I think we’ve been finding our identity as a band through our two EPs. We’re really proud of what we’ve achieved in our first few years together, and we’ve definitely evolved and grown in confidence. It feels like now we have a stronger idea of what’s important to us and what we want to write about. It’s also been amazing to see our live performance opportunities grow over the years – we’ve just got back from a tour in Germany and up next is Spain and France and some UK festivals! Some overall highlights as a band have been winning Purbeck Rising, our first release being named Fatea’s debut EP of the year, and being one of the winners of the Celtic Connections Danny Kyle open stage. We’re so excited to be working on our debut album right now, we can’t wait for people to hear it.

– You’ve mentioned that music serves as a platform to discuss mental health openly. How do you hope your music impacts listeners who may be going through similar experiences?

Zoё: We both have come to realise the importance of being open about our emotions and mental health as musicians, in an industry where you can feel so much pressure to always show your best side and power through any discomfort. Jasmine wrote a song called Out of The Dark where she talks about overcoming stage fright and anxiety, which is something so many musicians experience but hardly ever seem to talk about. I think it’s a powerful thing to be that vulnerable about the very thing that you’re doing in that moment on stage, and it might help other people to feel less alone in their own experiences. I also wrote a song called Back Row, which is about resisting the pressures of being constantly productive and feeling like your worth is defined by how hard you work. It’s so tough to be a freelancer in any creative industry, and so often we forget to pause and look after ourselves!

Jasmine: We hope that whoever hears our music feels hope, joy, righteous indignation, energy to live fully, and solidarity in tough times. We hope they know they are not alone. (We also hope they bloody love a good harmony, because our obsession with harmony is the lifeblood of a Roswell song!)

– Looking ahead to 2024, you have plans to release your long-awaited debut album. Can you give us any hints about what we can expect from this upcoming release?

Zoё: Our new album draws on so many different themes, from politics to sibling love, from mental health to the environment (I’m super excited about a sea shanty Jasmine wrote inspired by her time at sea on a Greenpeace boat doing some very important – and slightly illegal – conservation work!). We can’t say much more, mainly because there are still songs to be written! We’re self-producing it with my husband in our home studio, so a lot of DIY love and time will go into this album, but we think it’s already shaping up to sound pretty awesome (if we may say so ourselves) and that it reflects the joy we feel about creating music together.