Lucy Rose: ‘I Just Needed to Write Songs Naturally’

You know a musician really cares about their followers when they take up a tour across Latin America just on the basis of fan interest. After expanding the sonic range on her second album Work It Out in 2015, U.K. singer-songwriter Lucy Rose admits she got “a little bit confused” about her sound, but touring Latin America on a crowd sourced, fan-organized run of shows with just her guitar inspired more “stripped-back” songs.

Rose, who is now readying her third album Something’s Changing for release in July, says India too helped her shape the sound she was looking for. During her debut tour of the country last year, she got requests to play “Night Bus,” the calm but uneasy song off her debut album Like I Used To (2012). She recalls over the phone from London: “I remember thinking, ”˜Night Bus?’ and everyone was singing along in Bangalore. That gave me the confidence that I could write that sort of music. That is actually what my fans wanted from me and I didn’t worry so much about uptempo and modern-sounding music and that sort of stuff that I got caught up in. With the pressure taken off me, and me able to write the kind of music I wanted, and feel like it’s what my fans wanted, it was really productive.”

Fans are already getting a glimpse of Rose’s new material off Something’s Changing, from the encouraging lead single “Floral Dresses” to the poignant “Is This Called Home,” which released late in April, with a video that Rose calls her favorite. She jokes, “The good thing about it is that I’m not in it. It’s probably why I like it so much!” The video features dancer Jonathan Lutwyche interpreting freeform, on top of a mountain in Wales’ famous Lake District. “I just think it’s one of the most genuine, honest and moving, sincere things I’ve ever seen,” Rose says.

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“Choosing the right venues gives the right music the chance to be heard.”

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While working on her new bunch of minimalist songs, Rose also found a good way to pick tunes that would feature in the album. “I decided that if I couldn’t play the songs with me on guitar or piano””then it wasn’t going to go on the record.” Having said that, Rose is still not taking a chance on playing noisy clubs and bar venues. She says, “It feels like choosing the right venues gives the right music the chance to be heard, in the right way.”

Her Worldwide Cinema tour kicks off in Argentina in May and goes to India, U.K. and South-East Asia and Europe. It includes a screening of her mini-documentary that follows the chaos and happiness behind the Latin America tour last year, when she played free gigs booked by fans. That explains why the India shows”” co-organized by Bengaluru venue the Humming Tree””includes the revamped Royal Opera House in Mumbai, two shows at the Odd-Bird Theater in New Delhi and coming back to the Humming Tree in Bengaluru between May 23rd and 27th.

She’s fully aware that it “sounds terrible” to say her favorite part of India was the food, but she laughs it off and adds, “The people we spent time with, they were so amazing, open minded and aware of everything.”

Buy tickets to Lucy Rose’s ‘India Cinema Tour’ here.

India Cinema Tour Dates:

May 23rd & 24th – OddBird Theatre, New Delhi

May 26th – The Royal Opera House, Mumbai

May 27th – The Humming Tree, Bengaluru