The Abigail Rose Interview
When and where were you originally born? When did you first begin to fall in love with music, more specifically guitar and songwriting? Was this something that was relevant around your household growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences in your more formative years?
I was born in Atlanta, GA May 29th 1996, also known as moving day in my family. I know how to make an entrance. We were moving to Kansas City, KS where we lived for around two years before moving to Nashville, TN where I grew up right in the heart of music city. My love for music was a part of me from the very beginning. My parents say I was making up my own songs and belting them at the top of my lungs starting at two years old. One of my earliest memories is listening to music in the car and realizing how powerful it is. I noticed how just a song could change your mood, I was drawn to that magic. I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t writing songs, but everything changed once I started playing guitar when I was 11 and could really bring them to life. One of my earliest influences was Sherly Crow. She’s why I wanted to learn guitar. I saw an old video of her performance at The House of Blues and was mesmerized. No one in my family is musical but they’re avid listeners. I’m so thankful my parents, as well as my older sister and brother listened to such a wide variety of music when I was growing up. I really experienced a full spectrum. Some of my favorites I remember loving & still do to this day were Tracy Chapman, The Beach Boys, Dolly Parton, Shania Twain, Alanis Morissette, Britney Spears, Van Morrison, Fleetwood Mac, Outkast, Carly Simon and Billy Joel. I’ll let y’all guess who in my family was listening to what. We never labeled any of the music by genre. We just identified it as something we liked, or not. I know that mentality has heavily influenced the way I make music.
When and where did you see your first show and what ultimately inspired you to pursue a life in music? Did you participate in any outfits, or projects prior to becoming a solo artist? Tell me about writing and recording singles “Dying to Live and Edges” last year? What initially inspired those songs and what were you most eager to express?
This is hilarious, but I’m pretty sure my first concert I went to was Miley Cyrus Best of Both World Tour during her Hannah Montana days at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. She’s an icon so I respect my 10 year old self’s decision. Of course there were outside factors that inspired me to pursue a life in music, like growing up in Nashville where I thought being a professional songwriter, or artist was a normal career. But ultimately, I know I would have found my way here regardless because I was so inspired by what I felt. The first time I stepped on a stage and shared something I had written I knew this was what I was meant to do. I started performing at songwriting festivals and open mic nights around town when I was 13. I’m amazed at how courageous and determined my younger self was. I toured throughout high-school, but it always felt like I was chasing this elusive ‘sound’, or ‘my voice’. I was a kid so it totally makes sense, but with the world we live in I thought I was supposed to have my entire artistic identity figured out by 18. It’s like I could hear the songs I would one day write and this only added to my frustration, but also determination to keep writing and diving deeper. I’ve been on quite the journey to get to where I am right now. I plan to always keep exploring, but I finally feel like I’ve found the songs that are strong enough and true to who I am to build my foundation on. Which brings me to “Edges”.
The idea originally came from a conversation I had with my Aunt. She’s incredibly wise and gives the best advice. We were sitting around the kitchen table talking when she said, “You better know what your partner's edges are because they only get sharper with time.” She explained that she calls the qualities you put up with in the people you love their ‘edges’. I thought this was brilliant and immediately wrote it down knowing it had the potential to be a special song. I sat on the idea for a while letting it stew then a few weeks later I was writing with Brandon Meagher, Sarah Underwood, and Jules Paymer. Brandon started to play the opening guitar hook (an idea he said he’d also been saving for the right moment) and I knew it was finally time to write “Edges”. I love writing songs about hard to pinpoint emotions. “Edges” is actually the song that led me and my producer, Mike Lohmeier, to start working together. At this point we had been together for 7 years as a couple, both pursuing careers in music but had never tried creating together. We were both on our own paths and knew that if we were ever going to work together it had to happen organically. After I played him “Edges” he immediately heard all these ideas and said he’d love to try producing it. It all fell into place so naturally. Around a week later, one random Friday morning he asked me if I wanted to pack up all our music equipment, drive to Joshua Tree, set up a makeshift studio and see what happened. Long story short, it was amazing. We quickly realized those 7 years of building trust and growing into who we are as creatives led us to making really special music together. Our only goal was to make music that we love to listen to.
I think because we both felt so comfortable it fostered this amazing environment of unfiltered creative exploration. “Wake Me Up” was the first song we ever made together that weekend. We were supposed to head back on Sunday but we both felt like we had more creative energy that needed to come out so we extended our stay and I’m so happy we did because that’s when we started to work on “Edges.” At this point we didn’t have a plan, we were just having fun. And really, that became the blueprint for us and was the start of a year-long journey of making lots and lots of music. A few months into that journey is when I started to write “Dying to Live”. I was packing for a camping trip Mike and I were going on the next day when the opening line, “I wanna build a life that’s built to last, not a quick trick, or short cut to get you there fast,” came to me. I wrote a little bit more and then stopped myself because I knew this song was meant to be written in nature, not an apartment in LA. There was this massive boulder next to our campsite so I went and sat up there with this spectacular view of the mountains to my left and the valley to my right. Mike would come up and join me in-between tending to the fire, offer a few lines then go back down to the campsite. It’s for sure the coolest way I’ve ever co-written a song.
We went on one of the most epic hikes the next day and that’s what ended up inspiring verse 2’s lyrics, “I’d climb a mountain just to see you smile.” It felt like this was a song that had been building inside both of us for a while and was finally ready to come out. I was so inspired by all the music we were making, tapping into a creativity that felt so right, I knew this new found clarity was directly linked to a lot of life choices going on in me personally. I was taking care of myself and prioritizing my mental, physical and spiritual well being. I think this song was born from a place of wanting a reminder for when inevitably life happens and I’m not feeling so confident or balanced. Our process had become, go out in nature to write, then come back to a studio in LA to record. Right when we got back from the camping trip we had a session booked with Mike’s friend Bobby Knepper, an awesome producer, writer and mix engineer from Nashville. Mike had mentioned he could be the perfect person to mix the music, but we first wanted to do a session to see how we like working together. I played him “Dying to Live” right when we got to the studio because we were still on a high from writing it. He loved it so we immediately dove into recording. There was a palpable creative energy around this new union. We recorded everything you hear on the record that day. It was the start of a great creative relationship & friendship.
You quickly followed up with 2024’s “Run Girl”. What is your process of writing songs like? What inspires you most in your songwriting and can we expect a full LP this year? Any plans for the summer, or gigs in the works? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
When I’m alone and a lyric comes to me, usually with a melody, I quickly get my guitar to start bringing it to life. I try to just let it all pour out of me before I start tweaking things, I wanna make sure I don’t scare off an idea by being too critical early on. Chasing an idea and hearing it come together is my favorite thing in the entire world. The only thing I love as much as the actual process of writing songs is sharing them with people. When Mike and I first started working together we started to form our own process which usually involved going somewhere off the grid in nature to create. In that situation we’d usually start writing the music first and as he began to build out the sonic landscape I'd be figuring out the lyrics. Our process has evolved so much in just the last year because we’re constantly creating together and always trying to grow and learn. One of my favorite places where we went to create was on a ranch in Northern California in an area called Surprise Valley. This place is so special. It’s like you can feel something sacred happened there 100 years ago and the energy remained untouched. “Run Girl” was the first song we made there. We found an old 1971 Gibson SG in a barn, I don’t think it had been touched in 50 years, brought it back to our cabin and Mike started to riff like I had never heard him before.
It was as if the previous musician was coming through to help us write that day. The lyrics effortlessly poured out of me for that song. I feel incredibly inspired while at the ranch. I’ve always used songwriting as a way for me to explore my emotions, it’s a form of therapy for me. I’m very inspired by my relationships with other people and with myself. I love introspective songs. Nature, big questions, small questions, spirituality, movies and conversations all inspire me so much. I feel like a sponge constantly soaking up everything around me and seeing what ideas I can make something out of and what I need to let go. You absolutely can expect a full LP, I just can’t say the exact timeline yet. I am so proud of this music and spent so long getting it right that I don’t want to rush at the final step of releasing it. My main focus right now is my EP “Surprise Valley”; a collection of 6 songs out everywhere March 21st. It felt right to name this first batch of songs after the place that inspired me so much - it’s infused into this music and represents so much to me. Going there brought me so much more than just songs, it brought me back to myself. I’m playing a show in Nashville March 26th at The Basement to celebrate the EP release! I’m so excited to finally share these songs live. They are meant for the stage. I got more show announcements coming very soon... I’m ready to get this show on the road!
