Additional Information
Rose Cousins should be on your radar if her name isn’t already. The talented singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist from P.E.I. (now based in Halifax) has won multiple JUNOS and has had her cinematic songs in many television shows.
She’s also gained some notoriety for her stripped-back rendition of Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U,” but with her latest release, Conditions of Love: Vol. 1, Rose Cousins has completely reinvigorated her sound. Putting the piano, her first instrument, at the forefront as the leading instrument of this new batch of songs, Rose has delivered 10 beautiful songs, her communions and reminiscings on the bold topic of love. Ahead of her cross-Canada Conditions of Love Tour (including a show at Sala Rossa on April 7) Rose had time to discuss relinquishing songs, her love of nature, the piano, and photography
PAN M 360: So I listened to Conditions of Love: Volume One. I really enjoyed it. It was a great walking around Montreal album. And I just wanted to ask you if kind of you find your songwriting to be like a cathartic experience, to release things, or to tell a broader story.
Rose Cousins: I think both. I mean, for sure, writing is always and will always be, cathartic for me, for sure. I think maybe, broad in so far as I’m singing, hopefully, you know, non-specific things, well, specific to me, but not that you would necessarily know. And so, I’m hoping that the broad thing is that someone can listen to it and say, ‘Oh, you know me too,’ and that is that there’s a door in for them too.
PAN M 360: So kind of vague thoughts about the human experience that people can empathize with?
Rose Cousins: I think that’s the role of music. We’re trying to find ways, even outside of music, we’re trying to find ways to relate to each other. And the music is, it’s this instigator of a deeper connection for me and I would assume anyone who comes to see me, but also anyone who listens to music. I mean, you know, you’re going into a room of a band that you love so much, and what is the thing you’re getting from them? It’s not necessarily like the specific things they’re saying in their lyrics, but it could be, it could be a feeling that they’re creating.
It could be a nostalgia that they’re bringing up in your own experience. Maybe people are having, like, a side-by-side experience. Maybe they meet at a show. I think it’s specific and non-specific. If the song can, once it is out, it’s going to do its own job, and it’s not my job to kind of curate an experience.
PAN M 360: Yeah once that song is out, it’s like it’s no longer yours.
Rose Cousins: I think so. There is a relinquish that has to happen because how somebody interprets a song might not necessarily be the same meaning that I wrote it from. And that doesn’t matter. If it’s hitting them and doing something for them, then the job is done.
PAN M 360: Going off that, one of the songs that really touched me the most was, “Forget Me Not.” And I just love all of the poetic references to nature; like dogwoods, lilacs, and dandelions. Do you find that nature is always kind of creeping in your songwriting?
Rose Cousins: Yeah, I think it’s always kind of been in there somewhere. But there is a through line on this record of the natural world: like the moon in “Borrowed Light,” all the flowers and trees and plants in “Forget Me Not,” and the wolf in “Wolf and Man.” I think because I wrote the record during the pandemic times I was having a deeper communion with nature.
I’ve got a dog. I was walking out around all the time and just kind of like being in the same place where the seasons were changing, and I was in the same place where normally I would just be like running around and touring and stuff. And I was having a different, more in depth communion with the seasons–specifically spring and summer. I was seeing it and identifying plants, or you know, being shown plants or trees that I wouldn’t have thought about what the names were of them before, but then being like, ‘whoa.’ Like watching, just watching the whole thing, come to life and then and then die, and then come to life and then die. So, yes, the natural world is very much a part of this record. And I grew up on P.E.I. running around near the ocean and in the woods. And I think this is a kind of a return to that.
PAN M 360: Piano’s always been in your music, but as an accompanying instrument, sometimes in the background. But with this record, it’s right at the forefront right from the beginning. What made you decide to give it more of a leading instrument feel?
Rose Cousins: Well, piano is my first instrument, and the one that I love the most, and the one that, when I started my career, was like the hardest to travel with. So I didn’t. I was just playing guitar, and the friend I co-produced this record with, Joshua Van Tassel, who’s been my drummer for a long time, was living in Toronto. He’s from Nova Scotia. He moved back to Nova Scotia in 2022 and sent me to go and look at a piano for him. At this fancy piano store called Dr. Piano, which I completely avoided the entire time I’ve lived here because they have, like, the $80,000 pianos, right? I can’t go to that store.
I went to try out this piano for him, and then I was in the showroom, and I saw this older, used baby grand. And I just asked them, ‘What’s the deal with this piano? ‘ It was reserved, but I’ve always wanted a full piano, so I just said, “Can you put me on the list for cool, old pianos?” So that was on a Thursday, and then on the Monday, they called me. They’re like, ‘The piano is available.’ So I went and they pulled it into a recital room, and I spent a couple of hours with it and then I went into a complete existential breakdown, ‘Can I can I afford this piano? Like, do I deserve to have this piano? Which is ridiculous, because when I said that to like, my friends who were trying to help make me, help me make the decision, they’re just like, “You play piano for a living.”
PAN M 360: Right, it was your first instrument after all.
Rose Cousins: Yes. It’s just like a very special communion that happens between me and the piano. And I feel like my feelings come out in the purest of forms. And yeah, once I had that in my house, I was just like, ‘This is it. I want to make my record on this piano in this house with Josh. And yeah, that’s kind of, that’s kind of how it’s born.
PAN M 360: What kind of piano? Since it’s used, does it have a story?
Rose Cousins: It’s a 1967 Baldwin and the fellow who dropped it off, who sold it to me, said that it was played by a woman in the Cincinnati Symphony. So it definitely has some miles for sure!
PAN M 360: The album title is Conditions of Love: Vol. 1. Is there going to be volume two? Do you have the plans?
Rose Cousins: It’s more about the infinite volumes that can exist on this topic, right? I mean, it’s not one that you could write all the volumes for. Is it the beginning of an exploration for me? Is it the continued exploration that I’ve been doing since I’ve been writing and playing? I think probably everything that I’ve written so far could be one of the volumes, but I see it really kind of as the endless topic that we’re all writing about. We’re all trying to figure out how to navigate love in all its conditions.
PAN M 360: Do you have any, non-musical passions outside of music that influence your art?
Rose Cousins: Yes, photography. I do analog photography, so film and Polaroid, 35 mils and Polaroid. In the artwork that I’ve done for this album, I worked with a photographer named Lindsay Duncan, who is a wonderful collaborator. She lives in Toronto. We had, well, I had a very specific vision that I wanted to do, and she was amazing. So, each song has in—the deluxe vinyl, you’d see it, its own picture the singles that came out, they each have a picture of basically me. Most of them are me running out of the scene, but me in this pink suit in the scene. The pink suit being or symbolizing love.
Photos by Lindsay Duncan
