Josh Rouse – Leaving middle America behind
“Unfortunately,” he adds, with a rueful laugh, “the singer-songwriter crowd isn’t quite as big as it was then.”
Especially not in the United States. Among the more interesting things in Rouse’s career to date is that his most enthusiastic reception tends to come overseas. And here’s where another chink opens in the insular-indie-Americana argument. Here at home, the territory trod by Rouse and his contemporaries has relatively narrow bounds and limited outlets: Americana radio stations, niche magazines (ahem), small to mid-size clubs, maybe an occasional late-night TV appearance. Even standard-bearers such as Wilco and Ryan Adams can’t expect widespread commercial airplay or the album sales to match. So it’s easy to think of the music itself as limited in scope and reach, the province of puritans seeking a haven unsullied by whatever constitutes the corrupt mainstream.
But in Europe, Rouse has found, there’s much less distance between guy-with-a-guitar music and the mainstream audience.
“It’s really weird,” he says, “I just played Portugal a few weeks ago, and I do really well there. I did two sold-out theaters there, solo. And they have the catalogue, you know? They’re into artists. They’re into knowing all the songs; it’s not like, ‘Oh, I know the one song ‘Directions’ he has.’ It’s pretty cool. Where over here, I think it’s more about, people will buy one record or they’ll know a few songs. In Europe, I don’t know why, but it’s a bit more that they really follow an artist.”
So if American singer-songwriter music connects better in Lisbon than Los Angeles, how parochial can it be? There are explanations, of course: most prominently, there is the commercial and cultural dominance of hip-hop, commercial country and post-grunge nu-metal in the United States, none of which cast quite the same shadow overseas. And while dance music in its various iterations regularly makes the charts in Europe, adult pop hasn’t been sidelined as forcefully as it has in the States.
“There’s a smaller window here,” he says. “Over there, this record could do really well, I think. I mean, I could have a gold record in the U.K. It always seems like much more of a possibility, you know? Here, I just kind of do what I can do. I’m not on a major label, and I don’t have someone sinking millions of dollars into my career or trying to get me on the radio. I don’t know if the records I’m making really sound like…” he pauses, and laughs, “…the rest of the homogenized shit that’s on the radio here.”
Not that he’s averse to getting on the radio, making videos, or any of the rest of it — if it can be on his own terms. “I would be interested in doing that,” he says, “if there’s a company that would be interested in saying, ‘Hey, this is what should be on the radio, and we believe in this’ enough to where Beyonce can scoot over and hear some acoustic guitars and my weird voice on the radio.”
You don’t have to hate what’s on American pop radio to see Rouse’s point: From the perspective of a guy with a guitar trying to make a living, Europe seems like friendlier territory. His music might get filed under Americana, but its most comfortable affiliations are international.
As are Rouse’s, these days. The move to Spain was prompted in no small part by his divorce, the effects of which Rouse is still absorbing.
“I’m still kind of going through it,” he says. “I felt free, I felt liberated, but at the same time there’s the guilt thing. You still have to get over the guilt of being in a relationship for a long time, not being there, and all the friends you’ve made together and all that. I don’t know, I’m always the kind of person who keeps everything to myself and then subconsciously it ends up floating into a song somewhere.”
When it does, it might be with a new vocabulary. After finding an apartment in Altea, Rouse initially used his new surroundings for songwriting inspiration. But pretty soon the culture outside the windows beckoned.
“When I first got there I really was inspired and I went through a week of not even leaving my apartment and just coming up with things,” he says. “And then I got into my Spanish lessons, got into the siesta and the long lunches, and now I’m not doing anything.” He laughs. “That’s been some adjusting; I feel like I should be doing something all the time. I’m used to, here in America, that I should be going or I should be working or something, and they’re just not worried about that. They’re about enjoying life and enjoying food and the sunshine. It’s interesting. It’s been a good experience.”
And not one he’s in a hurry to conclude. Although he thinks he may move back to the States eventually, possibly to New York, for now he sounds like he’s happy a long way from home.
“We’re touring there for a month and then we’re coming here for a month. I’ll be back in Europe in May, and then in July I’ll probably have some festivals and things over there.
“I think my career is somewhat focused over there right now,” he concludes, “I just feel like I do better over there.”
None of which really resolves my original question — Does this still matter? — beyond the obvious point that it matters to Rouse and, OK, to the people in several countries who come to his shows and buy his records. Which is maybe answer enough. And when I find myself after a few days with “Winter In The Hamptons” running continuously in my head — without the iPod — I have to concede that, maybe, it matters to me, too, in the same way the Sri Lankan rap and Brazilian funk do: as something I want to hear again.
ND contributing editor Jesse Fox Mayshark lives in New York City, where he changes diapers, sings “Hush Little Baby” a lot and sometimes writes.