Singer/songwriter Rose Carleo is currently touring with Paul Woseen on his ‘Bombido’ tour. Paul, of course, is the bass player with Aussie rockers, The Screaming Jets and Rose met Paul several years ago in Perth while her partner, Mick, has known him for quite some time, and has done a couple of gigs with Paul in different line-ups so, when it came time to put together a band to record, they both thought of Paul. “I wanted to hand pick the band,” Rose explained. “He loves my material which is great and you can really hear that on the album. I’m planning my album tour as we speak as well so some of those dates of Paul’s will be on it as well when we do the band stuff so I guess it’s all cross promotion in a way, isn’t it?”
Rose says that it has been great touring with Paul. Both artists are promoting their own records and “The cross promotion works well.” The single is out now and Rose says that her album will hopefully be out at the end of March and she is very excited. “A lot of my stuff (song writing) is a collaborative effort as well and I like co-writing a lot because sometimes two heads are better than one but the actual subject matter and content is real life stuff; tribulations and all that kind of stuff that we go through. It’s important to me to have a meaning or a bit of a message in a song. It doesn’t always have to be deep and heavy.”
“I first started singing about twenty odd years ago. I first got dragged up on stage after I was dared by mum at the age of thirteen and sort of had my first proper band when I was sixteen or seventeen. So music, I guess, was a bit of a given, even though I didn’t know it at the time, because my mum was a huge music fan. We’d always have music playing at home. I think, with country music, there is a real honesty about it; the storytelling, the song writing and the subject matter. That’s what really got me. There was a message and you’d be hanging on every word until the next verse. Is she going to come back or not?” she laughs. “That really sort of sparked my interest in singing… that feeling when you get up on stage. It’s just magic. Music has got me through a lot of things in life.” She recounts the day that her father passed away. “I had a gig that night and there was a band involved.” Rose felt obliged to go ‘on with the show’. “I got through it and I did it,” she recalls. “It’s such a powerful thing. I guess there have been times over the years when I’ve thought ‘Oh I might have a bit of a rest from it.’ But who am I trying to kid? I can never have a rest from it.”
Rose says that her musical influences include an eclectic mix of artists and styles. She cites Emmy Lou Harris as a major influence, along with The Eagles, George Jones, Patsy Cline and Etta James. But her tastes also extend to rock like AC/DC, Baby Animals and Buck Cherry. “I’ve got a diverse range of tastes,” she points out. “So I have quite a few influences in that respect but, in my early childhood, there was definitely a lot of country and country rock stuff. This new album is definitely more blues/rock based but, as far as my own style, it’s ‘Rose Carleo style’,” she laughs. “I don’t know what it is! I do love so much music but I guess singing from the heart and soul for me, that’s what it’s all about.”
by Sharyn Hamey
Copyright ©op Sharyn Hamey 2015. All rights reserved
For more info on Rose’s upcoming shows, click here
Or go to Rose’s website www.rosecarleo.com
