She's Not To Be Taken Lightly
Katy Rose is All Wise Beyond Her Years

>> The stunning Ms. Katy Rose. >>

>> She may look like the girl next door, and sound far better, but don’t go and compare Katy Rose to anyone just yet.   Can just anyone throw out original songs that make you think about the kind of quality the Beatles put out there, but with the attitude and straightforwardness of Alanis, as Rose does on her debut, Because I Can?

No, Katy Rose is not just anyone.

Barely old enough to drive and not yet old enough to drink, Rose is mature well beyond her years.  Her music has all the passion and integrity of someone easily two to three times her age, but with the sorts of hooks and melody that most people never learn.  She’s able to generate that universal feel and sound, and yet it’s impossible not to immediately be impressed with what she does. 

Maybe her age makes it all the more impressive, but that’s not what she’s looking for.  Rose wants the chance to write, sing and do all the other stuff in between.  She’s as passionate in real life as she is in her music, and that easily came through in the fifteen minutes we spent with her.  It’s hard not to be a bit blown away.

Of course, getting past her defenses isn’t so easy.   Before we got her to open up about who she is, it was obvious that she was probing to find out why we were talking to her anyway.  If you don’t come with your ‘A’ game, Katy Rose will see right through it.

Luckily, we had done our homework, gotten into her music, and want to know what makes Katy Rose tick.  Here’s how it went:

VOX: What’s the Katy Rose story so far?
Katy Rose: Hmm.  That’s a complicated question.  I was born into a musical family, so it’s sort of all that I’ve known.  My parents were hippies, living in Redondo Beach, then we moved to the San Fernando Valley.   Because of them I’ve always been around music, and I’ve been writing music or prose my whole life, whether it was on my hand, on a napkin, in a journal or something else.  It sort of just morphed into songwriting at some point.  It was my way of dealing with family stuff, other things, shitty things…whatever I needed to deal with.

>> There's much more to Katy than meets the eye.. >>

In some ways I feel like I’ve lived three lives in my 17 or so years.  With everything that’s happened along the way, it feels like a lot longer than it was.  I created myself in some ways, and music has been my way of letting my parents know where I was at, mentally, emotionally…

VOX: You have your face on the cover of the record.   Are you at all concerned that people will lump you in with all the other young, female artists out there and not take you as seriously as they should, based on your music?
KR: Obviously, I would rather people bought the record for what it is and not for the cover or what they think it should be or something like that.   Sometimes I wish I hadn’t put my face on the cover.

VOX: What inspires you?  Artists as well as other things.
KR: The everyday pain of living…I tend to over think everything.   It’s just my nature.  I can be dead asleep and then bolt awake with an idea or a song just comes out.  I can work all day, doing shows, photo shoots and interviews, and then be up writing all night long, overanalyzing everything to death, stuck in the hopeless reveries of my mind. 

I saw where one writer called me the ‘tortured Avril,’ which I think is fucking hilarious.  I had to just laugh at that.  I’m not some numbed, tortured soul who is miserable all the time; I’ve just experienced so much pain and wear that some of it comes out tortured.  It’s my way of dealing with it.

I also don’t see any comparison with Avril, to be honest.   I mean, we’re both young, both wear lots of eyeliner, and we’re both kinda small, but I don’t know that our music has anything in common.  I don’t read where people compare our music; they just compare us.  I know I’m not Britney (Spears) because I actually sing on stage, and I think comparing me to Avril is wrong because I write all my own music and lyrics.

>> "I'm not some numb, tortured soul..." >>

VOX: How’s touring going?
KR: It’s going really well.  It’s really everything I could have every wanted.  I really enjoy all the different aspects that go with it: the shows, radio, TV, everything.

VOX: Was the recording process what you had expected?
KR: I didn’t have any previous notions of what to expect, but it was the most natural process for me, which I think comes through in the songs.  It takes me just a few seconds to get locked in and feel like I’m in my element.

Most of the songs on Because I Can were written when I was 13 or 14, and some when I was 15, and even though I’ve grown as a person, I feel like those songs were what I wanted to get out there now.  I still feel like I have so much more to share.

VOX: “Overdrive” is the first single – can you tell me about the song?
KR: It’s a story about a singer trying to be free and independent in a city that tries to own you and kill you slowly.  It’s really that I’ve seen it first hand.