Rose Cousins was 28 years old when she decided to make her passion a full-time job. “I was kind of close to a meltdown at work,” the Canadian singer-songwriter recalls. “I was frustrated with not being able to just get out and play music.”
By that time, Cousins had been gigging steadily for four years and was putting the finishing touches on her first album. “I worked hard at it every day, learning how to play guitar, learning how to sing and collaborating with other musicians,” she says.
Drawing inspiration from her hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia, which she describes as a “warm, close-knit community,” Cousins established her name both through her original compositions and contributing vocals to her friends’ work as well. “All the feedback from audiences and other musicians made me feel more confident,” she remembers. “It was something I wanted to do as opposed to maybe being 21 and just doing it.”
With her stage legs firmly planted, Cousins was ready to learn more about the business side of music. Her 2006 debut record, “If You Were for Me,” afforded her the perfect opportunity. The Canadian Broadcasting Company, which Cousins says is “almost the equivalent of NPR in the states,” sponsored the release. The funding gave Cousins her first experience in a big recording studio and an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at how a record is promoted. “I was very lucky to be one of few recipients to get studio time and help promoting,” she says. “Every day I learned something that I could apply to the next release. It was really a best-case scenario and an amazing learning process.”
After releasing the album on her own label, Old Farm Pony Records, her efforts garnered favorable reviews and radio play. The exposure enabled Cousins to embark on the next phase of her career, one that would become one of her favorite things to do: tour. Since then, Cousins has been on the road up to nine months a year, traveling throughout Canada and the United States and recently returning from her first European trek. “Traveling is a great privilege,” she says. “It’s a thrill meeting hundreds of musicians doing the same thing, talking with them, creating music and getting to meet people whose music I already know.”
Despite her busy schedule, Cousins found time last year to record and release “The Send Off,” her sophomore effort. “It’s a little bit braver than the first record,” she says. “As I get older and learn more things, I’ve grown more confident.” Cousins says the album may sound different from its predecessor – “there’s more electric guitar on it, where the first release was mainly acoustic,” she offers as an example – but the spirit remains the same. “They’re songs about love, death, life and loneliness,” she continues. “My favorite music is the kind that evokes emotion, the songs that make a happy or painful scene in a movie more happy or painful. That’s what I aspire to do.”
Since the CD’s release last November, Cousins has become even more well acquainted with the road. “I plan to be touring until the next one, which will probably be in about two or three years.” she predicts. Cousins’ travels will bring her to Doylestown on March 14, where she’ll be taking the stage at Puck Live.
The schedule, she says, is fine by her: “I’m looking forward to going to new places. My goal is always just to keep moving, meet new people and make music with people I already love making music with.”
Go Online at www.rosecousins.com