If it’s true that it’s best to “write what you know,” then Kitsap Peninsula powerhouse musical artist Alessandra Rose certainly took those words to heart when she crafted her soaring new record, RODEOMOTHH.
With an album title that’s an anagram for “motherhood,” every song on Rose’s iconic recording tells a part of her journey of being a mother.
At 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 16, Debra Heesch will present Alessandra Rose, with her full band, at Snapdragon Bakery & Café. The entire RODEOMOTHH album (and then some) will be on the live music menu at the Snapdragon show.
“Yeah, I did the gentle parenting for ten years,” said Rose, in a Voice of Vashon interview last week. “But now it’s time for Mama to get back on stage and sing more dynamic, rock-centered music.”
It’s been 12 years since Alessandra busted onto the local music scene with her debut record “You Are Gold.” Two kids followed, the second of whom had some medical challenges.
“I played music as soon as I got out of high school,” said Rose. “It was the only thing that I felt I was really good at. So where do I fit in after having a child miss 25 days of school in kindergarten because he’s so sick?”
After a decade of playing mostly occasional single shows, while putting all of her energy into her family’s needs, Rose is now happy to report that there’s good news on the medical front with her youngest. It’s a new stability that has freed her to pursue her passion by stunning audiences with a voice that’s been called “bright as a brass bell and edged with a warm glow of whiskey and wood smoke.”
RODEOMOTHH was recorded over just ten days in Nashville with Grammy-winning producer Mitch Dane (The Blind Boys of Alabama). Alessandra showed up with 15 prospective songs in her back pocket. All ten of her favorites made it through to the final recording.
“I was on a mission to finally make the songs that were boiling up inside of me,” she said. “It was one of those artistic moments where it was all literally just coming out of me — what I wanted to sound like, what I wanted the songs to be. I was fully me through that whole process. I didn’t have to make tweaks to sound more ‘Nashville.’ I was trying to bring the waters of Seattle to Nashville and find harmony within that.”
Finding that harmony was made all the easier by the fact that Rose has been comfortable in front of audiences back here at home since a very young age. She would climb up onto any stage that would have her, singing in church from age 3, and then joining whatever musical choir was available to her in her hometown of Port Orchard.
“We had shows non-stop all over the peninsula that I went to all the time,” she said. “And then I started doing live shows at 16 and 17 in Bremerton. There was no other right path that made sense.”
This weekend, her Vashon audience may find that the spirit of RODEOMOTHH is best exemplified by a song called “Punch to the Lungs.”
“This is the song for my youngest, my little Wolfie,” said Rose. “It’s his hero song, his moment to fight and survive and to literally be that cowboy inside of him — and I will be along for that ride to support him.”
Get tickets to the show at AlessandraRoseVashon.BrownPaperTickets.com. All ages are welcome.
Jeff Hoyt is a voice actor and the program manager for Voice of Vashon.
