36-year-old Maggie Rose is a veteran of the Nashville music scene with a personality as sweet as her bright blonde bob. Despite having performed at the Grand Ole Opry over 100 times, she departed from the commercial country scene long ago, now opting for a more timeless sound that pulls from a variety of genres.
“I love the urgency of live music, like just making music with a band and bringing that energy that you see on the stage into the studio,” Rose said. “I think that lent to the evolution of my music and more of that soul kind of feeling.
“It's American rock and soul. It's pop. It has a lot of that Laurel Canyon pop feel,” is how Rose described her current musical style. “And I try to make songs and pair them with production that's going to stand the test of time.”
Rose has been getting more experimental with her musical collaborations as well. She recently released an electronic remix of “Under The Sun,” a song from her new album No One Gets Out Alive, with Dutch producer LAVERN. Despite being halfway across the world from each other, the two connected via social media to create this dance remix.
“The beautiful thing about Instagram and the internet is just how it's opened the lines of communication between artists, and those avenues for collaboration are so much more available,” Rose said. “So we've been talking on WhatsApp and I think he really liked my voice. I loved his work and we did all of [the collaboration] remotely. So he took the stems of that project and then put his own spin on it, and it brought a little energy to this song that has a really cool groove when we do it, but now it's ready for the clubs.”
Acclaimed songwriter Pat McLaughlin, who originally hails from Waterloo, is one of multiple collaborators on No One Gets Out Alive. Rose spoke highly of the Iowa native.
“Oh, Pat's the man! I loved working with him. We wrote a song together with our friend Cliff Aldrich called ‘Only Time Around.’ And Pat's sensibilities as a musician are so classical, but he's also kind of quirky in his own right. He came up with a lot of the chord structure of that song, which is this beautiful circle of fifths, kind of like it wanders around in a way that matches the longing of the song. And he's so funny, and his stories are plentiful in terms of what he's done in his career. I just wrote with him the other week as well. It's been a great friendship, and he lent his acoustic playing to the recordings of that song as well,” Rose said.
No One Gets Out Alive was a coming-of-age project for Rose, and the inspiration for many of the songs came from personal loss and the aftermath of the pandemic. The record is about embracing challenges and making something beautiful despite imperfect circumstances.
“I think sometimes in life, when we want to take on a big goal, we're like, ‘Oh, I just need to wait 'til this thing is perfect, or this thing is perfect.’ And there rarely is this scenario where everything's exactly in its place. And this record was about trying to make something beautiful, even without, you know, everything not being so perfectly clean-cut,” Rose explained.
When you scroll through Rose’s Instagram page or see her live in person, her sense of fashion is unmistakable. Rose calls it both an “occupational perk” and a perk of being a woman, as she's able to use aesthetics to visually show the audience a bit of what they’re about to hear. Both musically and visually, she gravitates to something that “has a little edge but has elegance to it as well.” While she collaborates with a stylist at times, Rose’s personal style, just like her music, is a reflection of who she is.
Rose was enthusiastic about playing Wooly’s, not only because of the venue’s rich history, but also because she has family ties to Iowa on her mother’s side.
And there were a lot of magical moments throughout Rose’s set at Wooly’s: ethereal voices and harmonies (especially during the “No One Gets Out Alive” title track), killer instrumentation and sustained rockstar energy throughout the whole show. The same gentle kindness Rose showed in her interview shone through her stage presence too. It was impressive to see this powerhouse, who has played stages like the Grand Ole Opry an unbelievable amount of times, seem genuinely grateful to be performing in Des Moines, and that appreciation was echoed by her audience.
When she was about to play her latest single “Fake Flowers,” Rose encouraged everyone to call up their local radio station and ask them to play the song. But don’t worry, Studio One has been giving it plenty of spins!
