George Rowe: Interview with Rocketown artist George Rowe

We got to chat with George Rowe during the 2005 GMA week activities in Nashville TN. Want to know why George likes his cell phone? Read on to find out...

MQ: I was looking at your bio and noticed you went to Pepperdine University and got a law degree...and now you are on Rocketown Records with your own album. So, obviously you didn't take the normal route of a singer/songwriter...

GR: Right..(laugh)

MQ: So, can you tell us a little bit about how you came into this - and how you realized you had a passion for music and that it was something you wanted to do?

GR: Yeah, you know, I've always had - and always known I've had a passion to do this. And I've always done it - all through college, and law school - on the side, nights and weekends was singing. And everyone else around me was telling me, "Why aren't you doing this?" (laugh) "It's evident of what you want to be doing, what you should be doing, and what people respond to. But I had a scholarship to go to college and a scholarship to go to law school, and I came from a pretty poor, small, one traffic light-town and no one gets an opportunity like that where I come from. So, I felt like I couldn't turn it down. And a lot of it was probably reactionary. I wanted a life better than I had growing up - financially. My parents brought up a great home for us. My mom cleaned houses for a living. My dad worked in a factory. But the thought of me being an attorney and not waiting tables and being a starving artist trying to live between gigs, was pridefully appealing to me. But at all times still, on nights and weekends - even after law school when I had started working, I was still doing this. And then it just got to a point where my wife and I thought, "What are we doing? Why am I doing this? Why am I trying to lead these two lives and not go with this one thing that my heart feels drawn to. And primarily it was an issue of faith. I thought if giving up a stable, pretty comfortable income to go into what really is a music ministry, where you're not sure how you're going to meet your financial obligations - it was unsettling. BUt nonetheless, we felt like that's what God wanted to be doing. So, I quit the day job, and I just started singing more. For weeks at a time, I traveled around churches, colleges, youth events - singing as much as I could. And after almost two years without any income, it was a tough couple of years. But, I found my way here to Nashville and go to know folks at Rocketown Records and signed a record deal with them last year ... and started a new life with their help.

MQ: Have you had any mentors that have helped you along any step of the way?

George Rowe

GR: Oh yeah, definitely. Probably my biggest influence - my cheerleader - has been my wife. She, at all times, was discouraging me from going to work everyday and was pushing me to move in this direction full time, and continues to do so. My parents, her parents...the dean of the law school even! I went to Pepperdine law school out in Malibu California and there are a lot of folks that work in the entertainment industry in Malibu and that area and he was doing as much as he could, pitching demos to people that he knew (laugh) because even he knew that was what I was going to do. Some of my professors in law school were helping me out. So, literally everyone but me (laugh) was pushing me to do this. I don't know if they thought I was a bad attorney (laughing)...or that they just wanted to be supportive of this...

MQ: Did you find yourself getting frustrated with the job you were in? Was there anything in particular that made you move out of there...

GR: Ummm, there was not one final thing. It was a cumulative thing. I had come back from a weekend of shows and sat at my desk on a Monday morning thinking, "I really wish I could be doing - right now - what I was doing last night, Saturday night, and Friday night." People were responding to that and I felt like I had touched lives. I'm not doing anything meaningful here...today. I looked forward to the weekend when I could go back out again. It was just after a few years of feeling that - the office I worked in was great - it was nonprofit actually, for Christian nonprofit - but, it was just that my heart was elsewhere.

MQ: We're big fans of the singer/songwriters - and we noticed that your songs have been covered by Janna Long (of Avalon) and Kristy Starling...

GR: Yeah, that was before my album had come out. With Kristy Starling, one of my altime music heroes - David Foster, who I've followed religiously since I was a kid - I've known everything he's worked on, everything he's written, everyone he's worked with and produced - it's just been a dream of mine to work with him. And he heard my demo version of 'Broken' and called me one day, called my cell phone (laugh) and said, "Hey, this is David Foster. I just heard a demo of yours with a bunch of songs on it, guess which one I love?" All this time, I thought it a friend from law school,

"Alright, you idiot - Jim - is this you? What are you -"

"No, this is not Jim - the idiot, this is David Foster."

(laugh)

George Rowe

"Oh! Uhhh....uhh"

Yeah, but he asked, "Guess which song I really loved on there?"

I thought, "Oh, I bet you loved 'Christmas Baby'"

He said, "No, actually I hated that song..."

(laugh)

"...think of another one."

"Uhhh, Broken?"

"Yes, ok, now tell me why I liked broken."

I said, "Well, probably because of 'this' and 'that' ..."

He said, "Exactly! Now, I'm calling for three reasons: number one - I want to talk to you about helping you get a record deal. I have a good friend in Nashville named Michael Smith that owns a label called Rocketown Records - have you ever heard of him? I just flew out to Nashville to see him in concert last week. I think I might phone him and tell him about you."

I said, "That's funny because just yesterday I signed a record deal with Rocketown Records."

And then he asked, "Ok, numbers two and three: I'd like to pitch this song to a couple of artists I'm working with."

One of the artists didn't use it, but Kristy Starling did and David produced it - which was just an honor. When I wrote that song - in my mind - I was visualizing, "Ok, what would David do here - if I could afford strings, if I could afford tympani, or if I could afford a really nice $25k nine foot concert grand piano. So, when we were talking I said, "You know, I'm so glad - so honored - that you're doing this, I'm just hearing Bill Ross doing a string arrangement..."

"That's the funniest thing! I've already called Bill Ross and asked him to do the strings for it."

"Well, I was picturing Humberto Gatica doing the mix..."

He said, "Oh - Humberto's right here. We're working on the mix right now."

It's kind of fun when you connect musically like that - especially with someone you look up to. And then with Janna Long, it was the same thing. It was before my album came out and someone there at her record label heard the song and Janna really liked it and so she cut it, which was a great honor.

MQ: How would you describe your sound to someone who's not familiar with it?

GR: It's pop. It's AC. It's really heavily influenced by R&B, jazz. Yeah, I'm not one who gets up and runs around and dances on stage. I prefer to sit behind my security blanket - piano, and just sing from my heart.

MQ: Who has influenced you and your sound - past or present?

GR: Just about anything that David Foster had done when I was growing up has materially influenced my sound. Back in the 80s, any power ballad you heard from Chicago to Whitney Houston, Celine Dion (I love big orchestral arrangements - you actually don't much of that on my record, but that's something that I love) - stuff he did with Richard Marx. And I'm talking production, I'm not talking the songs necessarily - but I like listening for production. And I'm a real sucker for sweet, lush, thick, pretty music. I grew up listening to Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, DeBarge, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston. Today, I love Switchfoot - is probably one of my favorite records right now. I love piano jazz - Bradd Modell. Probably the biggest genre in my collection is classical though. I love R&B. I love Hip Hop. Now that I live in Nashville, I'm forcing myself to dig into Country! (laugh)

MQ: You can't avoid it!

GR: Yeah.

MQ: How do you approach songwriting?

Taylor

GR: If I didn't have my cellphone, I don't know what I would do. There are over 25 voicemails on there right now - new songs. The most inspiring moments come when I'm not looking for them - when I'm not expecting them - and it's usually in the car ... or going up the stairs and something will come into my head. Maybe in the shower. I've been known to jump out of the shower and grab my cellphone and record an idea. It seems like the greatest moments come not when I'm sitting down at the piano, forcing myself during my scheduled writing time, but rather when I wasn't looking for it. Sometimes it comes that way. Sometimes it does come when I'm writing with others. Sometimes I'll get a lyric - and I'll try to develop that. But usually, it's a music idea that develops and I try to develop that.

MQ: So, are you working on a new record right now?

GR: Yeah...

MQ: I know it's early on, but are there any themes that you are working on?

GR: Umm, the theme - I'm not sure. I've been writing for a year and a half now and I've got dozens of songs to choose from and it really won't be until I decide which ten are on there, that the theme is obvious. I need to sit down and listen to the quality of the songs and listen for a story that's interwoven throughout - or some consistency. Or maybe nothing at all - maybe there will just be ten different messages that were on my heart. So, I don't know. That will come towards the end. Sonically, it's not going to be as produced and programmed out like the last one was. It's going to be a lot more organic with me in a room, with a piano, a guitar player, a bass player, and drums - and that's pretty much it. It's really going to be a stripped down - less produced - than the last one was. It's still me. You'll hear some consistency. It won't be an abberation but different.

MQ: What about touring?

GR: I'm not on tour with anybody else. I've worked it out so that I can tour on the weekends - using Friday, Saturday, Sunday show and then come home and be home Monday through Thursday. That's how it's been for the last three months.

MQ: What can the fans expect - a full band, or just you and a piano, etc...

GR: It always depends what the venue wants. If they want a full band, I'll bring the band. If they just want me and a piano - which is what it usually is - and I love that as well, that's what I'll do. Sometimes, I'll bring a guitar player. Sometimes, a guitar and percussionist. It really just depends on what the venue wants. Usually - 80 percent of the time, it's just me and a piano.

MQ: How do you deal with life on the road and being away from the family?

GR: You know, this schedule has been so much better than my life as an attorney. (laugh) A lot of people assume that life on the road means a lot of time away from home, but I'm actually home a lot more now than I was when I was an attorney. And the quality of my time at home is a lot better. My old life - the 9 to 5 job is never 9 to 5, it's 7 to 7. And I'd get home at 6:30, 7 at night and I'd have 60 minutes with the kids before they went to bed - and usually that was crazy time, trying to sit down and eat dinner, catching up, changing diapers or whatever. It wasn't relaxing. It was fun, but it wasn't relaxing. Then I'd put the kids to bed and open the mail, answer emails, return some phone calls, talk to my wife for a few minutes and then resume the work that I brought home with me. Granted, I was under the same roof, sleeping together - it wasn't great quality time. It wasn't even time together. We were just in the same vicinity. Now, I go away for three or four days and sometimes as much as seven days on a tour and then I come home for a day or two. And then after the tour is over, I'm home for a week or two or three or six weeks of doing nothing but sleeping in and taking a 10:00 nap, and then having lunch, and taking a 2:00 nap, and going to the grocery store with the whole family...and cooking dinner and taking bubble baths with the kids. I mean, it's six weeks of doing that, then I go out on tour and then I have another four weeks of doing that. I don't know what job gives you six weeks of vacation, and then four weeks of vacation, and then three weeks of vacation, and then 2 days of vacation...to me it's a great improvement. It takes some getting used to - and rethinking how to live life...because when I'm away, a lot of responsibility falls on my wife. I miss a lot. I miss a lot of the fun times, a lot of the difficult times. And to be a part of both of those via phone is a challenge. Whether it's discipline by phone, or encouragement by phone, or laugh with them by phone - it takes some rethinking but overall, bottomline, we love it. It's a huge improvement over what I left - what my last life was. We love it.

MQ: Yeah, it seems like you stepped out on faith and it was a win/win situation for you...

GR: Yeah, that's exactly right!

MQ: What do you do in your free time - during those down times between touring and so forth? Do you have any hobbies?

GR: Yeah, photography. A lot of people tell me that I should consider doing it semi-professionally. I don't have the gear. I can't afford to buy the gear. So, the stuff I have is rather low budget. I have a Jeep Wrangler and on a day like this I take the doors and the top off and I'll drive for hours just taking pictures of ... an old abandoned church, or a tree, or a winding road. I have a ton of pictures of my kids. I jog everyday and have my camera with me at all times. I've taken pictures of some interesting things on my runs. I like sitting down at my piano and playing and coming up with ideas. More than anything, staying up with my family - catching up...making up for lost time.

MQ: Can you tell us about your involvement with the International Justice Mission?

GR: That's an organization that helps rescue young girls who are enslaved - usually in third world countries - usually in Asia. It's a huge problem that we really don't know much about here in the United States. It's a group of mostly attorneys that goes in - they officially themselves, go in - and rescue these girls - or negotiates them. A lot of times they've got quasi-legitimate contracts that they've signed and they're indebted to these sex slave masters - and the attorneys will go in and try to get them out. Yeah, we're going to be working with some artists to help lend a voice to the organization. I'll help and do whatever I can.