Exclusive Interview with Dave Rosewood

Why country music ?
~ When I was a kid I sang a lot of gospel music in church. So my first experience with music was singing LOTS of gospel music. Sunday afternoons were very important to my family as we spent them with my grandma and grandpa. One Sunday afternoon when I was 8 years old I found this old plastic box and took it to my grandpa. I asked him, “grandpa what is this?”, he replied, “This is an 8 track.”, to which I asked, “what do you do with it grandpa?”. He took it from my small hands and over to his stereo and popped it in. What came out of the speakers was this, “Your Cheatin Heart, will make you weep, you’ll cry and cry, and try to sleep, but sleep won’t come, the whole night through, your cheatin heart will tell on you”. It was Hank Williams, and after hearing that as a child I have been a lifelong country music fan.

If everything and anything would be possible (waking the dead included) , which two people do you think should sing the ultimate country duet?
~ I would bring Hank Williams back and have him do a duet with Allison Krauss of I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry. I think their voices together would be so haunting and beautiful.

What song (that you’ve recorded) means the most to you and why?
~ Wow, that is a hard question. It’s almost like choosing between children, because you raised and nurtured your songs and then sent them out in to the world and hoped they would do their best. But I might look like at it like this, if I was dying and I had just time to sing one more song, I would sing my song Blowin´ Round. The reason is, this song talks about not having any time to kill, you only got one life to do what you want. I think Blowin´ Round would represent how I have and want to live my life, with no regrets right to the end.

Who would you like to write a song for you?
~ This is another hard question, there are and has been so many good songwriters. But I would pick Johnny Cash to write me a song. We have similar approaches to songs. Both of us like to tell stories both from our own lives and the lives of people we meet. Of course there is always a bit of shaping to the story so the listener can get a good narrative. But all the best songs start with a good story and boy was Johnny full of them from all his life experience.

What is the one thing that readers/fans would be surprised to know about you?
~ I enjoy sports very much. I enjoy almost every sport. So much that I played American football for many years including at the university level. I was also an American football coach for many years. If I wasn’t doing music I would still be coaching.

Give us one country song you never want to hear on radio anymore and tell us why.
~ I really don’t hate any song. If I don’t care for a song I tend to just ignore it rather than criticize it so I’ll answer this question with a quote from one of my hero’s Waylon Jennings, “My friends, this town is big enough for all of us”.

What is the question interviewers never seem to ask you and…you wish they would? (Please provide your answer as well.)
~ I would appreciate if interviewers would ask a bit more about the stories behind songs. I think it is a really interesting part of the creative process. Of course not every song has a direct story, but many of them do. So here is the question.

What is the story behind your song “Someday”?
~ I was working on a road crew setting up signs for work zones. The pay was good but the hours were LONG and I was away from home quite a bit. Our boss was a real jerk alway criticizing us for no good reason. Somethings happened to this effect as well as we were lied to. I realized that life was too short to work job that made you feel so miserable even if the pay was good so I quit that job. Went in and told the boss he could cut my paycheck and would never see me again. That night I sat out by a lake and looked out at the stars the line came to me, “You know a million dollars won’t set you free, I quit my job today because it wasn’t me”. Of course I had my guitar with me so the song Someday just flowed out of me from there. It’s a song about life being to short to be caught up in the rat race and you don’t even know why. Quitting that job is an important part of who I am, and I got a good song out of the experience to boot.

Describe the ultimate recording studio (we are more interested in the facilities than the technique)
~ Yeah, I would like to have an old country church with the pews still in it and a nice high ceiling. I would have a really nice multi-track recorder that went straight into a computer into my mixing program. I would have all the instruments set up already so I could just go in and record when I wanted to. Additionally I would use it as a live music venue and do live recordings of bands. That is why I would still want the seating in the building. The best part is I am already taking steps towards realizing my dream one small step at a time. My studio is called Aula Studios and it will be realized one day. I am very much looking forward to helping other artists achieve their sound at Aula Studios by also working as a producer in addition to being a music artist in my own right. Every new piece of gear I add and new experience I get by producing my own music takes me one step closer to my goal.

Johnny or June? (and tell us the reason behind your choice.)
~ June was an amazing singer, songwriter, and performer in her own right, let alone the stuff she did with The Carter family and Johnny, but at the end of the day I have to pick Johnny because of his style is similar to mine as far as being a storyteller and doing things the way you want to.

Are you still nervous before going on stage and if so, do you use any “rituals” to calm you nerves.
~ I am so nervous before every show. It doesn’t matter if there’s five or five hundred. There’s nothing specific that I am afraid of. I just want to make sure that every audience that sees me gets 100% of what Dave Rosewood has to offer every time and I think it takes that bit of nervous energy to do a good job. Nothing calms my nerves even a little until I get on the stage, hit that first chord and sing that first note. My nervousness has never hindered me, in fact, I think that day I am not nervous before a show will mean I don’t care as much. If that day every came, it might be time to consider getting out of music because every audience deserves to get the best that you have every time.

What was the most memorable day in your musical career and tell us why.
~ The first time I got up the courage to wander into an old honky tonk in the Ozark Mountains with my guitar and crawl up on stage and play tunes for some very drunk people on a regular Saturday afternoon. This was not very long after I started playing guitar mind you. I don’t know what made me do it exactly but I knew if I was going to do this music thing I had to get out and play for people. I pulled up into the parking lot in my old pickup truck, pulled out my guitar case and said to myself, “This is it Dave”. There was no open mic or anything, I just went in cold asked the bartender if it was alright if I played, I got a little nod as she wiped a dirty glass down. Some of the bar flys were already passed out with their heads down on the bar. The first song I did was Long Haired Country by Charlie Daniels. Some of the passed out bar flys started to stir a bit. I did a mix of some country classics and a few of my own. By the time I was done with my first set some of the regulars of the bar were swaying in front of the stage in various states of disrepair and one old drunk even came up to me with a napkin and a pen asked me to sign it for him and told me I would be famous one day. That was almost twenty years ago. I wonder if he is still waiting for that napkin to be worth something?