Q&A: Sean Rowe Invades Your Personal Space
Alternative-folk singer-songwriter Sean Rowe has one of those voices that immediately make you take notice. It’s deep, intense 
and conveys the fact that this man has lived. You hang on his words.
As a young musician, Rowe found his way a little differently than most. He briefly abandoned society for the woods, eventually leaving nature with inspiration for what would become his 2007 debut album, Magic.
A few years later, Rowe would sign with ANTI- Records for the kindly reviewed The Salesman and The Shark, before embarking on yet another interesting path ahead of what would become his latest album, Madman: people’s living rooms and private spaces.
Riffyou.com recently caught up with Rowe to discuss performing in people’s homes; finding and accepting his voice; and being on TV.
RY: Firstly, congratulations on Madman! Now that the recording of the album is behind you and touring is happening, how has the album evolved for you?
Sean: Thanks. I think it stands out as my best work to date. Because of the immediacy of the material, the songs are pretty fun to play live. As far as an evolution goes, the songs get a bit looser and relaxed the more I play them out. I’m proud of what Madman does. I think it does ‘something.’”
RY: I never like to assume what an album means to the person who created it. So, with that said, what does it mean to you?
Sean: Well, the record as a whole doesn’t really have any deep meaning, but it does feel more like a good, honest snapshot of where I am right now. The next record will be different…but for now, this is me.”
RY: I understand that leading up to this album, you spent time putting on shows in people’s living rooms. How did that come to be and how did such an endeavor impact your creative process?
Sean: “It was really just a lucky whim. I intended to do a few house shows in order to keep me working between albums. But, what I discovered was really a fresh new resource of people all around the country – and elsewhere – reaching out to me for this experience of the ‘house concert.’ It really turned into a bonafide nationwide tour of alternative spaces, living rooms, barns and some other oddball places.”
RY: Out of those shows, what was your most memorable experience?
Sean: “I’m not sure that one was the best. There were many that were special. The reasons may be a little different, but it’s really the people that make the show in this case, not so much the space.
“The best shows have been the ones where people really let down their hair and get off on the music and the experience of being together for something like this. There’s magic in that it seems to come out of thin air. It’s not something that you can plan, really…just a collective vibe which seems to take over the mood.”
RY: When you perform in spaces like that, do you believe that it gives those in attendance a unique perspective about you as both a person and artist?
Sean: “It’s certainly a more up-close affair. I think there’s a delightful weirdness that happens when you take what I do with my one-man show and plug it into some strangers’ living room. And I think other people get off on that kind of spectacle. It’s not just the theatrics of it all, though. I’ve always felt that on a good night I can be a facilitator of some kind of primal feeling that I can draw out of the music. I like to take people to a certain place. If I see that they are almost there, I’ll sneak behind them and kick them off the edge and it’s a beautiful place to fall.”
RY: Your voice is an unbelievably powerful thing. When did you first discover what it could do? How did you react?
“I never liked the sound of my voice until I was a senior in high school. When my voice started to drop, it gave me a little spark where I felt like it didn’t sound like other voices. But, it wasn’t a thing I was always comfortable with. it took me a while.”
RY: How much of a role did your voice play in determining what music you wanted to create and perform?
Sean: “I never really thought about trying to create a certain kind of music. When I started out performing, I just wanted to emulate the perfumers/songwriters that I loved. I was heavy into roots music when I was in my late teens. Otis Redding was a constant source of musical fuel for me. I wanted to sing like Otis. I wanted to play like John Lee Hooker. I wanted to write like Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. I wanted to be cool Like Iggy Pop and Neil Young. And I had a lot of fucking work to do!”
RY: You recently had a track (“The Long Haul”) featured in Parenthood. Some artists are more than happy to have their music used in TV shows and movies, while others aren’t. Why did you choose to go this route?
Sean: “I think it’s rare to find an artist who wouldn’t want to have their songs in film – at least, good film. The two art forms have 
always blended well. I think there’s more of a disparity when you’re talking about commercials and advertisements and that’s a tricky one. It’s a grey area and I think it depends. Off the top of my head though, I would say that unless I felt good about supporting a product, I wouldn’t want my name on it.”
RY: What does it mean to a songwriter for other artists – in this case those who write and direct that TV show – to want to use your art to help tell their story?
Sean: “There are only so many emotions one can express as a human, and we all go through the same shit in our lives…more or less. Maybe just different circumstances, but these expressions are universal. It makes sense that they would work with someone else’s story.”
RY: You have obviously worked tremendously hard to get to where you are today. What continued to motivate you even when the struggle felt more present than the good times?
Sean: “There are not too many things I do really well. I’ve always felt like this was my thing. This is how I can connect in this life. Over the years, it’s been a kind of trusting game where I feel as long as I create something that’s coming from the heart – and that I commit myself to the song and to the moment – there will be an audience at least just large enough to get me by.”
-Adam Grant
Tour Dates:
10/26: Santa Monica, CA at McCabes
11/2 Montreal, QC at La Vitrola
11/4 Hamilton, ON at The Casbah
11/5: Toronto, ON at Dakota Tavern
11/6 Wakefield, QC at Black Sheep Inn
11/14: Albany, NY at the College of Saint Rose: Masry Center for the Arts
12/3: Chicago, IL at Lincoln Hall
12/4: Milwaukee, WI at Turner Hall
12/5: Madison, WI at High Noon
12/6: Minneapolis, MN at The Cedar Cultural Center
12/7: Des Moines, IA at Wooly’s
12/9: Omaha, NE at The Waiting Room
12/11: Denver, CO at The Bluebird
12/12: Denver, CO at The Bluebird
12/14: Colorado Springs, CO at Ivywild School
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