Emmrose is Ready to Bloom

NYC-based singer-songwriter Emmrose has a voice, and songwriting style, that might lead you to believe she’s from bygone era, but not only is she living in the present, she’s actually still in high school.

At just 17 years old, Emmrose, already established in the city’s indie music scene, is currently finishing up both her senior year of high school, and her Associates Degree in Opera. “With my high school career,” she explains, “I also get a little degree for Classical Voice.”

In the fall she’ll be attending the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, and the Mannes School of Music, both at The New School in NYC, where she’ll be studying Contemporary Music, and Psychology.

Of course, this is all in addition to continuing to write, record, and release new music, as well as preparing for a live performance at the new NYC hotspot Little Island in June.

I caught up with Emmrose to find out about the music she’s been releasing, her upcoming live performance that came about due to her newfound connection with Tina Landau and Sara Bareilles, and how she controls social media rather than letting social media control her. 

 

Let’s start off with a little personal history. What were your main musical influences growing up? Are you from a musical household, or did someone, or something, outside your home drive your interest? 

My mom always encouraged to me to be musical. My dad owns a ginormous record collection. He doesn’t play any instruments himself, but I feel like he’s so knowledgeable about music. It’s crazy how up to date he is with all the hits. He’s obsessed with making playlists.

So yeah, I definitely grew up with music, and I was encouraged to play instruments, and sing.

Talk about your dad’s record collection. What kind of albums were you raised on? 

Oh my God, it’s huge, honestly.

My dad has jazz standard albums, a lot of alternative rock, and all the Led Zeppelin records and classic rock. He has like every Radiohead album, and he has all the limited edition kind of stuff. It’s so cool.

I grew up listening to The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, just a lot of stuff that I remember growing up with.

That’s a heck of a music education! Moving to your own music, you’re in the midst of releasing a run of singles, having released “The Imposter” in March, “Waitlisted” earlier this month, and “Afterlife” being due out in June. How are we getting to know you through these songs? 

They’re all so different, which I think is kind of awesome. I’m also working on an album right now, but that’s a lot more cohesive in its themes, and its sounds, but these singles are all kind of fun. “Imposter” was very personal, and a pretty production, but is also a little more simple compared to “Waitlisted,” which is more of a crazy dance record.

What can you reveal about the album you’re working on? 

It’s gonna be called Thorns. I’d say it’s EP/album-like. It’s not a 12, 13, track album, but I think it’s like 7, 8, 9 (tracks).

I have all the songs written, so I know what’s gonna be in it, but I’m still working on many of the songs, so I’m gonna say (it will be out) mid-summer / early fall.

The theme is a culmination of the past year – not just pandemic, but also my personal life.

With a name like Thorns I’m guessing there have been some issues over the past year that have been tough. 

Yeah. {laughs}

I don’t personally hold grudges, but sometimes there’s nothing else you can do when people are really horrible to you, so I’m using songwriting, and writing music, and producing, as an outlet for that, of just saying here’s my experience with this person, this is what happened, and you can have your opinion off of my side of the story.

It’s like I’m left with these thorns of these bad experiences.

How much did the pandemic affect your rollout of new music? 

It’s been amazing, actually. I know that must be so weird – performing, and social life-wise, the pandemic was horrible – but writing, and working in the studio-wise, it’s been great, because I’m a high school student, and it would just be a nightmare to be studying calculus in school, and try to juggle that and a music career, and now I don’t really have that (issue), because all my classes are online. I can just say I’m going to the studio on Tuesday, when I would normally be in school for like 10 hours a day.

Your teachers should not read this interview. 

It’s totally OK. They don’t care. I go to an arts school, so if anything, they encourage it.

Speaking of schools, with “Waitlisted” you turn something negative – being waitlisted by a university – into something that sounds celebratory. 

“Waitlisted,” and as of two days ago, rejected. It’s OK.

That’s awful. I was waitlisted by a school back in the day. 

I’m going to another school anyway.

The thing that hurt the most was that it was for songwriting. It was a program about writing music, and I got waitlisted, and ultimately did not get in, so that really sucked, but I’m kind of happy I didn’t go. It was NYU, and NYU is so expensive. It’s like, could I pay $70,000 a year for this program? That’s a lot of money. Plus room and board, so I’d be paying like 100 grand every year. I don’t have that kind of money for college.

Have there been other times in your life you’ve turned something negative into something positive, and celebratory? 

I’m a very odd person when it comes to that kind of stuff, because I totally think about the negatives first. After I found out I got waitlisted, for like a whole week I was like – “That means I’m not good enough for this program. It means I’m not good at what I do.” I was really defeated.

Then I was thinking to myself – no, this is a stupid school. What do they know? They probably didn’t even listen to what I gave them. It doesn’t even matter.

I was thinking about all the opportunities that I’m getting, and this amazing experience I just got invited to do the other day, and now I’m gonna do that.

So many opportunities are happening to me right now, and it’s like F NYU! Who cares?

So I wanted to basically turn that negativity around, but it’s honestly really hard to do. Even when I read that rejection letter the other day, I thought I was over it. I thought – I’m going to an awesome, great school, I don’t need them. Then when I read the words, it did hurt, but it wasn’t as bad as when I got waitlisted. That was horrible.

You mentioned a great opportunity happening right now. Can you talk about that? 

The Little Island, it’s a new pier park giant thing that was funded, and now is open, in New York City. It’s this crazy looking park on the water, on the Hudson. I remember driving past it, and being like wow, that looks really cool.

I was invited to be one of the performers at After Hours with Tina Landau. I met Tina today. She wrote SpongeBob the musical, which is so fun. Sara Bareilles, who’s a great songwriter, and (wrote the music and lyrics for) Waitress the musical, which is a crazy great musical, (is also involved).

I’m going to be playing with five other songwriters. We all have a little set in this amazing amphitheater, and I’m meeting all these amazing artists who are so cool. And the thing is, I did not enter into a contest, they found me!

That’s even better. 

That’s the thing that gets me. I just got an email from Tina being like – hi, we want you to be a part of this opportunity. I was like, oh my God! Wow! How do you know my name? How do you know who I am?

The show is June 30th, at I believe 9pm. It’s totally free, which is so cool, because (people will) get to see Sara Bareilles perform with other songwriters, and I’m gonna be interviewed, and we’re gonna sing together at the end. It’s just gonna be so exciting.

It made me so happy that these people who’ve made it found me.

That’s awesome, and kind of ties into what I wanted to ask about next. At age 17 you’ve grown up in a social media world. Getting found is amazing, but that’s not every message. Does having to deal with constant feedback ever get overwhelming? 

Mostly I try to stay away, as much as possible, from social media. I only check my Instagram at 11:30am to post, and then I get off. I feel like I would go absolutely insane looking at the numbers. I answer all my DMs, I read a lot of the comments – at 11:30.

I feel like social media can be very detrimental to my mental health, because I think of it a lot as a popularity contest, and I often compare how I look to other girls my age, and I just think “oh if I lost weight here,” or “oh if I just got filler here,” and “oh if my lips were bigger,” and “oh if I wore this cuter outfit from blank-blank I would be more popular,” and that really is not how I like to live my life, but I feel like a lot of what social media does to young girls like me is basically portraying this one image of the perfect body, the perfect face, that I don’t have. So now I’m just trying to basically focus on music, and posting things that I’ve done, and fun things, and answering such nice DMs, instead of thinking “oh this is what I want to change about myself,” because I think you could go crazy, especially being a young person.

So yeah, social media can definitely be a good, and bad, thing. Obviously good, because I was found by these amazing famous people, but bad in self-image a lot of the time. That’s just my two cents.


Has there been a website, or app, that you originally were skeptical of, but has turned out to be a big help for you and your career? 

Definitely Instagram. I had an Instagram account in fifth grade and I posted pictures of my stuffed animals. That was fun.

Are those pictures still up? 

I think so, actually, because I never deleted my account, so if somebody does find my old fifth grade Instagram account … yeah.

And TikTok. I was very skeptical of TikTok at first, but now I’m coming up really good ideas for TikToks I’m going to make.

What are some of your favorite ways to unplug, and unwind? 

I love reading. I love rereading the same books. I find a lot of comfort in knowing the ending of a book. I have a lot of anxiety about things that are out of my control, and I feel like books are in my control, and if I just reread the third Harry Potter book, I know they survive.

I also love to bake. I think it’s so fun baking cakes and cupcakes.

I’m really getting into anime, even though, honestly, that’s pretty stressful, too.

Oh, video games! I’m so into video games, but like relaxing ones, like a farming simulator is my jam. I love Animal Crossing, a little bit of Mario. That’s my vibe.

 

For more Emmrose, check out emmrosemusic.com, and follow her on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

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