Ninja writesThe CHIRP Radio Interview: Al Rose

by Features Contributor DJ Ninja

Chicago musician Al Rose talks 8th album, future-proofing protest songs, and a storied flute history

Despite flute being the first instrument that Chicago musician Al Rose picked up at age 10, he doesn’t play it on stage anymore. He played in the school band, was classically trained. But no more on stage.

“I used to play flute more often in the early part of my career, but I got tired of drunk people in particular shouting out ‘Tull!’ every time I picked up the flute,” Rose said. “I mean, don't get me wrong. I really do like Jethro Tull. But I got tired of people going ‘TUUULL!’ It's kind of the flute version of ‘Freebird.’”

Rose focuses these days on the acoustic guitar as his primary instrument at gigs, and he occasionally plays electrics when recording in the studio, including a 12-string Rickenbacker on his latest album, “Again the Beginner.” But he still picks up other instruments from time to time.

“I do harmonica at some of the live shows,” Rose said. “I have been teaching myself mandolin over the last couple of years but have not had the courage to play it in front of people yet.”

Listen the CHIRP Artist Interview Podcast with Al Rose

He first picked up guitar as a teenager when he found his dad’s old, battered six-string, with only two or three strings left, he said.

“I restrung it and bought a folk singer’s guitar guide and taught myself how to play, probably listening off of Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens records primarily,” Rose said.

Rose got started playing shows as a University of Illinois student in Champaign-Urbana, initially in acoustic groups. After moving to Chicago, he bought an electric guitar and formed a proper rock back.

But trying to pin Al Rose’s music into one category is tough, he won’t let you.

“Folk-a-rock-a-boom-boom,” he called it.

He released his first album in 1994. Twenty-eight years later, he’s on album No. 8 with Again the Beginner. Writing a new album takes a lot out of Rose artistically, he said.

“Every time I finish a record, I have wrung myself completely dry. I put everything I have into it,” Rose said. “I think, ‘Oh my God, I wonder if I'll ever write and record another album.’ And then slowly it unfolds, I start to write some songs.”

While the albums are credited as solo works – he writes the music on his own – he has a backing band he records with in the studio. The band, who also typically play out live with Rose in varying combinations, is comprised of Chicago mainstay bassist Steve Hashimoto, lead guitarist Steve Doyle, and drummer Lance Helgeson. Doyle and Helgeson also play together in local group The Hoyle Brothers.

The band has a residency on the second Sunday of the month at Montrose Saloon in Albany Park. But don’t expect any kind of plan when you attend one of Rose’s shows, there’s rarely a setlist.

“I call audibles,” he said. “I just call the songs as the mood strikes and, how is the band, how is the room sounding? How are we feeling? I also like to mix it up. We do a lot of quiet, delicate things. But then I like to follow it up with something loud and raucous and full of rage.”

Rose has also opened for the likes of Leon Russell and David Bromberg.

As with many albums composed just before the COVID pandemic, Again the Beginner, which was released in July of 2022, was written - and then partially rewritten - as studio time got put on hold in the spring of 2020.

“In the coming year through 2020 and early 2021. I wrote a new batch of songs that I feel reflected some of what was going on, either personally but also there's a couple of songs full of rage,” Rose said. “So there are songs that are ended up on the album that did not exist when I had first planned on going into the studio. And I'm very happy that they ended up being written and recorded and are now being played live."

One of the “songs full of rage” Rose wrote in reflecting on the circumstances of the world at the time, is “Said & Done,” a protest song written in approximately late spring to early summer of 2020, he said. You might not know exactly what it’s about listening to it, as Rose said he’s learned to pen his protest tracks to withstand the test of time.

“If you're too specific in a protest-y type of song, then there's a shelf life because things move on. And even the horrible people eventually become irrelevant, hopefully,” Rose said. “’Said & Done,’ I think is written in a certain way that there's always going to be the types of people that triggered the inspiration and rage in that song. So unfortunately, that's a song that's going to stay relevant, I think, for a long time.”

Rose learned that lesson after writing a song about President George W. Bush early in his administration.

“There were a couple of lines and one of the verses that was very specific towards that president, and I found myself for a while not singing the song. But then I revisited and rewrote that verse, so it would be more relevant moving forward,” he said.

Rose said all songs can continue to be a work in progress, even if they’ve been recorded and released.

“The thought that once a song is done, printed, recorded, and you can't adjust things, is not true. You could always go back and change a word, change a phrase,” he said.

And in fact, the title track and inspiration for the latest album title “Again the Beginner” is also about restarting things, even decades into his music career.

“Here I am this far into playing and writing and recording, but I feel that every time I write a song, every time I get up in the morning, every time I faced this situation, in a sense, I'm beginning again,” Rose said. “I'm talking about my myself a little bit and talking about the process of living life and trying not to become cynical, trying not to end up in a rut. And I feel that if you're going to do a piece of art or live your life, it's good to have a fresh approach and try and look at things with fresh eyes whenever you're starting a project.”

Another song of rage on the album, “Shooting Straight,” is Rose expressing his frustration that speaking the truth and holding people accountable don’t seem to be venerated values anymore, he said.

“The tagline for the each of the verses, ‘Shooting straight no longer is an option in this world,’ is a little tongue-in-cheek,” Rose said. “It's not just in politics, it's just in everyday life. People have just come to expect that you could say whatever you want, and you don't have to tell the truth. And people are getting away with it. And it bums me out.”

Rose said it was a phrase he’d been holding onto for several years as a song idea. The music video features a “Popeye” cartoon, with the lyrics scrolling across the bottom as if it’s a breaking news report.

Rose said his music has been compared to artists who run the gamut – from Elvis Costello, to Tom Waits, to folk guitarist Richard Thompson, artists who he does admire. But he says he’s noticed listeners sometimes seem to make comparisons based on their own personal frames of reference.

“Somebody once wrote that I have ‘obviously listened to a lot of Frank Zappa.’ Well, I do like Frank Zappa, and I have listened to him,” Rose said. “And at the time, I didn't have any Frank Zappa records.”

You can find Al’s music at his website AlRoseMusic.com or on all the usual socials – Spotify, Youtube, Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram, or Soundcloud. Al and his wife also run a restaurant in Andersonville, Kopi Café.

“They can come up and talk to me about music and get a CD,” he said. “Or talk to me about salads and coffee and food or wine, or whatever they want.”