Josh Rouse on "1972 "

An interview with Josh Rouse on his new album 1972 from Miles of Music :

"A funny thing happened to Josh Rouse on the way to indie-pop cult status -- he found his soul. There it was, waiting for him in the form of songs inspired by the era of his youth. It was 1972, to be precise, that the Nashville singer-songwriter used as his launching point for an album that goes where none of his three previous efforts had. The year Rouse was born. The year of his main instrument of choice, a Telecaster. The year in which the fabric of popular music and AM radio ranged from Marvin Gaye and Al Green to Neil Young, Steely Dan, and Carole King. "

MoMZine: Was there a particular moment when you decided that 1972 was the proper inspiration for an album?

ROUSE: I had always said, "I'm gonna make a record that sounds like 1972," like Neil Young's After The Gold Rush or something like that. I had the song "1972" written and a couple other ones. So, I got together with producer Brad Jones and started playing him songs, and we were just talking about how we were gonna keep the production really raw, really dry, kinda soulful, kind of a blue-eyed soul thing. That's what I was going for. The early-'70s is my favorite period in music.

MoMZine: What it is about that music that appeals to you?

ROUSE: Just the quality of songs and artists, it was just better, to me. There's been good stuff throughout the '80s and '90s but the sheer amount of talent that was around then, even in commercial music, it was so much more sincere, better. Even the mainstream stuff, if you look at the charts from the '70s, it's just astounding really. You got Neil Young and Carole King, things like that. At that time you could make a record without too much pressure to have a single and it could do well. There were artists that were actually doing career development then, which doesn't seem to go on much these days.

Also, see more on Neil Young's sound and music.

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