As early as kindergarten, 18-year-old Owen Roush, a Columbia, Mo. native, began playing the piano, unknowing of what his future in music would hold.
He continued taking piano lessons throughout elementary school, and later in middle school, he used his foundation in music theory to help him learn the guitar and practice music production. From there, Roush started writing and producing songs, and the beginning of an album was born.
“I kept at it, [and] I really found how much music meant to me from a listener’s perspective,” Roush said. “It was through that where I realized music could be a creative outlet for me, and I had years under my belt of producing music, so I [began to] take shape as an artist and songwriter.”
Emerson professor and jazz musician Eric Hofbauer has been creating, producing and performing music since the ‘90s. With a multitude of self-produced albums out on streaming services, Hofbauer is extremely familiar with the songwriting and production process and knows how challenging that can be at 18 years old. He noted how musicians, himself included, are always learning and growing in this journey, and that Roush will, too.
“For the young artists, [music production is] development, maturing and self exploration. You’re asking a lot of questions about yourself, and you’re putting yourself out there,” Hofbauer said. “I think as an artist, you don’t develop [right away], [but] the process is what’s important — the process of knowing thyself.”
Roush focuses on sounds of the album
During his junior year of high school, Roush put out two singles under the name rous. He said he used bits and pieces of these songs in his current album, “God Plays His Piano Drone,” because they helped pave the way for his new music. By the time senior year rolled around, Roush had already written what is now track number nine, “Patella,” and the album took off.
For his album, Roush has drawn inspiration from a myriad of shoegaze and dream pop bands, including Beach House, Radiohead and Slowdive, along with vocal inspiration from Thom Yorke and instrumental inspiration from Swans. Additionally, Roush said the album “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven” by Godpseed You! Black Emperor was the album that “taught [him] how spiritual music can be, [and] the intangible thing that music can capture,” which he has tried to grasp in his music. This band’s long-titled album also helped him craft the name of his own album.
He described common sounds heard throughout the album as a “sonic, space [sound] with this droned out electric guitar [with] a lot of reverb,” and distortion, where he “takes instruments like piano, guitar or synthesizers and crush[es] them to their maximum distorted limits.” Heavily inspired by the “loudness” and “bigness” of Swans, Roush said he wanted to “capture that totalism, bring it down and distill it into music that is more accessible for an average listener.”
Emotions, metaphors play large role in Roush’s music
“God Plays His Piano Drone” takes listeners through a story of goodbyes, grief, unrequited love, neglected respect and moving on. By the end of the album, the audience can hear Roush finally realizing and accepting that these people he’s been trying to talk to won’t ever understand him. While each song isn’t about the same person, Roush said they all contribute to the overarching narrative of coming to terms with moving on in the album. Hofbauer said he did a good job in bringing this all together.
“To really create an emotional story and journey, and a powerful space where the listener can fill in the gaps and make their own connections, [the] music has to really compliment the lyrics, and vice versa,” Hofbauer said. “A lot of songwriters just say, ‘Hey, I wrote a cool poem, I’m going to set it to three chords and strum [away].’ That’s probably okay, but to create textures and contrasts — a lot of what Owen did with the big beat drops, the volume and density of the instrumentation and orchestration — that’s the stuff that really grabs people and makes goosebumps on their arms.”
Roush emphasized how religion also plays a role in the album’s meaning with “the idea of God playing His piano drone,” creating a metaphor for “God using those hardships within your life to help you learn.” Hofbauer touched on his appreciation for abstract lyrics in songs that allow for different interpretations, and Roush’s abstract idea of God in his album did just that. Roush said that not only has God helped him learn how to make and produce an album, but more importantly, how to move on and take care of himself.
“The idea is that I’ve finally come to terms with this character that I’ve built [not being with me], but I still hear [God’s] voice. It’s not explicitly Christian or any sort of religion; it’s this abstract turning to God,” Roush said. “I need to move past this person that I’ve tried to pursue the respect of, I need to see how I’ve learned from that experience [and] I need to see how God has [given] me these experiences so that I could become a better person. I could become His instrument, I could help other people [and] I could become His piano drone that He plays.”
Hofbauer said he noticed and appreciated how honest and vulnerable Roush was in his music, especially for it being a concept album, which he noted is not easy to accomplish. He talked about how challenging it is to be honest and bare in one’s songs, but to also be abstract and invite the audience to these “open-ended ambiguities” that could have multiple interpretations. As Roush continues to make music, Hofbauer encouraged him to keep experimenting with this balance.
The album faced challenges, Roush prevailed
Furthermore, Roush said songwriting doesn’t always come easy to him. He said, “there’s room to grow as a songwriter,” and he wants to work toward that by expanding his story-telling beyond just his own experiences.
“I’m trying to get better as a writer. I want to be able to write about situations that aren’t necessarily about me; songs that are mature pieces [that] tell the stories of other people and other experiences that may not apply to me,” Roush said. “That’s a songwriting skill that I don’t have. I don’t want to be in a position where I have to talk about myself or draw inspiration from my own hurt or experiences to be able to write a good song.”
Hofbauer had similar thoughts, saying musicians are always changing and learning from their past songs. Because songwriting grows with the writer, it often influences the way one writes their poetry and “the way [they] hear rhythm, time and intervals.”
“It’s interesting, as you develop as a songwriter, get older, have different life experiences and take on certain characters that might use a different type of vocabulary or vernacular; it can actually profoundly change how you write,” Hofbauer said. “The level of melodic or rhythmic complexity is often a reflection of how the music and lyrics work together.”
Roush puts feelings into words
What initially sparked the beginning of the album was Roush’s feeling of not having a voice, and writing was the only way to express these unspoken feelings and emotions. With that, he said he wanted his listeners to feel seen, too, and tried to balance that in “God Plays His Piano Drone.”
“Songwriting is very meaningful to me because I needed it as a way to express myself and talk about my own experiences. I [also] feel like I’m trying to communicate emotions [so] other people [can] feel with me,” Roush said. “There’s this dichotomy of, ‘Do I want the listener to feel like they’re seen, or do I want to make myself feel seen?’ I think there’s a mix of that within the album.”
Roush touched on a few lyrics that he felt really vocalized the album’s entire narrative. In the second song, he sings, “I will fight for you if that’s what you want me to do,” and in the last song, with the same melody, it switches to, “I fought for you” as he finally moves on. For the lyrics, “Nothing I can do but thank you for everything,” Roush admitted how that might be unhealthy and codependent of him, but he left that up to the listener’s interpretation. He described “Don’t Sleep” as an angry song and is his attempt at trying to “buy his way back into the heart.” The next song on the album describes him falling on his knees, hoping for a “sliver of reciprocation” while he is “infatuated with trying to earn their respect.” However, he said each song speaks its own story.
“[The song] ‘Myrtle Beach, SC’ is when [the emotion really] hits,” Roush said. “‘I’ll find a way to speak to you, I’ll find out what’s true, just tell me where to go, tell me what to do.’ I compare this to talking to ghosts, [like] this person has died. [Even though] it’s not a literal death, this person has slipped away from me, so I’ll learn to talk to ghosts.”
The young musician finds meaning in music
While Roush said he wants to connect with the audience through his music, he mainly wrote the album for himself and his own self-expression. Either way, he hopes “people are able to draw something [from the album]” and can find something to resonate with. Hofbauer described the importance of finding the balance between self-expression and connectivity to the audience. He said that what resonates with the artist now may change over time, but the music will still reach and influence others.
“In some ways, an artist is a time traveler, and you [have] to be aware of that. You capture these things on film, in a published book of poetry or on an album, and then you let it live,” Hofbauer said. “It’s powerful, and if you catch it right and tell a compelling story, that is a time capsule. You might not resonate with that album when you’re 30 or 35, but guess what. The teens that might discover [the album] when you’re 35 are going to resonate with it, [because] you’ve captured [it] in a sonic bottle — this moment of youth, discovery and struggle — and everybody can resonate with that when they are that age.”
Having been an 18-year-old musician just starting out, Hofbauer offered advice to Roush and other young artists. He said to keep pushing forward, find new stories to tell and avoid doing the exact same thing again because they are always changing and growing not only as musicians and songwriters, but as humans, too.
“I really hope Owen keeps writing and putting out albums [so that] 10, 15 [or] 20 years from now, he can look across a career of [many] albums and go, ‘Wow, listen to this person develop this human story,’” Hofbauer said. “The challenge is to keep going. You can’t always be a teenage writer, and you [have] to embrace that because everyone is going through that.”
With “God Plays His Piano Drone” being Roush’s first album, he touched on how important this process was to him, and how it really helped him find his voice. Although Roush will be studying Computer Science at the University of Missouri–Columbia this upcoming school year, music will always be a significant part of his life. He plans to continue making music, and he even mentioned possibly making a second album soon.
“There are feelings I can only express through chords, textures, sonic elements, lyrics and songwriting. Music is the only medium where those things can be communicated, and I needed this album as a way to feel seen [and] to express intangible emotions,” Roush said. “This album has meant so much to me that I want to continue making music — maybe that’s the thing I do for the rest of my life.”
Hofbauer appreciates this vulnerability and rawness, as he said there’s such a large rise of AI in the music industry. Young artists like Roush are the future, and by creating genuine music, he said they’re keeping it alive.
“Kudos to young artists out there beating back AI music with original composing and performing. It’s great to hear young composers, songwriters, singers [and] musicians create a concept album that AI couldn’t come close to,” Hofbauer said. “The industry is changing so profoundly, so they not only [have] to stay true to themselves [and] make a great product, but we’ve got to remind humanity that humanity works only because of the human part, and music is that community builder. Kudos to Owen for keeping it real and keeping culture alive.”
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