Interview: Blake Rose Opens Up About His New Album and Moving from Australia

The “Don’t Stop The Car” singer sits down with Afterglow to talk about his relationship with social media and the growing pains of being vulnerable about his music.

Written by Lauren Stephens

Photo courtesy of Gemma Warren

Indie-pop artist Blake Rose started his journey with music singing on the streets of Australia. Since then, he’s made a move to L.A., accumulated over 1.6 million monthly Spotify listeners, and toured with artists such as Noah Kahan and Dean Lewis. Afterglow sat down with Blake to talk about his strong relationship with his fans, the inspiring story behind his new album, and life on the road.

Afterglow: Okay, so this first question is kind of starting from the beginning of things. I read that you got your start in music by busking back home in Australia, and you would use the money you made to pay for frequent trips to LA. What made you so determined to start visiting L.A. as soon as possible, and did you always have specific goals in mind when you took these trips?

Blake Rose: I feel like it just felt right for me to come to L.A. I think it's just a general known thing, that it's a bit of a hotspot for music. There wasn't anything in particular necessarily that I was coming over for, but it was just the way that everything flowed. I was working with some friends of mine who also wanted to travel to LA and as soon as they were down to go, I kind of just went with them. I guess I had no idea what I was actually doing, which is kind of funny looking back, but I was really just trying to be in the place and sort of let everything flow and that's kind of what happened. I met people who would introduce me to other people and then, maybe I'd work with this person because of that. And, you know, it's just like a sort of constant constant flow of networking and stuff, but I felt like you had to really be here to experience that. And yeah, I just found so much benefit in traveling out to L.A. rather than going to Sydney or something like that.

Yeah! That’s great. So you feel like it really helped push your career forward at a faster pace?

Yeah, I mean hard to say obviously, but for some reason it just felt right coming here first. Honestly, this whole journey has just been me following my gut. So, wherever it told me to go I just did that, and it's all felt right so far I think. In general, there's a lot more people in L.A. anyway, objectively. In Sydney there's a pretty good hub for music, but Los Angeles seems to be where everyone is. It's fucking crazy and everyone from Sydney who's doing well also comes to L.A., so you get a bit of both worlds.

Throughout your career, you’ve been very active on social media and great at engaging with your fans by replying to their comments and reposting their videos. I know something that many artists, and people with a bigger audience in general, struggle with is finding a healthy balance when it comes to the internet. What inspired you to be so engaged with your fans, and how do you maintain a healthy relationship with social media?

Yeah, I think in terms of what inspired me to be so engaged with everyone is just that they're generally really engaged with me, and I feel like it's only right that I sort of return that energy back to people. It kind of becomes a bit of a friendship situation. I mean, you know, it can only go so deep, but I feel like with a lot of people that have reached out and complimented my music, I feel like they're my friend now, and I just kind of want to keep chatting with them and and sort of explore those relationships with each person and collectively. Yeah. What was the second half of that question again?

It was: How do you maintain a healthy relationship with social media?

Oh, yes. Well, I don't think I do, honestly. I think my relationship with social media is definitely… I was gonna say it fluctuates, but I don't think I've ever really had a healthy relationship with it. I think I'm working on that at the moment. I'm gonna try and take more breaks and find a way to maybe get somebody to help me post some stuff. That way, if I'm taking a break for a week or something, I can still have content coming but be able to step away for a second and have a healthy separation from it. Because I definitely find that I can dive into a really deep hole of comparison and the whole dopamine cycle of likes, comments, views, etc. So, at the moment, I’m trying to figure out the healthiest way to balance that for sure. It's an ongoing journey.

Yeah, I mean, I think it definitely is for everyone, so you're not alone in it. I feel like everyone is just trying to navigate how to balance using it in a productive way while sparing their mental health.

Yeah, one hundred percent. It's so tricky because you just get sucked into the addiction of it. Even if you actively say, “I'm not gonna scroll on TikTok” or “I'm not gonna look at stories” when you go and post something, you've opened up your susceptibility to being sucked into the fucking whirlpool. As soon as you post something, comments start coming in and you're like, “Oh I want to read that one!” The next minute you're scrolling and then you just end up in the fucking social media universe again, and it's just an endless cycle.

Your most recent album, You’ll Get It When You’re Older, came out in February. I know you’ve spoken [about] it touching on some experiences very close and personal to you. Did you find that creating such a vulnerable album made it more difficult to release, or did it feel pretty natural?

I think it didn't make it more difficult to release, but what was difficult about it was choosing whether or not to actually share the whole truth of what it was about. The aspect of the album that's mainly based around my relationship with my sister and her relationship with addiction has been something that I've written about in the past and have released. But, I didn't say it was about her. I kind of danced around the subject because, like, I wasn't ready to talk about it publicly. I don't think my sister was in the headspace and that it would have been good for me to talk about it on her behalf. I think now she's in a place where she's really coming out on the other side of it and she's doing amazing. I think we both really want to share the story of the EP in the hopes that it helps somebody else, and she is as passionate about sharing her story as I am. It was a difficult conversation to have for sure, and even up until it came out, I was still a bit unsure about talking about it all.

But, in the end it felt right, and I'm glad we did that. There's been quite a few messages coming in saying that it's really helped them through a similar situation or given them hope, and that's all I can really ask for for this record.

Yeah, exactly. Even if it just touches one person and resonates with them, then that's what matters. 

Yeah, 100%.

“Don’t Stop the Car” is the single off that new album and comes with a stunning music video that features you hanging out of a car, driving through a tunnel. I have to ask, was this at all inspired by the movie, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower?”

One hundred percent. Yeah. I've been trying to recreate that tunnel scene for so long and obviously don't really have the budget to do it actually, standing in a car. Or maybe we did, I don't know, but maybe nobody wanted me to risk my life. [laughs] I would have done it, though. That would have been sick, but yeah, it looks great. I think it was an interesting sort of play on that concept and how it was digital rather than shot practically in the real world. It sort of gave this sense of surrealism to it, which was kind of cool. And yeah, it still gave those emotions that you get from that movie, of just feeling so free, and that was all I really wanted. I mean, the song is literally about just wanting to break away from the pressures of reality for a second, and I feel like that's what we achieved with that music video.

I know you recently opened for Mimi Webb and are hitting the road this July with Lauren Spencer Smith. How has your experience on the road been, and what are you looking forward to as you head into this next tour?

It's been very up and down actually because the general environment or the way that we're touring keeps changing. So for example, the first tour I did, which was opening for Noah Kahan, was really fun across the board. It was pretty chill. Then, the Australia tour that I did opening for Dean Lewis was wildly different, because that was a tour where we were really trying to save money. We would book really early flights and stay at friends’ houses and shit like that. So we would leave the venue at, like, midnight and then get up at 3:30 in the morning to go catch a flight. Then, we had all this gear with us, and we'd catch a flight and go try and find our friend's place in the middle of this city and get on their couch — try not to wake everyone up when we walk, you know, stupid shit like that. I think I just felt very unrested across the whole tour and that created such a low morale. I mean, we were still having fun and joking all the time, but by the end of the tour, we were just so spent and needed like a month straight of just doing nothing to recover from it.

Then, this last year I was on the Mimi Webb tour, which was wildly different again. The drives were like three hours max, and we were all in hotel rooms, and it was just like the most luxurious shit compared to the last one. So, it was really fun. But touring in general, I just love it so much. I really want to just stay on the road as long as I can because I love being out playing for people and being able to meet people that are already fans. It's just generally an amazing vibe, and I like being on the move. I feel more at home on the road honestly than I do anywhere else. Honestly, for the next two [years] I'm just really looking forward to touring America again because it's been a minute since I've toured in America. I've been craving it, and we’re hitting a lot of cities that I definitely haven't hit and like, over a year. Super pumped!