Name: Rowan Stuart
Nationality: South African
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, guitarist
Current release: Rowan Stuart's "Empire" is out now.
Recommendations: Book: Jordan Peterson – 12 Rules For Life (An Antidote To Chaos); Album: The Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

If you enjoyed this Rowan Stuart interview and would like to know more about his music, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, and Facebook.



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

From as far back as I can remember, I used to draw pictures. I wasn't too interested in copying what I saw in the real world, but instead I wanted to capture what I could see in my mind.

My parents were performing musicians, and one day, out of interest, I picked up a guitar that was laying around the house and started to learn how to make music with it. This became the next evolution of creativity for me, because while visual art had its own magic, music was like a 3-dimensional glimpse into another world, and one that I could invite others into at the same time.

My early influences were Metallica, then The Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Lenny Kravitz, Radiohead, Björk, Sting, and a band called VAST.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

The best music, I feel, takes me away from the process of making music – I stop picturing people playing instruments, and I start visualising landscapes, patterns, and a glimpse at something otherworldly.

It is that feeling that I most strive for when writing my own music.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

My career path has been very non-linear, and musical identity has been a key challenge along the way. I became a live session guitarist from a young age, and had to learn and understand hundreds of cover songs.

So when I finally released my first solo album A Thousand Brand New Places in 2008, I had so much that I wanted to say, musically, that the album felt like it was pulling in 4 different directions. There were acoustic folk, traditional African folk, pop music and even alternative rock songs.



The market for original pop, folk and rock music where I live is limited, which I think also contributed to my sense of self-doubt and directionlessness. Each new album felt like an attempt to try something new in case, this time, people would finally respond to it.

Lately, I'm more focused on trying to honour my own intuition, and achieve as close to my vision as I can, without compromise. And if people like it too, then that's great.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

I sometimes feel like someone from an ancient and forgotten time, reborn into a dystopian society, and I'm trying to find and collect the things that hold meaning to me – timeless things, beauty, magic and truth, in an increasingly distorted, unnatural and disconnected world.

And so I love music that transcends the trends of the era it was recorded in. I love symbolism, fantasy, science fiction, and art that asks the big questions.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

In summary, I'm trying to bridge the gap between reality and fantasy through the magic of music.

And so, I follow the musical ideas that are most otherworldly, the lyrics that are most symbolic, and the visuals that are most timeless.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

I'm probably somewhere in the middle. I believe in writing songs that can stand up as powerful songs even if they are performed on one acoustic guitar and vocals. But I also embrace the evolution of musical production, and respect those who push the boundaries of what is considered possible.

Regarding originality – mankind has been pondering, analysing, and personifying the same aspects of the human condition for (at least) thousands of years. But every generation needs its own spokespeople, to articulate what the rest of us are feeling, in a way that feels relevant, and contemporary.

For me, there's a sweet spot between familiarity and the unknown, innovation and tradition, where I feel I belong.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

An inexpensive, small nylon string guitar – inexpensive, so that I don't have reservations about keeping it out of its case and unprotected – it needs to be always at hand. Small, so that I can walk around the house with it, with minimal banging of headstocks into door frames and walls. And nylon string, because they keep their tone longer than steel-string guitars, and are easier to play.

The overarching point is to remove obstacles between my inspiration and I.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

Wake up – have a glass of water – unlock and switch on my studio – play a few word games while I eat a healthy breakfast – sometimes pick up my guitar and play the first thing that comes to my mind, and then record a simple demo on my phone.

Then open up the work for the day, which currently includes illustrating single artwork, conceptualizing and planning music videos, registering songs with collections agencies, media relations, research, and vocal maintenance exercises.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

I've found that almost nothing worthwhile that I've put out into the world has ever come easily. There's always some kind of sacrifice or struggle that is the price of creating something good.

For example, I once set out to record a simple, stripped-down acoustic album. I ended up starting, stopping, scrapping and restarting the album about 3 or 4 times over a year while I struggled with self-doubt, perfectionism and learning to let go. The album is called Hidden Doors.



Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

The initial writing of a song is always a private activity for me. I prefer to be alone, without anyone listening in, so that I can figuratively tune my mind to the correct frequency without inhibition and with minimal self-awareness.

Later, when the idea starts to sound like a song, I do like to work with good producers or mixing engineers for an outside perspective. I still come in with a strong vision of my own, and it can be difficult for me to surrender some of the creative control to another person. But if I trust them enough, and we seem to have a common goal, I've found that there's a lot I learn from the experience every time.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

The process of writing music is therapeutic to me, and transportive. So I feel that my job is to capture that effect, study it, and expand on it, so that anyone else who needs a meaningful escape from their busy, chaotic, complicated present-day lives can rely on my work to give them a form of sanctuary for a while.

On a broader level, music is an ancient, shamanic, transcendental form of magic that could unlock new ways of thinking and feeling, or help people to understand things about themselves that they didn't even know existed.

We've largely forgotten the full effect this can have, since we are so inundated with music wherever we go, and much of the time it is used as 'wallpaper', to be mostly ignored. But you can still get a sense of the power and ritual of music when you attend a good concert, and I think that is why vinyl has resurfaced, because you have to be deliberate about the activity of listening when you play an album on vinyl.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

Writing lyrics is an interesting exercise. Sometimes, it's as though your subconscious takes control of the pen or keyboard. Things materialise on the page, and you later start to understand the full weight of their meaning.

When you read them, or sing them back, you can discover things that you didn't even notice were going on in your head. These can be feelings of love, loss, frustration, hope, or a mixture of them all. And music can help you identify and understand them.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?  

Science is an understanding of the way the universe works, so music, as one particular way that the universe expresses itself, is a form of science.

Every note has a physical effect on the world, as sound waves ripple through the air, bouncing off of objects, and finally converting to heat energy. Understanding science has even allowed us to turn music into a formal language and method, so that we can replicate the things we like to hear and feel, and avoid the things we don't.

But, strangely, if we get too focused on the science of music, then what we create doesn't sound very musical. It is only through an understanding of the more esoteric and incorporeal world of human emotion that we can hope to make true art that lives and breathes and transcends both the science and the emotion.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

There's an art, a discipline, and a meditation that can be found both in doing mundane tasks, and in making music. The difference for me is that creating music involves a strong element of exploration and experimentation. By comparison, it would be like trying to mix a new ingredient in with your coffee every time you make a cup.

I've been told that I'm two different people – one in day-to-day life, and one on stage. There's a sparkle that comes to my eye, and a more 'awake' mode that I reach when I'm performing, which is much rarer for me off of the stage.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

The human psyche is a realm of dreams, symbolism and infinite possibility. Art is a bridge between that metaphysical world, and reality.

It's someone painting their dream across a concrete wall so that passers-by can see it, feel it, judge it, and hopefully even relate to it.