Q&A with Andria Rose: "I never want someone to know what they’re gonna get from me, I never wanna be predictable"
Whether you’re familiar with the offshoot genre of dreampop or not, there’s something in Andria Rose’s newest project that scintillates the senses of anyone who gives it a listen. Her third EP in five years, Coming Up Roses is made up of six tracks that are a perfect introduction to the Texas native’s signature ethereal sound and tranquil aesthetic.
Rose is a second-generation Mexican-American, based out of San Antonio but with roots in Laredo. She’s no Lana-come-lately to the indie music scene, either. Back in 2018 she and her old band, Andria Rose & the Youth, opened three stops of alt-pop band The Marías’ Texas tour and shortly thereafter did the same for superstar Kali Uchis.
In Coming Up Roses, her dulcet vocals take your hand as you’re guided through a haze of nostalgia, heartbreak, personal growth, and suggestive propositions. The atmospheric instrumentals that envelop her voice gather from all manner of other music styles: “Cherries” is propped up by a funk-tinged bass and percussion while also staying true to the dreamy vibes, while “Seven Seas” harnesses bossa nova’s innate lulling notes to marry perfectly with her glazed lyrics.
In an exclusive interview with Listening Party, Rose talks about the creative process behind Coming Up Roses, how it felt to transform her inner turmoil into songs, why she feels “velvet” is the best word to describe her sound, and more!
(The following quotes have been edited and condensed for clarity.)
What’s your name, and where are you from?
My name is Andria Rose, and I’m from San Antonio, Texas.
How did you get into music in practice? Did you take any classes, or do you come from a family of artists? Both?
I got into music, in practice, from an early age. My mom and my dad were both avid music listeners. When I was younger they had big sound systems with really big speakers and they would play a variety of artists, from Nancy Sinatra to Grupo Límite, Selena, George Strait. A lot of the classics I grew up listening to. And, of course, growing up in South Texas in Corpus I was immersed with Selena’s image, so immediately I was inspired to be a singer because of her.
My dad played guitar and we would sing songs together a lot when I was visiting him. I remember he got me a karaoke machine, and I would have mini concerts for my family. I would make everybody gather in the living room and watch me dance and sing. I always had to be the center of attention in some way, [laughs]
Since elementary school, up until I graduated high school, I was in choir. I switched voice parts throughout the years. I started out as a soprano and then I ended as an alto/alto 2, so in that way I got a lot of classical training.
You describe your genre as “velvet dreampop” — can you describe for our readers what that is, and what characteristics you feel it has that makes it different from general pop?
I am a self-proclaimed "Latin velvet dreampop" singer. That’s kind of a term that I coined maybe three years ago when I just started coming into my own as an artist and understanding what it was that I wanted out of my music, and [also] the takeaway that I hoped to lend my audience when they listened to my music and saw my visuals.
Whenever I sing or write a song I always have the image of velvet in my mind where I want the melody and the words sonically to flow and feel like velvet. Because velvet is one of the most comforting and soft fabrics, and it’s also beautiful. When I create and when I write I want nothing more than for it to be beautiful and feel comforting and soft, elegant, even sexy. There’s a lot of ways you can describe “velvet.”
In my opinion, my songs — when I sing them, and when I write them — they feel like velvet to me. So, of course being Latina I try to always incorporate my Latin roots into my songs. “Latin velvet” is me as a person, how I feel I am. And “dream” is really just the nature of the genre that I gravitate towards when I’m writing and what I want my music to sound like. I want it to be dreamy, and transfixing.
How did you discover that subgenre, and what about it appealed to you as an artist?
My first introduction to Latin indie was probably Cuco. I remember when I first heard his music, and how he would blend Spanish and English over a super indie instrumental, I was blown away and thought it was the coolest thing. Prior to him I hadn’t heard anybody doing that, and then through him I found various other Latin indie artists that had that style. And I’m so grateful for all of these artists, like The Marías for example, because it’s so validating and reassuring that there are successful artists out there who have those Latin roots and who make their music their own but still incorporate their culture. And it works, and it’s successful, and it’s beautiful.
I had never really seen that in the media, and through others you find yourself. I feel like I knew where I was going with my career after finding the subgenre of Latin indie, and once I started indulging I started getting a lot more support from different outlets. And I’m so grateful, so happy, that by being true to myself and showcasing who I am and my music there’s been a really good response. And that’s the best message there is; you just be yourself and the rest comes to you, as cliché as it sounds.
This is your 3rd EP, after Telenovela in 2021 and Electric in 2019. When you set out to record this, what was your goal creatively to make it stand apart from those previous projects?
Yes, this is my third EP. It’s kind of wild that I’ve made it this far, from 2019 to 2024.
When I set out to make Coming Up Roses I didn’t really have a clear vision of where I was going with it, or necessarily what I even wanted to say. I went about it one step at a time. With my two other EPs, they were more of a vision right off the bat where I knew where I wanted to go, I knew the underlying tone, the theme, and the message that I wanted to convey and I already had the visuals of it all already thought out.
This time around I approached it differently. I'm more well-christened to my career than when I was writing those two other projects. Sometimes inspiration is there right away and you can roll with it and you see it, you see the picture, and other times it’s more of a reach and more of going inward to find it, and that’s what this project was. I went one step at a time, one song at a time with it. There was a lot of trial and error, and a lot of songs that didn’t make the cut.
I’m in a very interesting chapter of my life where I feel like a lot of my life has been consumed with seeking out the future and hoping one day that, y’know, I’ll be more successful. And in that way I’ve been hindering myself and making myself unhappy, truthfully. I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection and trying to figure out what it is I’m needing for myself to feel happy. And don’t get me wrong, I was happy, but I wasn’t happy, if that makes sense, [laughs]
I think through writing this project I was able to unlock that realization and put it into words. Through this realization I figured out where I wanted to go with this EP. So, “coming up roses,” by definition really means that everything is great, everything is good. And I wanted to roll with that because everything is good in this moment that we’re alive and we’re healthy and we have so much love around us. We have family, we have friends — in my case, people who listen to my music, my fans, and those are things to be grateful for. And chasing the future is doing a disservice to all those wonderful things that exist in the present. And that’s what this project is really about, creatively. It’s a really in-the-moment kind of project where tomorrow’s flowers don’t compare to the flowers that bloom today. And I’m trying my best every single day, even after completing this project, to remember that and have gratitude for the successes that I’ve had and the support that I have, because that’s really all that matters. As cliché as it sounds, tomorrow is not promised and I don’t wanna live with regrets. I don’t really think I have any. There’s not point in wanting to turn back around and change things because if things were changed for us, we wouldn’t be who we are today. This project is about the moment and living in it.
You explore different genre fusions in Coming Up Roses — there’s some bossa nova flair in “Seven Seas,” for example — and I was wondering how much of that was your idea from the conception of the track, or something that was developed along with the producer?
“Seven Seas” is probably my favorite track on the EP. I have always wanted to make a bossa nova song. I love bossa nova — I have a collection of records. It’s typically what I’m always listening to. Astrud Gilberto is one of my absolute favorite, favorite singers. I love her music. [She’s] definitely part of the reason I am the artist I am today.
When writing this EP I knew that I needed a bossa nova song in it. So, when I was in the writing session with my producer I told them “Today I wanna do a bossa nova song, that’s where my heart is telling me that we should go.” So, he whipped this beautiful song together and I started singing. The lyrics flowed out on this one. This track was probably one of the quickest songs written on the EP. Bossa nova is just so romantic and so transfixing. It transports me to a paradise in my head when I listen to it. I feel like I’m on a beach with my lover, and that’s what came out when I wrote the song. The idea of “Seven Seas” came up in my brain and I went with it. There’s a lot of themes of the ocean in this EP. I’m still trying to figure out subconsciously what that may mean, [laughs] But I knew that I needed a bossa nova song, I knew it was time, and we did it and I love it so much.
How do you choose whether to perform a song in English or Spanish? Do you typically write in English first and then translate to Spanish? In what language does your creative muse speak to you when you’re thinking of song ideas?
When I’m writing my muse will typically speak to me in English. Most of the time that’s the way that I start writing, and then sometimes I’ll just feel like a Spanish phrase or Spanish word would go really well in a specific area of an already-English song. Or I’ll go based off of instrumentation when we’re in the beginning stages of creating a song and I’m wanting to go into more of a Latin flair, then I’ll start writing in Spanish first.
What helps me decipher where I want to go in a song will most likely start with the instrumentation and the goal that I have in mind when creating a song. I’ll go into a session and be like “I wanna do a bachata song” and then I’ll have that instrumentation, but I’ll start writing in English to switch it up, to not make it be what you’d expect it to be. I like to do that to keep my audience on their toes — I never really want someone to know what they’re gonna get from me, I never wanna be predictable.
A song like “Play It Cool” is so catchy and listenable, but when you listen to the lyrics it deals with feelings and sentiments that are clearly very frustrating and sad. When these are inspired by real life, how do you get yourself in the headspace to create something lively from something sad?
“Play It Cool” was out of my comfort zone for a lot of different reasons. We started with the instrumentation; we wanted to go for a more upbeat, indie, guitar-based kind of song. [It] was the song that took the longest to write for a lot of different reasons. To me, the instrumentation was never quite right and I would hyper-fixate on that part. And then the melody changed probably three times, maybe even four, because I couldn’t find exactly what I was wanting to say quite yet, and how I was wanting to say it. So, I worked on [the song] for maybe close to a month just trying my hardest to perfect it and make it what I knew it could be.
At the time I was writing I was going through a lot personally with relationships that were not benefiting me in a lot of different ways, and hindering me and causing me a lot of mental strain. I had just fairly recently escaped similar relationships like that, so I found myself falling into a pattern of having toxic people like that around me. Having them consume me and walk all over me, because I am a people pleaser. Writing this song took me reflecting inward and seeing my situation for what it was, and realizing that if I didn’t do something about or stand up for myself or be in my own corner then the cycle would continue and I would be unhappy. So, this song is symbolic in the way that it [communicates] me showing up for myself, not taking people’s shit anymore, and I love that song for that reason.
I think it’s kind of full circle in the way that it took so long to come into fruition, relating to me. I have always been a people pleaser my entire life and let people treat me in ways that they shouldn’t, and I’m at a point in my life where I’m not gonna let that happen anymore. So, though the lyrics are sad and it’s probably one of my most vulnerable songs it definitely needed to be written in order for me to work through my own problems in my life and… play it cool, [laughs]
There seems to be a lot of Latine artists venturing into dreampop, which is a welcome thing to see. How exciting is it for you, someone who has been dabbling in the genre for so many years, finally seeing so many peers coming into it as well? What hopes do you have for this expansion?
I have definitely seen an influx in the Latin dreampop genre over the past few years, and it’s so amazing honestly to see it and the representation, and the success in the mainstream that it’s having. I’ve met a lot of really amazing people in this genre. Going back to The Marías, they were my very first tour and honestly my very first professional shows that I’ve ever done. And I’m forever grateful to have crossed paths with them and have been taught and been inspired by them for so many years now.
My friend Quelle Rox, based in New York, she and I have been friends for maybe six years now and she’s one of the most beautiful people that I’ve ever met. She inspires me every day with every different song that she sends me. Her advice and the way that she has been flourishing in her own element — I feel so lucky to be able to witness the growth and camaraderie that comes with being a minority, and then even moreso being in the music industry, and then being a woman in the music industry. There’s so many experiences that I don’t have to hold just to myself and there’s safe spaces to be heard and, like I said, through others you find yourself and there’s so much inspiration going around that it’s exciting honestly. I’m honored to be a part of it and I’m excited to see where it goes.
For those who like your music, which artists would you recommend, from both Latin America and outside?
For those that like my music, artists that I would recommend that they would probably also like are: Quelle Rox, her and I have two songs together so definitely they would like those. Jacks Haupt, she’s another Latin artist that is a really good friend of mine, based in Dallas. CHROMA, they’re a chicano rap group also based in Dallas, really good friends of mine — so good. I think that they would like Kali Uchis, Lana Del Rey... Some pretty solid artists that are similar!