U.K. musician passenger on board with u.s. swagger
U.K. folk artist finds American roots on ninth album
You get the sense talking to Mike Rosenberg (a.k.a. the Brighton, U.K. singer-songwriter who records as Passenger) that he would still be out there busking around the world if Let Her Go hadn’t happened.
But the song from his 2012 album All the Little Lights established the folk-pop artist as a top-40 act.
By 2013, the single scored him a Brit Award nomination and won the coveted Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Work.
What people perhaps don’t know is that All The Little Lights was the fifth album from Passenger. This was no overnight success.
Now preparing to hit the road on tour in support of his ninth album Runaway, Rosenberg took time to talk about his work and the surprising Americana turn his tunes have taken on the new album. It’s his fifth working with producer Chris Vallejo, who he describes as the other half of the “team,” and included a monthlong journey to capture footage and atmosphere for the videos and promotional reels for the album. There is a reason for this, and the affable artist was more than willing to discuss it.
Q Runaway is getting released differently than your other work. How is it to pursue the whole single and video preview track approach with this one, dropping Hell or High Water, Heart to Love and others on the market well in advance?
A It’s weird, because half the album is out in the world before it’s out. There just aren’t any rules anymore, mate. Once an album was this precious thing you wouldn’t dare put out early or leak. Now, as long as they are listening — streaming, downloads, vinyl, sharing, whatever — it’s fine by me if they get it all in individual songs, whatever.
Q You seem to have left the U.K. behind on Runaway. Stylistically, it’s an American alt-folk type of record, even venturing into some country vibes.
A I sat down with the songs before I recorded and found they had this really strong consistent American content — a song about Detroit, a song about Yellowstone National Park, one about my father’s family from New Jersey — that gave the album a road trip element. They have this swagger to them, so I decided to pull out the banjos and mandolins and just full-on go for it.
Q That road trip aspect plays out in the teaser video for the record where it looks like you managed to visit all the contiguous U.S. Was that one of the better promotional trips you’ve pulled out of your career?
A Oh yeah, we did this road trip/ holiday to film these videos and had a blast doing it. Plus, I think we got something really special and brought out something that has always been there before. It’s not like I’ve gone euro-trance this time around. And, just to clarify, I’m an independent artist, so nobody was the bank for the trip.
Q To Be Free is the song you mentioned about your family in New Jersey. Tell us about that family connection. Any Sopranos in the mix?
A Not at all. My grandparents were Jewish refugees who arrived in the 1940s from Germany and Poland, set up a chicken farm in New Jersey and that is where my dad and his siblings grew up. It was a difficult story to write and one that I never thought I would pen about that journey from grandparents, to parent, to me.
Q Your writing is heralded for being close to the bone, but it goes all over the place. What is the difference in your head space writing something driving like Hell Or High Water or plaintive and testimonial such as Survivors or To Be Free?
A I pick up the guitar in a certain mood and moment and capture it in a way that it probably couldn’t ever be captured again. There are times when I lose those moments, and I really regret it because it’s so very transient with me. For example, I wrote the two you mentioned — Survivors and To Be Free — only days apart on the same trip, and they are really different types of song.