Emma Rowley Releases Debut Album ‘Orange’

BY DANA ARMSTRONG

Loudoun-raised artist Emma Rowley enters her “Orange” era with the release of her debut altpop/rock album.

When Get Out Loudoun last interviewed Rowley in 2018, she was a recent graduate from Belmont University in Nashville. There, she earned her degree in commercial music with an emphasis in songwriting.

Rowley got interested in music through watching musicals at an early age. Soon she entered musical theater, and, despite her parents’ initial hesitancy, she started auditioning for New York. She was cast in two Broadway productions: Patti LuPone’s 2008 revival of “Gypsy” and “Bye Bye Birdie” (with John Stamos) in 2009.

“I look back on that now and it was more insane than I realized at the time—like, the people I got to work with and meet and everything that I learned,” Rowley said.

“When you’re in it, it’s just your life. But when you get out of it, you’re like, ‘whoa, that actually happened to me.’ That may be the coolest thing I ever do, but I feel like this album is right up there.”

For two years after college, Rowley moved back to Loudoun, released multiple singles, and performed at many of Northern Virginia’s wineries. Around that same time, she met Hamilton-based songwriter and producer Todd Wright, who would become her friend and mentor.

“I moved to Nashville for college wanting to be the next Taylor Swift, and then I graduated from Belmont wanting to be the next Emma Rowley. You have to find your voice and what you have to say, and Todd seriously helped me find that,” Rowley said.

In 2017, her sound was focused on electronic pop. Singles like “Night Drive” and “Evaporate” leaned into love-tinged lyrics and her whispery soft voice. But as Rowley matured, she found herself wanting to move out of the purely pop lane and incorporate elements of her other most listened-to genre: rock.

“I don’t have a rock voice in the traditional sense of a rock voice. But my favorite band is Third Eye Blind and one of my favorite vocalists is Hayley Williams. So how do I take these vocalists and bands that inspire me so much but make them me?”

Rowley answered that question with the help of her album’s producers—Wright and Rowley’s husband Kip Allen—who would also double as musicians during the recording process. By using live instrumentation including drums and guitar on every track, she was able to finally find her ideal blend of rock and pop.

Nowhere is that more evident than the album’s opening and title track: “Orange.” The song begins with an almost harp-like instrumentation paired with Rowley’s gentle, expressive voice before shifting into a heavier-hitting rock sound in the chorus.

The song, which she calls her own personal anthem, was one of the last co-writes she did in Nashville before the pandemic and helped kick off her album-wide messaging of self-discovery and reflection.

“There are two really significant things about this album: the first being the title track and the other thing being there are seven songs on the album,” said Rowley.

The number seven honors the memory of a cherished family member. When Rowley was young, her little brother was born with a brain tumor and passed away when he was seven months old.

“I have noticed through my life that the number seven shows up a lot for me and in these little ways that sometimes I’ve wondered if it’s an angel nod. And it’s the same thing with the color orange,” she said. “Ever since he died, these patterns and little signs have been this recurring thing in my life and my family’s life.”

“I felt like with the place that I had come to at the time of writing all these songs—mourning my childhood, really embracing my adulthood, getting married, entering this whole new phase of life—that symbolism of the color orange and the number seven, it just felt extra special to me.”

Living in Tennessee full-time now and writing and recording for the album during the pandemic, the distance allowed Rowley lots of space and time to reflect on the past and her roots. The ballad “Welcome Home” features a piano part she originally composed while feeling homesick during her freshman year of college. The lyrics reflect on the familiarity of being back in her childhood home with references to the Friday night lights of her alma mater, Loudoun County High School.

Meanwhile, songs like “The Wolf” and “Safe” explore Rowley living and learning through her twenties alongside a variety of people, whether they be deceitful and manipulative or safe and trustworthy.

The album’s final song is “Golden Memory” with lyrics harkening back to the marquees, stage wings, and line memorization sessions of her theater days.

“I really hope people can find their own meaning in [the album] and their own recognition with “Orange” and what it means to them. Like I know what it means to me, but I think that through this album, I have discovered “Orange” means so much more than I ever even realized on this deeper scale.”

“I hope that people can hear that song and then take it into their own lives and feel freedom, a sense of belonging, and a knowing of one’s self.”

Emma Rowley’s album, Orange, is out now on all major streaming platforms. Follow her on Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok @emmarowleymusic or Facebook to stay up to date on her upcoming projects and shows.