“Yea, it’s pretty brutal,” says Rossi, reached on the phone whilst he sits stagnant in said traffic. “You’ve really got to pick your spots, but it’s 4.45pm right now and I’m in the thick of rush hour.”
The traffic eventually loosens up and Rossi continues his journey home after a much needed day off at the beach. To call the past few months a whirlwind for Rossi would be a gross understatement. Since the release of You Are All I See, his much-lauded debut full-length, Rossi has been touring rather relentlessly. He’ll continue to do so in the new year, bringing his harp-heavy ethereal and oft-electronically induced stylings throughout Japan, Europe and finally, to grace Australian shores.
Don’t think that Rossi will become victim to any sort of culture shock. Before he’d hit puberty, Rossi had seen more of the world than most get to see in their lifetimes. As a member of a Philadelphia youth choir, Rossi had the chance to sing in some distant locales and does not understate the importance these travels have had on him.
“I think it had a huge impact on my as a person. It was pretty overwhelming for me to go to Africa when I was only ten years old. I went to Europe for the first time when I was nine and I haven’t really thought much about those trips until recently, when I went out on tour. And I started to think about how young I was, and performing at the Sydney Opera House, singing one of my first solos at Carnegie Hall in New York, singing with a small choir in South Africa – there are lots of things I’ve done and I know they all have had a big impact on me.”
It’s now Rossi’s turn to cull those experiences and turn them into something that has an impact on others. You Are All I See is a stunning listen, full of dramatic and emotional highs and lows. Considering his upbringing in a choir and the haunting, spiritual connotations of You Are All I See, one might assume that the record also carries a certain religious heft. Not so, insists Rossi, though he does acknowledge the connections.
“I definitely did not grow up religious. I mean, I went to church sometimes on Sundays, but when I sang with choirs, it was more than that. We were really just enjoying the moment and feeling captivated by the stage and just being there. When I travel and tour, I always like to find an old church to check out. We’ve also been playing a lot of churches on tour. I’ve been asking my agent to book us in as many spaces like that as possible. Because the new album is very devotional. It was a devotional piece to a woman in my life at the time. With the harp, and with what I try to do with my voice, it all works very well in that realm.”
Ah yes, the harp. Not the most conventional of instruments, it’s become a staple of live Active Child performances and does wonders to enhance his classical, sometimes otherworldly sound. Once Rossi begins speaking about his “harp history,” his tone begins to beguile and it’s easy to understand his attachment to the harp.
“My first harp ever was pretty special in a lot of ways because it kind of just fell into my lap. I had gone into a music shop, walked in, saw the harp sitting there and I was so drawn to it. I sat down and the woman in the shop approached me and said if I wanted it, I could take it home for free right then and there and rent-to-own. And for that first month, I didn’t ever really put it down. I was pretty attached to it. And after a few years of renting it for $30 a month, I eventually sold it and bought a new harp which has traveled everywhere with me. It’s suffered a few cracks along the way, but it’s managed to maintain a pretty warm, full-bodied sound.”
With that full-bodied sound comes intense, highly emotional lyrics. It’s a risky combination to pull off while playing live, when Rossi and the audience are locked together in such grand rooms. Active Child is not the type to get a liquored-up audience on the dancefloor; the high he tries to permeate is a cerebral one. And when asked if performing live can be draining, considering the emotional nature of his music, Rossi admits that it’s always a matter of timing.
“It really depends on the night. I can get in a rhythm, and some nights you don’t necessarily focus on the words, you just get through it. And other nights it can be really intense. So many times I’ve played my heart out and I look out into a crowd that doesn’t know how to react. Some nights a crowd can get really excited, some nights you’re met with blank stares. For me, that can be the exhausting part. To use up a lot of my energy and put out something personal and not getting a reaction out of the crowd can be frustrating. For them not to be as captivated as I am, sure, it happens. But it always depends on the night.”
When things are going well for Rossi, he gives into his music much in the way many people give into religion: as a search for truth. While the writing of You Are All I See was a journey for him to understand himself, it is through playing the album live, every night that Rossi will make even further inroads.
“The creation of this album and the songs itself, as a songwriter, it’s been an intense, introspective experience. You want to be honest with yourself and you have this curiosity to try and understand your world and yourself a little better. I think playing every night has helped me understand exactly what I was saying when I wrote the music. If I didn’t understand it then, I’ve begun to make sense of a lot of it.”
