Name: Rose Room
Members: Seonaid Aitken (violin, vocals, string arrangements), Tam Gallagher (rhythm guitar, vocals), Jimmy Moon (double bass), Conor Smith (solo guitar, backing vocals)
Interviewee: Seonaid Aitken
Nationality: Scottish
Current release: Rose Room's new album It's Been A Long, Long Time is out now.
Recommendation for Glasgow, Scotland: The Clutha. It’s a vibrant music pub in Glasgow that gave us one of our first gigs and has supported us over the years. They are a real champion of live music and the place has such character - from the Rennie Mackintosh mural on the outside to the fully grown tree in the middle of the bar inside!

If you enjoyed this Rose Room interview and would like to know more about the band, visit them on Facebook, and bandcamp.



Tell me about the process behind It's Been A Long, Long Time, please.

We’ve approached making albums in different ways over the years, but what we’ve found works best for us is to get comfortable playing the music in a concert setting before recording it. That way we’re well-acquainted with the material and have plenty to say when it comes to soloing.

Conor joined us during Covid in 2020, so, we thought we’d get back into the swing of gigging together in this incarnation of Rose Room before we were ready to record the ‘new’ line-up. The timing felt right to release the album in 2025 to celebrate our 15th Anniversary as a band as we embark on a UK tour.

Our previous travels as a band have led us to making new musician friends over the years and so we’ve featured some of these collaborators as special guests on the album. We met world-class Welsh percussionist Owen Gunnell through Childrens Classic Concerts - he’s the presenter/musician/artistic director of the organisation geared towards getting kids into Classical music.

We devised a few shows with CCC but the most recent one - ‘Django’s Journey’ - featured a giant cat puppet named Django and explored the journey of Gypsy Jazz from its origins in India.



We’ve had so much fun making music with Owen that we wanted to capture it on our album. He takes the melody on vibes on ‘Nuages’ and also plays on ‘What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?’.



Celebrated Shetland fiddler Bryan Gear features on a twin-fiddle moment with me on ‘Lady Be Good’.



He’s my favourite Shetland fiddler - his sound is huge, warm and rich and has a natural Swing style inherent in the traditional music of Shetland thanks to guitarist Peerie Willie Johnson who Bryan used to play with. We first met Bryan at the Shetland Folk Festival in 2013 and he’s joined us on stage to ‘have a tune’ every time we play in Shetland.

Virtuoso accordionist Artek Siwak is part of the Roma community in Glasgow and we first met and jammed with him at Bute Manouche - Scotland’s former Gypsy Jazz festival. He also plays with the Ando Glaso Collective which celebrates the Roma tradition in Glasgow and we’re thrilled to have him lend his talents to our interpretation of Charles Trenet’s ‘I Wish You Love’.



He helps create a Parisian charm in the song but really augments it with his dynamic flourishes throughout.

Our string quartet is made up of my favourite, lush players - Kristan Harvey (violin), Patsy Reid (viola) and Alice Allen (cello). I play and record with these musicians a lot and chose them for their gorgeous, warm sound which is perfect for the 1930s colour I’m looking for in the ballads, for example.

They are also phenomenal Folk players (as well as having Classical training), so they have an unmatched internal groove and flashiness to their playing which is perfect for the string soli on ‘I Found A New Baby’ which I wrote specifically with their playing in mind.



I’m lucky to be sitting on top of that sound on first violin!

How does the creative process typically get started and what is your sense of ownership like as part of the songwriting process?

I’m lucky that the guys in the band have let me run with the creative decisions. After coming up with initial ideas, we hone the arrangements to make them work for us individually and as a band.

We didn’t write any original material this time, but the biggest creative part I’m proud to shape on the album is the string arrangements. The cool part of recording an album - and adding extra musicians - is the ability to elevate the textures on some of the tracks to make them different from what our quartet would produce in a live context.

It keeps it fresh for us and sometimes these ideas make their way back into our live versions which is a bonus!

What tend to be the best songs in your opinion – those where you had a lot in common as a band or those where you had more differences? What happens when another musician take you outside of your comfort zone?

Definitely the ones which we can all get onboard with. We are more invested in the music and the performance is elevated as a result. If we’re not feeling a song/tune after having played it in, we’ll just replace it with something that we can all get fully into.

It’s really exciting when we have another artist join us as a guest. There’s a different energy created and we always learn something from working with them. We’re lucky to have played with some incredible Gypsy Jazz and jazz artists such as guitarists Martin Taylor MBE, Joscho Stephan and Hugh Burns, and violinist Christian Garrick.

We defer to the way our guests suggest we approach the music which is sometimes a challenge for us - as we’ve gotten into our own rhythm as a band - but it’s refreshing for us to take a different approach.

What are your thoughts on the need for compromise vs standing by one's convictions? How did you resolve potential disagreements?

In musical decisions, it’s important to try things out different ways in the rehearsal room and then put it into practise on stage to find out what truly works for the band. Everyone has to be invested in the way we perform the music for us to have confidence on stage.

In other band matters, we’ll say our piece if we have a strong opinion on something and sometimes that results in an impasse. But, given time, we’ll realise that what we were conflicted about wasn’t really a big deal, so we’ll come to a natural agreement.