The first signing to Harry Styles’ record label, MITCH ROWLAND is already a sensation in his own right - and his debut album’s not even out yet.

Words: Jessica Goodman.
Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

After spending the best part of the past two years performing on one of the highest-grossing tours in history, anyone else might be ready for a well-deserved break. For Mitch Rowland, it's an opportunity to step away from stadium stages and demonstrate what he's capable of on his own.

"I think I'm always just trying to not make an ass of myself," he laughs. Revered for his stellar guitar playing and reserved presence both on and off the stage (a YouTube video with the title 'Mitch Rowland talking/singing for 3 minutes and 57 seconds' and the description 'I had to do some REALLY deep diving on the internet to find some of these…' boasts over 75,000 views), Mitch is best known as a songwriting collaborator and touring guitarist with Harry Styles, but music has always been a part of his life.

When he thinks back to growing up on the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio, it's to visiting a family friend who had decked out their living room with a pool table and a vintage jukebox. "I wasn't even tall enough to see the balls on the table, but I could see the songs on the jukebox," he grins. Feeding in a quarter over and over to listen to the likes of The Black Crowes and Aerosmith on repeat, this is where his lifelong love of music first ignited.

"Weirdly, a lot of my journey through guitar playing can kind of boil down to that," he describes. "Had it not been for the seed that was planted when I was just making memories, things would've gone differently."

Teaching himself drums and then guitar, his early interest in playing stemmed less from a drive to be creative and more from a pure love of the music he was playing. For him, experimenting with songwriting didn't come until later. "I wasn't quite ready to make songs," he says. Instead, he'd use iMovie to record videos of himself playing as a visual reference to help him memorise the music and melodies he was toying with.

"I didn't know what I was doing – to some degree, I still don't," he laughs. "I had all this stuff saved up, these ideas." After cutting his teeth in bands Lionel The Jailbird and Total Navajo, he received an off-the-cuff invitation to step into the studio with a former boyband member working on his solo debut when another guitar player couldn't make it. The rest, as they say, is history.

From missing their second meet-up to work a shift at a pizza place to winning a Grammy award for a song they wrote together, theirs is a friendship that dreams are made of. "With Harry, it's always been very team-based," Mitch enthuses of their time in the studio together. "I could be more fly on the wall and just wait until it's my turn."

Now, he's about to release his own solo debut, something that, in comparison, he found to be a lot more consuming of a challenge. "I had to just be on my own as much as possible to realise what I was doing," he portrays. The first song written for the album, title-track 'Come June', was born out of that need to escape the chaos of inner city living and find not just solitude but safety.

"The song comes from city stressors," he describes. "In our neighbourhood, suddenly, things got kind of weird and scary. There were acid attacks, there was a stabbing. There was a time when I thought things weren't what they seemed. I wanted to retreat."

While a lot of the songs were written between LA and London, they also found seeds of inspiration in the English countryside. "When I'm in the countryside – and this is not just for me, but for everyone – there's just less crap going on," he details. With fewer distractions, he was able to play more to write more, and the concept for his debut album slowly started to come together. "It's better to be somewhere quiet," he enthuses, "it's nice to walk up to a cow."

The more he wrote, the more the record took shape, emerging as a collection of stripped-back folk songs charming in their simplicity. "I was trying to make a conscious effort to go minimal," he describes. "At the time, I thought I was making a vocal and guitar record." In the studio, that changed. The songs grew, with added layers and lush sounds – all things that, initially, Mitch consciously tried to stay away from. "I reached a point where I could feel myself being boxed in by my own doing," he recalls.

"You go through everything in the studio. You try everything out. But I think what translates the best is space," he describes of his approach. "Don't be the busy person. Just play what counts."

'Come June' embodies this to a T. From the up-tempo refrains that shimmer through 'Shadow Range' to the hypnotically meandering melodies of 'All The Way Back' and every degree in between, it's a record that feels rich without ever overwhelming, layered without ever being clustered. These songs ebb and flow, breathe and thrive, classic folk stylings at their most deliciously refreshing.

And if finding that sound was a happy accident? Well... "They're all accidents in some way," Mitch describes of the songs on the record. "I never planned on writing any of them until an idea makes my ears perk up."

Talking about the work that went into creating the album, he doesn't go long without giving credit to the other musicians who helped mould the record into its final shape, like Rob Schnapf ("I just let him do his thing, he just knows what to do"), Matt Schuessler ("he's so good I don't need to own bass equipment any more"), and Jerry Borgé (who "takes longer to finish a glass of wine" than a song).

"Having guys like them on the record, guys that just really know how to play to a song, that was a big deal to me," he enthuses. It's something that meant a lot to him, not just for complimenting his own musicianship ("I'm a t-rex on the piano," he laughs, pinching the fingertips of each hand together and miming pressing down on keys. "I added a couple of little things, and consequently had to put my name next to it, but I can't play piano, let's just make that clear"), but for enabling the songs to grow in a way that was entirely natural. "I just kind of gave over. That is what you end up hearing."

Announced in July (as far away as you can get from it next being June, something he teases "must've made sense on the calendar when I wrote it"), 'Come June' has already stirred up excitement online and with fans. Opening slots at Love On Tour's Slane Castle and Wembley Stadium dates gave crowds a first taste of what's to come, while stripped-back shows in London and LA offered a more intimate glance at the songs in their rawest form.

"When I do look, which I'm not supposed to, it seems good?" he hesitantly questions the reaction to the songs he's shared so far. "I know that a lot of my support is coming from Harry Styles fans, and I'll take it because they're amazing. They're really supportive people."

Talking with fans outside of Third Man Records in London, where he played a stripped-back show, giving everyone who attended a free tote bag, his gratitude to his audience is boundless. "They don't have to like it. The fact that some do is really sweet," he expresses. "So, I think so far, so good?" he asks again, "but I'm not looking."

Instead, he's focused on what comes next, on working out what shape these songs take with a live band, and on preparing for live shows (naming the UK, Europe, and the US as places he imagines he'll tour early next year). "The thing I kind of take away from the records I listen to over a thousand times is that it's more than music," he describes. "I have some level of companionship with music that I keep listening to."

"All I can hope for is that it helps somebody out," he earnestly describes. "If it makes someone feel less lonely when they're feeling lonely, that's kind of the best thing that could happen."

Taken from the October 2023 edition of Dork. Mitch Rowland's album 'Come June' is out 6th October.