With the release of her debut EP 'rumination as ritual', ALESSI ROSE discusses her journey from Derby bedroom pop to rising star, the cathartic nature of her songwriting process, and her excitement for a summer of festivals and headline shows. Check out our latest Hype playlist cover feature.

Words: Stephen Ackroyd.
Photos: Phoebe Lettice Thompson.

Alessi Rose is a whirlwind of energy, her words a cascade of enthusiasm and honesty. With her debut EP 'rumination as ritual' now out in the world, she's poised on the precipice of something big - a moment when her intimate, introspective songwriting meets a growing audience hungry for authenticity. It's a heady mix of buzz and vulnerability, much like Alessi herself. Basically, she's Really Quite Exciting - which is exactly what we want to hear.

When we catch up with Alessi, she's in the midst of a delayed train journey, but her enthusiasm remains undimmed. She's heading home, stuck in Kettering for the time being [Insert the song here - Ed], but armed with headphones and the new Gracie Abrams album. The prospect of seeing her dog (and her parents) is keeping her spirits high, despite the travel hiccups.

Alessi's path to pop stardom wasn't always clear-cut. Growing up in Derby, she found herself isolated from the music industry, with no family connections to draw upon. "I definitely always wanted to be a musician, but I can't say I always knew I was going to be one," she reflects. "I feel like a lot of people I meet now can say they always knew this was what they were going to do, but truthfully, back in Derby, I just had zero clue how to get into it; there's not a musical bone in my family, on either side, apart from me."

Her musical journey began with an eclectic mix of influences and experiences. "I used to write really angsty poetry when I was 13, alongside doing musical theatre, choir, and classical singing, and then there just came a point where I combined the writing with the love of music," Alessi explains. "I would sit at my piano for hours and write really quite indulgently depressing songs, and I just carried on throughout my teens."

Alessi's musical tastes were shaped by a diverse array of artists, each contributing to her unique sound. "I loved Kate Bush and Lorde, and specifically, I just loved kinda, quirky lyrics," she says. "I saw Gracie Abrams on my Instagram Explore page back in like 2016 when she would just post 30-second clips of songs she had written, and I became obsessed with her and decided to start posting my songs on Instagram too."

However, sharing her music publicly came with its own set of challenges. "I blocked my entire secondary school year group from the account I made because I knew I'd get mocked," Alessi admits. "They did find it anyway, and I wish I could say I was wrong. Was not."

The turning point for Alessi - like so many - came during a time when all of us found ourselves with more time to learn new things or put more into creative pursuits - less through choice, more through enforced isolation. "Probably towards the end of lockdown was when things started to change," she recalls. "I had started teaching myself to produce my own songs on a cracked version of Logic Pro X and a 15-year-old dying Apple iMac, literally just through trial and error."

"I was on a gap year just working at my local pub back home, saving up money for university," she continues. "I started uploading these unmixed, self-produced, unreleased songs to my local BBC Introducing and to Dean Jackson, and he'd play them on the radio on a Saturday".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w45WViG90UY

Jackson is someone that Alessi is keen to pay tribute to when it comes to not only her journey, but those of so many others. "I owe so much," she exclaims. "He has helped so many people, especially those like me who literally didn't have a clue how to get into music properly before."

Her DIY approach extended beyond production to networking, as she took the initiative to connect with other industry professionals. "I was finding producers by looking at Spotify song credits to see who had produced the songs I liked at the time," Alessi explains. "I was DMing them on Instagram and asking them if they'd want to hear some of my self-produced demos and maybe work together. I started working with some people over Zoom; they would clean up the demos that I had recorded and stuff like that."

While reaching out to producers, Alessi was simultaneously building a fanbase through an unexpected platform. "I was doing these TikTok lives where I would go on every night, sing covers, and when the viewers got up to a certain number, I would throw one of my original songs in the mix, and soon enough, there were people tuning in every night and requesting MY songs over asking me to cover someone else's, which was a super promising, weird feeling."

It was through one of these digital performances that Alessi's talent caught the eye of industry professionals. "It was on one of those TikTok lives where someone in the industry was watching and emailed me to kinda ask me who I was and what I was doing, and that's how I got my way in essentially," she reveals. "I was definitely chasing it and being pushy, but the way I got noticed was very butterfly effect and by chance."

Despite her growing success, Alessi admits that the reality of her achievements didn't fully sink in until recently. "I'm super in my head a lot of the time and sometimes struggle to stay present, so even though I'm now one year into releasing music, I would still say the first time I felt like it was really 'happening' was at my first headline show back in March," she shares. "Up until then, I'd done more showcase-y shows where people had come to see me on a lineup of a few people, but I'd never done anything where people were paying money to see me specifically. My headline was at St Pancras Old Church, sold out, and was the best night of my life. Seeing the crowd there and seeing all these girls dressed like me, and them all knowing the words to songs that weren't even out yet, was like a proper realisation for me that I'm getting somewhere."

"I'm learning to celebrate the small wins as well," she affirms, "because sometimes it's so easy to just be wishing and wanting all the time that you don't clock how far you've come."

"It's all fun and games until someone sends you your own song and says, 'This feels like an indirect'. Deny, deny, deny!"
ALessi Rose

And how far she's come indeed. With her debut EP 'rumination as ritual' released ("I can't even believe that's a true sentence, to be honest"), Alessi is ready to share her most personal work yet. The EP's title has deep roots in her own experiences. "I was talking about my OCD one day," she recounts, "explaining it to someone who didn't have it, and about how I have a habit of ruminating on past thoughts and events until I stumble upon something I feel like I've done wrong, and the way in which the more you do that, the more and more these past events and thoughts pop into your brain, and so the cycle continues. I then went on to say that that rumination ends up being my little self-sabotaging ritual, and hence came the title."

The EP is a deeply personal collection of songs, each one drawn from Alessi's own experiences. "All the songs on the EP are about real things that have happened to me in the past, things that I have definitely overanalysed to the fullest extent, about people I've gone back to or people I've ditched, etc," she reveals. "All of the songs are the product of things I have struggled to let go of due to the fact my brain likes to hold onto things, and I'm so, so, so excited for the EP to come out because it does, in a way, feel like me letting go of all these past ruminations."

Alessi's pride in the EP extends beyond its lyrical content to its musical diversity. "I also love that sonically there's a lot of variety on the EP from 'Lucy', which is a super chill guitar-focused song about a girl I used to love/hate back in school, to 'CRUSH!', which is this super outrageous, fun pop song about that person who thinks you're in love with them when you're definitely not," she says. "Our emotions are not one-dimensional, so I wanted my first project to feel like it covered the scope of everything I feel."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX3de5DS69k

The aesthetic of the EP draws from one of Alessi's most treasured influences, a film that has deeply shaped her artistic vision. "The visuals are super inspired by my favourite movie, The Virgin Suicides, because I just really love the way in which Sofia Coppola paints the image of girlhood and how we never truly know what's going on in the girls' heads," she explains. "In contrast, you have me and my EP, and you're about to know EVERYTHING in this girl's head, but I still feel like, due to how personal the songs are, it shares the level of introspection that we girls are so used to."

The EP's creation was a relatively quick process, with all the songs being written within the past year. "All the songs on it are pretty new. I mean, I've only been working consistently in a studio since the start of 2023, so I still feel like all of this is very fresh and as though I am a baby to this whole world," Alessi shares. "I don't think I ever sat down in the studio and was like, 'Okay, I'm writing for an EP now'. It was more like I'd written so, so, so, so many songs that I really loved, and I had a creative idea for how I wanted them to exist together, and we just picked our favourites."

The personal nature of her songwriting has led to some amusing situations with her inner circle. "All the songs feel very relevant because they're so new, but they're also all about things that have happened in the last year, so when I played it to friends, they were very much like, 'Yup, know why you wrote this one'. It's all fun and games until someone sends you your own song and says, 'This feels like an indirect'. Deny, deny, deny!" Alessi laughs.

For Alessi, songwriting has evolved into more than just a creative outlet – it's become a necessary form of emotional release. "It's become a cathartic thing for me now. Especially when I have such a busy one-million-thoughts-a-minute brain," she explains. "When I was growing up I was definitely writing songs because I enjoyed writing songs, whereas now, it has become more of a compulsion. If I'm stressed or sad or uneasy about something, I start to feel this pit in my stomach, and more often than not, that's my body telling me I need to write a song to let go of whatever I'm stuck on. Which I guess in itself is the compulsive element of my OCD brain."

"Taylor taught me if people don't want me to write songs about them, they shouldn't do bad things"
ALessi Rose

Alessi's approach to lyrical content is refreshingly candid. "I also love writing songs about specific things that have happened. I do think the people who listen to my songs know exactly what is going on in my personal life based off the kind of things I'm writing and teasing, and to be totally honest, I'm okay with that," she says. "I'll go one step further; I'll give you names, details, receipts even! Taylor taught me if people don't want me to write songs about them, they shouldn't do bad things. I've had to use that card recently."

When it comes to her writing process, Alessi finds comfort and freedom in her personal space. "I always go into the studio with some lyrics I've already written, or a concept I've thought of, or sometimes just the whole song as it is, and that I always come up with in my bedroom, normally super late at night," she reveals. "I love writing alone in my room because I feel like I allow myself to make mistakes more and sing nonsensical words and melodies until it feels right. I'm more critical and picky with myself in that environment, but then I end up with something that says what I want to communicate exactly how I envisioned."

Looking ahead, Alessi hopes that the EP will strengthen her connection with her fanbase. "We have a super close relationship already. I always say that they feel like my friends and like I know them all, but I really would love to be able to go to more places and meet more of them in person," she says. "I'd love to go to Europe; I'd love to go to the US. Performing live and seeing that these people who listen to me actually exist in real life is the most rewarding thing for me."

Alessi's dedication to her fans stems from her own experiences as a music lover. "I know what it was like being 16 and loving an artist so much that I just wanted to be able to speak to them all the time and know what their songs were about, so I'm always trying to be that open with my listeners," she explains. "Which is easy because I can't stop once I start; I get a severe case of word vomit."

As for future aspirations, Alessi has set her sights on bigger stages and new experiences. "I'd love to go on tour with a bigger artist as an opener; I feel like I'd learn so much about performing and touring and about myself as an artist," she shares. "A few of my favourite artists ever are touring soon, so we can pray, manifest, make shrines etc. Don't wanna jinx it."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBZBcqSScrU

Despite her rising profile, Alessi remains grounded, surrounded by a supportive group of fellow musicians. "It has definitely taken a year of adjusting to living in London before I found my people within the music scene, but right now, my best friends are all insanely, terrifyingly talented musicians," she says. "Fred Roberts, Nieve Ella, Erin LeCount, Hannah Grae, Kai Bosch, to name a few. We're all similar ages and at similar stages in our careers, which is just lovely to feel understood in that sense."

The musical diversity within her friend group is something Alessi particularly cherishes. "We all make super different music from each other. It's been so refreshing to be in such a fiercely supportive environment within an industry that conventionally likes to pit people against each other," she reflects. "I've also been loving meeting people who are okay with being the loudest in the room. We are very annoying to encounter in public."

With summer approaching, Alessi's calendar is quickly filling up with exciting opportunities. "I am literally prepping for the best summer of my life so far. I'm playing my first ever festivals - Latitude, Y Not and Reading & Leeds," she enthuses. "I feel super lucky considering I get to play Y Not and Leeds when they were festivals I grew up going to with my friends, and I always had it in the back of my mind back then that I would much rather be on stage than be there in the crowd, as fun as that is."

But the summer excitement doesn't end there. "After Reading & Leeds, I then go into rehearsals for my first-ever headline tour!" Alessi exclaims. "I'm doing two nights at Hoxton Hall, a show at Bodega in Nottingham - kinda my home show - and then a night in Glasgow, which was originally Poetry Club, but we upgraded to King Tuts because the Scottish girlies came through in an insane way! Definitely going to be the highlight of my year, playing to rooms of people who know all the words and have dressed up in their ballet flats."

As for what lies beyond the EP release and summer tour, Alessi is already looking to the future. "I have a little file on my phone full of all the songs that I think I want to come out post-EP. I listen to them every day, and they're really quite cool and fun and good, in my opinion," she reveals. "Pop is soooooooooo back as well, and that's exciting. We should all be excited."

One thing's for certain: Alessi Rose's enthusiasm is infectious. If her music takes hold half as quickly as her personality, her rise from here should be stratospheric. With a desire to connect, songs to match and a side-order of intense honesty, the potential is obvious - so long as she doesn't get in trouble first. As we part, she's gagging to let us in on who 'CRUSH!' is about. "I'll tell you after this," she offers. "I think if I tell everyone else, I'll get in trouble." ■

Alessi Rose's debut EP 'rumination as ritual' is out now. Follow Dork's Hype Spotify playlist here.

"I'll give you names, details, receipts even": Alessi Rose's unapologetic approach to pop