Sean Rowe on Tour Foraging and Trusting His Instincts

Photo credit: Joe Navas

Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?

It depends. I usually take a rental car for most tours or have in the past tagged along on tour buses when I was opening for larger acts.

I remember this one particular time, I was on tour with St. Paul and the Broken Bones…2015 I think?

I was happily sharing their tour bus for a string of dates. We were all abruptly woken up by the driver at around 3am one night in a gas station parking lot. I believe we were somewhere in maybe Wyoming?? The entire bus was filled with thick smoke from some kind of electrical malfunction. Nobody likes to wake up that way.

How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?

I forage! It does come in handy sometimes. I’ve harvested many wild things while on the road going from town to town, digging around in local parks or woods. Mayapples in Memphis, hackberries and persimmons in Ohio, paw-paws in Pennsylvania, wineberries in Kingston, NY, various wild mushrooms in Pittsburgh, autumn olive in London and so many others. And of course, I’ll balance all that out with the occasional gas station Snickers bar but I do try to lean more on the healthy side.

How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?

It’s rare at this point. I probably replace them before they tend to be in the “breaking potential” zone. I do absolutely HATE the sound of new strings so tend to leave them on as long as possible plus I use flatwound strings which have a kind of muted, softer tone anyway. I use heavy gauge, electrics (13’s) on my acoustic which is certainly not very conventional but, it works for me.

Where do you rehearse?

Well, my rehearsal space is the venue at soundcheck! Outside of that, I really haven’t had a rehearsal space since my friends’ garage in high school!

What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?

I’m actually not sure that it had a title. But it certainly was an inspiration derived from Survivor’s “Eye of The Tiger.” I remember saying “My feet were like meat” somewhere in there. Please give me a god damn break, I was 7!

Describe your first gig.

It was in a now-defunct venue in upstate NY called Saratoga Winners. I was scared shitless. A lot of that was due to my whole high school class being in attendance. At the time I really thought I was a cross between Jim Morrison and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes. I had some form of confidence to get up there in the front like that but I wouldn’t say it was a “good” show. Kinda like your first sexual encounter, you just want to say that you got through it! I remember how taken aback I was with how blindingly hot the stage lights were. I was sweating so profusely into my eyeballs that the salt was making me go temporarily blind. That was a fun element added to an already nerve-racked 19-year old kid.

What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?

Happy to say music has been my full-time job for the last decade but before that, I was many things and did none of them too well. I was once hired as an assistant to help various folks who suffered from a severe brain injury to be a kind of “short-term memory,” helping them through their day-to-day tasks and appointments. The job was absolutely fascinating to me and it informed me in a lot of ways for which I am deeply thankful. The irony was not lost on me though considering that I have THE worst short-term memory of anyone I know. On many occasions, I have left my guitar in hotel rooms, various gigs, and sometimes other countries before I realized I was missing something rather important.

How has your music-related income changed over the past 5-10 years? What do you expect it to look like 5-10 years from now?

Well, I think if you count what happened with Covid, many of us lost our main source of income which was from live shows for a while. Thankfully, that seems to be coming back but I also see the importance of diversifying income through other avenues, which for me are publishing, Patreon, and tutorial instruction.

What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?

I’ve learned to trust my instincts. There’s just no one out there investing more in me than me.

Though he grew up in the generally frozen landscape of Troy, New York, Sean Rowe spent many of his formative summers in DeLand, Florida — a small town between Orlando and Daytona Beach — where his father was a residential caretaker at a home for troubled youths. It was there, in a mercifully air-conditioned, mostly unused building filled with donated musical instruments, that Sean taught himself to play drums and then bass. For those who have wondered where his distinctly low and percussive approach to guitar playing comes from, you now have your answer.

During those same years, when he wasn’t listening to heavy metal or building his early musical chops, Sean was in the woods exploring, foraging, and obsessively learning all that he could about the natural world around him. Since then, his fascination with the subject has only grown and through his new web-series, Can I Eat This?, he’s found a means of indulging two of his great passions: music and nature. In each of the forthcoming episodes of Can I Eat This?, Sean will guide a fellow musician on a foraging mission for all manner of wild foods. The two will use their harvest to prepare some tasty creation and end their adventure by performing a cover song together. Look for new episodes this summer!

Over the course of his career, Sean Rowe has recorded five full-length albums and several EPs. His music has been used widely throughout film and television, with notable examples including NBC’s hit dramas The Blacklist and Parenthood. Rowe’s song “To Leave Something Behind” was one of two non-score tracks to be featured in Ben Affleck’s hit 2016 feature film, The Accountant. The song accompanied the film’s final scene and has since received nearly 4.5 million streams on Spotify alone. For the remainder of 2021, he’ll be touring around the country in support of his new album, The Darkness Dressed in Colored Lights.

The Darkness Dressed in Colored Lights will be released on October 22. Connect with Sean Rowe online and on the road.