Rising singer-songwriter Rowan Drake is no stranger to heartbreak. After a devastating accident at age 15, he was forced to give up his dreams of becoming a competitive snowboarder.
Although heartbreaking, that incident provided the opportunity for him to explore his innate musicality and discover the healing power of music.
Rowan has continued to find comfort in his art transforming pain into unexpected beauty. His debut EP Dear Ella, turns the heartache of a past relationship into 9 intimate tracks, including “How Do I Love Again.”
We chatted with Rowan Drake about the EP, its deeply personal inspiration, and more.
Excerpt from the podcast:
What was the inspiration for the EP and title?
It has taken on different forms the more I think about it. I think one, it’s just the time capsule piece. I really want her and myself to be able to look back in five years, ten years, whatever it may be, and just remember how much was there. A lot of the songs are around sensitive topics and it’s not necessarily the happiest of projects, but at the same time, it does show that there was a lot of love there. I don’t want to forget that and I really don’t want her to forget that. So there’s a little bit of a selfish nature there and where it kind of ties us together in a deeper way, even if our lives are to separate in the future. I fought so hard to separate her and music for a long time, and this is almost a full circle moment of me just bringing her right to the front and center. That’s been a very rewarding thing.
One of the vulnerable singles featured on the EP is “Elephant in the Room.” What was the inspiration for that song and what was it like writing it?
Ella is very well-spoken and emotionally in touch with how she feels. She said something to me. I think she just mentioned that I might have been kind of glossing over the fact that things were not going very well between us. It led to one of the main lines of the song, which is “You can’t hide behind those pretty hazel eyes and say that everything’s all right. my love our world is split in two.” It’s just talking about how sometimes when a relationship is kind of dying, you can grasp at straws for what is still good and put on blinders to everything that’s falling apart. In that case, I was the one who was putting on blinders to everything that was going so poorly. It fits into the ep. The EP is in chronological order, kind of from a certain chapter of my, my relationship with Ella, and “Elephant in the Room” is one of the earlier songs and was right before we initially broke up.
Listen to more from our chat with Rowan below!