City Sounds: Dear Rouge (Part One)
In this month’s City Sounds, we spoke with Drew McTaggart of Dear Rouge. In this first of two articles, he discusses the progression of being a musician, how it lead to the creation of the current group, and the profound affect marriage has on their music.
Q: You and Danielle met while touring with other groups, what are some of the lessons from these early days that continue to influence Dear Rouge?
Being a musician is such a long journey. You’re really excited about what you’re working on, but there will always be better things to come in the future – and as long as you’re working really hard, you’re going to get better and you’re going to write better songs. Those early bands are giving you the experience of playing live, song-writing, working together with a team. So when we met each other there was a bit of seasoning and we were a little bit more mature in our strategy.
It was easy for us both to walk into [Dear Rogue]. The stuff we did previously was a lot different, so we knew this was what we wanted to do and this is the type of music we wanted to create so, we had a good trajectory right from the start.
Q: Which came first, the emotional or the musical chemistry?
Emotional. Her voice is so amazing, I know a lot of people say that, but I hear a lot of music. I just really liked who she was on stage. Then we thought let’s do pop rock, something high energy – really exciting stuff that we can do on stage and perform.
Q: Dear Rouge has such a different dynamic from other groups – how does this affect your creative process?
I think there are positives and negatives. When everything is going really smoothly we have a very positive synergy and we know how to work with each other. We can communicate without having to worry about some of the small details. But other things can get into the creative process because we are husband and wife. If we are hanging out that day and do something really fun, that can then go into the writing process.
Check back next week for Part Two of our interview with Drew!
Categories: MPMG