{"id":15149,"date":"2025-09-14T05:09:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T05:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/15149\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T05:09:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T05:09:15","slug":"harry-styles-guitarist-mitch-rowland-talks-new-album-family-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/15149\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Styles’ Guitarist Mitch Rowland Talks New Album, Family, More"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cTime is weird,\u201d Mitch Rowland<\/a> says, speaking for a lot of dads. A few years ago, he was just a shy Midwest guitar dude working at an L.A. pizzeria, washing dishes. Then he met Harry Styles<\/a>, and suddenly became the wingman to one of the world\u2019s biggest pop stars. These days, he lives out in the English countryside, where he made his superb new indie-folk gem Whistling Pie. He even demoed the songs with his father-in-law at the family farm \u2014 in a chicken shed.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Rowland is right at home moving between musical worlds. Whistling Pie is a homemade album of acoustic ballads, inspired by his hero, the late British folk guitarist Bert Jansch<\/a>. As on his 2023 debut, Come June<\/a>, you can hear traces of Nick Drake and Elliott Smith in Rowland\u2019s gentle vocals and delicate guitar. The songs are meditations on time and memory. As he says, with his soft-spoken laugh, \u201cThe big difference between the two albums is having kids, and not having time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe album is a family affair: Rowland made Whistling Pie with his drummer and collaborator Sarah Jones, the rock goddess from Harry\u2019s band. The couple met in rehearsals when they hooked up with Harry for his 2017 solo debut, after the end of One Direction. They fell in love, got married, and moved to the tiny English village where she grew up, with their two little sons.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe music is full of that rustic atmosphere. \u201cIt\u2019s a luxury for me to be a songwriter out in that part of the green world, rather than kind of grinding away in L.A.,\u201d Rowland says. \u201cIt\u2019s a pure choice \u2014 this is where we\u2019ve decided to parent, so it makes sense artistically.\u201d As the old song goes, you know it\u2019s not the same as it was<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey live out in the British countryside, in the West Midlands. \u201cIt\u2019s way out in the Cotswolds region,\u201d he says. \u201cOne of the greenest areas \u2014 it\u2019s not cool, which to me is what makes it cool. There\u2019s a lot of tradesmen, but songwriters\u2026 There\u2019s not loads of them. Just woods. And pubs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tRowland wrote these tunes surrounded by that pastoral beauty. \u201cI made these demos with Sarah\u2019s dad, because we\u2019re right down the lane from her parents,\u201d he says. \u201cHe and I would go into the studio he built in the chicken shed \u2014 the same shed where Sarah learned to play drums when she was a little girl. He\u2019s such a music lover. He\u2019s 75, but he was like, \u2018All right, a bottle of wine, let\u2019s go.\u2019\u201d In fact, as he learned, the area has a proud music heritage. \u201cMott the Hoople is the most notable,\u201d Rowland says. \u201cI suppose I have to mention Ellie Goulding is from there. But let\u2019s stick with Mott the Hoople.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen he met Styles, Mitch was a small-town guy from Ohio, an indie rocker who knew nothing about the pop world. Harry was already a megastar, but with zero interest in following any kind of conventional career formula. In quintessential Midwest fashion, Mitch didn\u2019t even quit his day job at the pizzeria until two weeks into the sessions. But they\u2019ve been together ever since, collaborating on all Harry\u2019s albums, including the blockbuster Harry\u2019s House, which won a Grammy for Album of the Year at the 2023 awards. Fans delight in these two as an odd couple, yet they share a unique musical chemistry. \u201cThere\u2019s a magic to Mitch, past him being so good,\u201d Styles once told Rolling Stone. \u201cI feel like he represents a kind of magic to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs with Come June, he made Whistling Pie working closely with producer Rob Schnapf, who\u2019s made classics in the Nineties with Beck and Elliott Smith. The band is an intimate collaboration: Schnapf on guitar, Jones on drums, and engineer Matt Schuessler on upright bass. They recorded at Rockfield Studios, on a Welsh farm. \u201cI wanted to make the album in the countryside,\u201d Rowland says. \u201cI wanted to capture everything on the spot, instead of taking these songs to L.A. But with Rob and Matt, I was nervous to get these city guys out to Wales. At their studio, it\u2019s like, \u2018Where are we ordering from tonight? What\u2019s the best pizza in L.A.?\u2019 All that shit that you start caring about. And out here it was like, \u2018Someone\u2019s going to cook, and then we\u2019re going back to work.\u2019 We just kept working until we were saying \u2018good morning\u2019 to the horses at 7 a.m.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRowland and Styles onstage in Las Vegas in September 2021 during the Love On Tour.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAnthony Pham\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the most powerful songs is \u201cBe Your Man,\u201d an intimately emotional tune with a long arc in his life. \u201cI wrote it in a parking lot, when I was 20,\u201d Rowland says. \u201cI was going to this treatment facility for an eating disorder, so I\u2019d stop in the lot and smoke as many cigarettes as possible before I\u2019d go in. And one morning I wrote \u2018Be Your Man\u2019 behind the steering wheel.\u201d The song came back to him years later, despite its traumatic origin. \u201cNo one asks for it \u2014 it just happens,\u201d he adds. \u201cBut I guess it\u2019s something do with that song. Certain moments make certain songs, and that was one of them. I was at this stop sign in life, and I can easily look back at that time and think, \u2018Oh, well, I\u2019m not that different from that person with all the stuff that was going on.\u2019 It\u2019s weird how songs can say more than I\u2019m able to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHis original guitar inspiration back then was Ben Harper, who\u2019s now one of his friends and collaborators. \u201cThe first time I saw Ben, I didn\u2019t know who he was, but I went because my friend had an extra ticket. Then I went out and bought every CD of his. That only happens a few times in life. And that song was me emulating him. I can\u2019t remember finger-picking before I started listening to Ben Harper.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cReally Ready\u201d sums up the album\u2019s domestic spirit. Its origin story is a classic parable of modern parenthood: Mitch found an old demo on his phone, while frantically trying to free up space for photos. \u201cI\u2019m trying to take a picture of my kids,\u201d he recalls. \u201cSo I gotta get rid of a hundred things first, so my camera will turn on.\u201d He came across a riff he\u2019d captured on video years earlier. \u201cI wrote it when I was new in London, at Harry\u2019s flat \u2014 Harry didn\u2019t live there, but I just kept the water running. This song was one of hundreds of unfinished ideas, but for some reason I always remembered it. Every time I\u2019d go to delete and make more room, I\u2019d come across it and think, \u2018That\u2019s kinda cool.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat thought also evokes the way technology interferes with our emotional lives. \u201cOh, man \u2014 I hate my new phone,\u201d he says. \u201cWhy do I need a new phone that does the same shit as the old phone? What\u2019s the next app I need to delete so I can take pictures of my kids? This summer I went to see Neil Young at Hyde Park, but I had to delete pictures to download an app. I\u2019m on the guest list \u2014 I need an app? How many songs am I gonna lose having to get this app?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThey\u2019re a modern rock & roll family on the road. For Rowland\u2019s great 2024 solo tour, their toddler son came along, as he\u2019d done on the Harry\u2019s House tour, watching his folks onstage. (Their younger son was still a few months away from being born.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHarry made it possible for us to tour as a family,\u201d he says. \u201cWe had all those moments like, \u2018What the fuck are we doing taking a five-month-old on a bus? Are we stupid?\u2019 But for so many people, it\u2019s a way of life. I take advice from Ben Harper, who\u2019s raised his kids on the road. Our son is so socialized \u2014 always jumping into the mix, immediately talking to other kids \u2014 and I think that has to be down to taking him on the road, or else he\u2019d be a bit more on the shy side. Right? I was so shy when I was his age. Thank goodness for Modelo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is the family that plays together \u2014 the little boys have one-string toy guitars shaped like tigers, so they can join in. A few years ago, Rowland and Jones took their then-toddler to the Green Man festival, the famous folk gathering in the Welsh countryside. But having grown up at Harry shows, their child kept screaming. \u201cHe thought that\u2019s just what you do at a concert,\u201d Mitch says. \u201cWe had to say, \u2018This is folk music, son. This is not Wembley.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs you might expect, both kids are pop fans. \u201cHe\u2019s really into Chappell Roan at the moment, which made me as a parent realize, \u2018Shit, am I more of a Chappell Roan fan than a Sabrina Carpenter fan?\u2019 I think I\u2019m leaning more to Chappell. I texted Harry, \u2018They\u2019re great.\u2019 He was like, \u2018Yeah, yeah \u2014 I think you\u2019re right there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s been three and a half years since Harry\u2019s House \u2014 enough time for Mitch and Sarah to come up with two albums and two kids \u2014 and Rowland praises Chappell for not banging out a quickie follow-up to her big album. \u201cPeople don\u2019t know how to go away, do they?\u201d he asks. \u201cDo people just live in a panic state of, like, \u2018I need to do more\u2019? Not even in terms of popular, but just in general \u2014 \u2018I need to do more.\u2019 People romanticize being over-prolific. Why can\u2019t they just savor it? It can really work for people not doing anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe pauses. \u201cAll this just to say, \u2018Take your time, Chappell Roan. Do it for my kids. Stretch it out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut that\u2019s part of the mystique of his organic collaboration with Styles. Musical inspiration has its own natural timing. \u201cWhen we were finishing Fine Line, we were working in the same studio as Liam Gallagher,\u201d Rowland recalls. \u201cHe was like, \u2018I gotta fucking hand it to Harry. He\u2019s not fucking about. He made one record, now he\u2019s getting right back in making another.\u2019 And then after that he made another straightaway.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tFine Line was a massive success, yet Harry\u2019s House was a phenomenon even by previous standards, while \u201cAs It Was\u201d spent 15 weeks sat Number One in the U.S. But there was no rush to jump right back in to bang out another. \u201cNo, it was kind of the opposite,\u201d Rowland says, citing Styles\u2019 famously obsessive full-immersion studio process. \u201cMaking those albums, it felt like he was going inward \u2014 or maybe we were all going inward, and we couldn\u2019t imagine doing anything else. With him, it\u2019s not like a flash in the pan, \u2018let\u2019s book two weeks and bang it out.\u2019 It\u2019s like, \u2018Let\u2019s live in it. We\u2019re a stew.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s the same process that Rowland brings to his own music, whether he\u2019s playing in a chicken shed or Wembley. \u201cThe thing that makes me want to make music is Bert Jansch,\u201d Rowland says. \u201cThe first time I saw him, it was just him sitting in a chair, with his acoustic guitar. And to me, that\u2019s still the ideal. That\u2019s the mountain for me to climb. I want to be good enough to need a chair onstage one day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cTime is weird,\u201d Mitch Rowland says, speaking for a lot of dads. A few years ago, he was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[15106,146,1851,85,46,15107,409],"class_list":["post-15149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-bert-jansch","tag-entertainment","tag-harry-styles","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-mitch-rowland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}