Meet Kelsie Rogers, Lead Singer of Rogers
Introducing: Kelsie Rogers. She’s the lead singer of Rogers, a Christian music band formed by her and her brothers, Kendal and Kolton. Rogers recently released an album entitled Room to Grow. Room to Grow is about being stuck in the tension of having gratitude for how far you have come as a person, and also having enough humility and self-awareness to realize that have to keep improving. Kelsie is also a management senior at the University of Texas at Austin.
HC: Tell me about your new album.
Kelsie: Room to Grow!! It’s fun. I grew so much during it. The album is obviously about freaking growing (you can quote that). The opening lyric in the album is “I can’t do it anymore.”
HC: It’s like you’re giving up?
K: It literally was. Room to Grow is a story and it’s about my experience in my first year of college (sophomore year, too, but mostly freshman year). It starts off with the opening lyrics and then there’s a gradual redemption throughout the rest of the album. My perspective on life and spirituality has changed. I used to live my life with a lot of walls and I put a lot of things before God. I let other things dictate my happiness, so I could not give love or receive love well. I began to pull away from all of that and then I began to feel like I was living with an open hand for the first time in a while. I still have room to grow, but the end of the album reminds you of that. Some of the songs on the album were celebrating my content in suffering, and that was great and really liberating. However, I had this moment right before the album was produced where I felt like I was my old self for a day, and then I realized that I had thought that I had come so far when really I had more distance to go. And so I wrote “Room to Grow.”
K: Three of the songs were written after I had contacted the Ethan, the producer in LA who had mixed our songs, and I had not picked out a story for the album, although I knew there was a story. Those songs fully packaged the album, and I thought that was really cool. “Room to Grow” was the last song written for the album, and it became the name of the album.
HC: What was it like working with your brothers?
K: We fought a lot. Trying to get the sound you want causes a lot of disagreements. Interpretations of the songs differ and we recorded the album in a very compressed time.
HC: Two days, right? It was recorded in two days?
K: Yes, there was a really short super crunch time.
HC: When it comes to promoting your album, I know you use Spotify and iTunes as places where people can listen to the album. What do you think about music streaming services?
K: I think from a ministry perspective, they’re awesome. If your goal is to impact people and reach as much people as possible, they help achieve that. If you make people just buy your songs before they can listen to your songs, then not as many people will listen to you. It helps with promotion. However, if people are doing music for their job, then it is really hard to be viable with streaming services. I think there needs to be a restructuring of these services. 1 cent per play is really low.
HC: When you were first on Spotify you were listed under as a German band with a similar band name. What was that like?
K: It was funny. I had to contact Spotify to get it worked out. It’s worked out now, but now they have us grouped with another band called Basil & Rogers. One good thing that came out of it is that we got a lot of streaming and downloads from Germany and Sweden.
HC: When did you find out that you wanted to do music as a profession?
K: Sophomore year of college. So, I grew up with a love for music and my parents were the music ministers at the churches that I was in as a kid. I was always at their band practices since I was a toddler. I was always around music. I can remember sitting next to the piano player at my church and watching him play. I would try to copy the things he would do.
HC: What was the piano player’s name?
K: Ricky. He would show me some chords to play.
HC: Right, because this was around the time you were classically trained to play piano?
K: No, not yet. I was 4 or 5 when I was classically trained.
HC: Oh, so this was far back.
K: This was way back. I remember sitting next to him learning this one song called “King of Kindness”. My parents knew that I was interested in learning to play the piano, so they put me into lessons. I was in piano lessons for eight years. I started playing in church bands, starting in the eighth grade. However, I started writing songs when I was five, and the songs were really bad, like really, really bad.
HC: Oh, wow. Did little Kelsie’s songs differ much from middle school Kelsie?
K: Mostly, elementary school Kelsie wrote really embarrassing songs. In middle school, I thought I was a punk rocker for a while, so I did that type of writing for a while.
HC: Is that a genre you wanted to go into?
K: Yeah, I thought I was Green Day. I would wear skater shoes and punk bracelets. I thought I was really cool.
HC: Did you ever venture into hardcore, screamo stuff?
K: No, I didn’t do screamo. I liked punk, so I would listen to Ramones, Green Day, Papa Roach, The Cure, Three Days Grace, Good Charlotte. In middle school, I started writing Christian music. My music instantly got better when I started experiencing life, like my first death in my family, or the loss of my best friend. Experience made my songs better. That and being exposed to different types of music.
HC: You’re already started talking about this, but what other genres did you explore?
K: Yeah, punk, but the thing is, my parents were really strict in what I could listen to. I wasn’t really able to listen to much other than Christian music.
HC: Yeah, I think I remember that you weren’t allowed to read Harry Potter growing up.
K: Yup. I mean, I couldn’t really listen or read anything but what my parents allowed. The melodic structures of my songs were really cheesy, because I only knew early 2000’s, late 90’s Christian music, which was not that much and terrible.
HC: When did Christian music start becoming innovative, then?
K: Literally, it started evolving around the I Heart Revolution, so maybe 2006 or 2007. There was a huge Christian Rock phase, like Reliant K and Flyleaf. That’s when Christian music sparked and the industry as a whole was like, “Oh, my gosh. We can do something different.” Christian music in general now has subgenres. There’s Christian Radio music (CCM) and worship music. I think worship music has evolved drastically in comparison to radio music, especially in the last ten years.
HC: How do you feel about Christian bands that write ambiguously Christian music?
K: I think it’s awesome. I mean, you do you, man. I write Christian music as a go to. I don’t think, “Oh, I have to write a song to God today.” No, my songwriting just naturally happens. There have been some songs that are not Christian, but they’re mostly Christian. For other person to write non-Christian songs is cool, because it shows how Christians can exist in the work place, but also be a Christian and practice your Faith just the same. Not all Christians have to be pastors or ministers so that they can practice their religion in the work place.
HC: So, do you prefer your Christian songs to your non-Christian songs?
K: I’ve written ten to fifteen non-Christian songs, and they’re not as good as the Christian ones, to be honest. I also think they haven’t been as developed. Most of what I write is not really Christian. It’s like singer-songwriter, or folk-y (folk is the closet thing I can think of to describe my music). My non-Christian songs are more personal, whereas my Christian songs are more valuable to me, because they can impact people more. They can make more of a difference. The personal songs can also be relatable, but to what end? There’s this side of me that wants to simply create art that means something to only just me, but songwriting is more than just that.
HC: So, you value the interpersonal aspect of creating music beyond the extremely circumstantial experiences?
K: Yeah. The Christian songs that I’ve written are personal, but they’re more than that.
HC: Right, that’s why I like Room to Grow so much.
K: Why? Because it’s personal?
HC: Yeah, I feel like I can relate to it really well, and so can other people. People think that they are on this continual path and they describe life as if it were a roller coaster. It has its ups and downs, but it’s all upper movement over the long run.
K: Yes, you’re being developed as a person emotionally and mentally.
HC: Who has most influenced your work? It can be writing influences or sound influences.
K: I have to really think about that. It used to be Colbie Cailliat. My voice can’t get that high and when I first found Colbie I thought she had the most alto woman’s voice that I had heard and her voice is so smooth. Jason Mraz, John Mayer, Jess Ray. Jess Ray is my favorite artist right now. Her voice is ridiculous. All Sons and Daughters, Audrey Assad, The Avett Brothers, Brandi Carlisle. There’s so many.
HC: Where do you see yourself going in the music industry?
K: I think the better question is where do I want to go in life. I mean, music is still a thing. I want to be a worship pastor. I feel very strongly that that’s what I’m supposed to do long term. Christian music is interesting, because it is split into radio music and worship. As a worship pastor, I can do worship music, but a lot of the songs that I write wouldn’t fit in the worship setting. I write more contemporary.
HC: Do you think churches should implement more contemporary music?
K: I don’t think so. Contemporary is very introspective and worship is more focused on God. Churches can do reflective music after the service is over, but I don’t think they should substitute worship music. As a worship pastor, I would want to merge contemporary and worship music. There’s a conception that you have to pick one or the other, but there are bands that are starting to do both. I think that my future in Christian music is to be doing both. I still want to go on tours performing my music while also being a pastor. I’m kind of pursuing both music and ministry right now with my career choices now.
Room to Grow is on Spotify and iTunes.
Listen to the album here: https://play.spotify.com/album/6U1TGwZQHGc4riCEcrJl6f
Buy the album here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/room-to-grow/id1071473827