When Kinsey Rose hops on a call with Wide Open Country, she's just returned from a trip to Switzerland. She beams talking about the experience. "My last gig was so fun. It was up in the mountains, and we had to take two trains to get up and then a gondola. And then like a snow plow," she shares, with a chuckle.
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Rose performed four separate gigs and also had time to explore south Switzerland along the Italian border. "They had palm trees, and the weather was warm. It was like it was in a different world," she says. "So, it was neat to see that."
Fresh-faced and rejuvenated, she enjoys her first piece of new music since her turn on The Voice. After performing The Chicks' "Cowboy Take Me Away" for her blind audition, Rose had the opportunity to meet its songwriter, Marcus Hummon. Perhaps she would have eventually crossed paths with the songwriting legend, but that serendipitous encounter led to their brand-new collaboration. "Speed of a Broken Heart" sees the rising artist owning the pain and finding catharsis through vulnerability.
"Seven years gone, and it ain't coming back / Threw a knife at the wall just to watch it crack," she sings over slick production. "The damage is done / Too late to fix, the damage is done / You can't resurrect the setting sun."
Rose later resolves that she's "moving on" from the past, even though that sting may never fully vanish. Rose penned the track with Hummon and Chris Roberts at the height of her breakup. Her emotions at their most raw, the song poured from her fingertips. "The end of the relationship was... how it happened was a shock to me in a very hurtful way," she says. "When I went into the writing room with Marcus and Chris, that was currently going on in my life. So, we talked about it. It was just a very natural, honest day."
"Marcus has some number-one hits, and he's just an incredible talent. They valued me as an artist and my thoughts, feelings, and ideas. Writing with people on that level of success can be really intimidating," she continues, "but they made me feel very welcome and just as talented as they are. I didn't hold back, and I felt like I could say whatever I thought. It was just a very natural process. I felt like they were my buddies, you know. Marcus started playing a groove on his guitar, and we stomped our feet. And then it just kind of evolved around that."
Despite her willingness to be honest that day, it's not always a common occurrence to get deeply personal with strangers. "It really depends on the person. Sometimes, I just know this is someone I don't want to open up with. I don't have a problem getting vulnerable, but there's just sometimes I just don't want to if it's something I'm not comfortable with. I just won't do it."
You can count Justin Schipper (Kacey Musgraves, Mickey Guyton) as a collaborator with whom Rose is comfortable getting into the nitty, gritty details of her life. The producer behind her last studio album, 2015's Fair Weather Love, Schipper often brings warm energy to the writing room. "He was another guy that I could feel really comfortable with and just talk about anything and everything we could write about it. There's no judgment, and he was very creative with melodies and different chords that I wouldn't play." He joins other writers like Buddy Owens and Bobby James that have made Rose feel at home in co-writing sessions.
While Rose has always loved songwriting, performing covers has allowed her to cultivate a loyal fan base. "Doing covers is something I had to do because that's how I paved my way, playing in Nashville for four hours. If you want to make a living playing music, it can be difficult trying to sing a song that you've written because there are sadly not a lot of gigs in that."
Even so, she remains positive about performing others' songs and instead focuses on making them her own. "I don't think there's anything wrong with [performing covers]. I think that can be a really good thing," she says of the impact on her own songwriting. "After doing that for so many years, when I write a song, I have all of these elements from all these different songs that I've sung. It's helped open my mind to more things and ideas."
With "Speed of a Broken Heart," Rose picks up the pieces of her shattered heart. But it hasn't always been easy. "Heartbreak sucks," she laughs. "I think it's natural to grieve and to be upset and to hurt and to be sad. I think the best thing we can do is to try to not stay in that place and to truly give love another chance. It's just part of your life"
"I was sad for a long time. I didn't go out for a long time. I went through the normal emotions, and then day by day, there was nothing that made it better," she adds.
