Rosalie Cunningham: 'I Can Do Whatever The Fuck I Like – It's My Album'

Rosalie Cunningham’s psych-infused third solo album, To Shoot Another Day, is a reminder of what makes her so special. She tells Prog about the joys of DIY recording, her passion for Bond soundtracks and the anticlimax of releasing records today

Rosalie Cunningham has released three solo albums to date, following her departure from Purson in 2017. Her latest, To Shoot Another Day, is her most diverse and expansive work yet.

The album title is a reference to Cunningham’s outlook on making the record. “It’s me talking about the process of making an album, but through the lens of making a film, where I can be anything in my own screenplay," she says.

"That’s the way I wanted to open my album. The verses, which are like script notes, describe the scene, and essentially say, ‘This is my work, and I can do what I want.’”

Cunningham recorded and mixed To Shoot Another Day entirely at her home studio in Southend-on-Sea. “There were incredibly extensive, long days," she says.

"I get into a hyper-focus at night; I kind of forget to drink water or go to the toilet and just go deep. It’s a blessing and a curse having a home studio, because there’s no clock to tell you to stop.”

The album features a wide range of musical styles, from psychedelic prog to lounge jazz, fuzzy psych metal and poppier melodies. Cunningham says the diversity is a natural progression for her as an artist.

“It’s just a progression of me as an artist," she says. "It’s more to do with exploring genres that I was too scared to indulge in. Maybe I thought they were too predictable or too cheesy – now I’ve let go. Now there’s some really pop elements there, and there’s some bluesy elements, is definitely my partner’s influence.”

Cunningham's partner, Roscoe Wilson, co-wrote some of the songs on the album and also helped to shape its direction thematically. The couple share a love for James Bond soundtracks, which had a strong influence on the record.

“It’s just a genre of music that’s always seduced me," Cunningham says. "I find the whole vibe fascinating, so I’ve had a very natural inclination for it. I’m dramatic with my own music, so it kind of fits.”

Despite the strong espionage influence, Cunningham refutes the idea of To Shoot Another Day being a concept album. “It is bookended by two songs that share a theme, similar to the tried-and-tested trope of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, where it only has a slightly developed theme.”

As well as drawing from the shadowy and seductive world of Bond, To Shoot Another Day finds colour in observing the ordinary moments of the everyday. Timothy Martin’s Conditioning School – named after the founder and chairman of the Wetherspoons pub chain – is set in the mundane and commonplace scenario of teens getting drunk on the weekend; but it’s developed into something shrewd and impishly psychedelic.

“I was looking around Wetherspoons in Southend on a Friday night, and it was just teenagers drinking sweet alcohol buckets, like WKD, using just one straw, and getting absolutely plastered," Cunningham says.

"It’s just hilarious that that’s allowed! As soon as you’re 18 you can go and do that, and they just actively encourage it. Not that I’m judging, of course – I was that 18-year-old too!”

More playfulness can be found in the instrumental The Smut Peddler, a wink to the nickname she gave Roscoe. “He can be quite smutty!” she laughs. “That was just an instrumental riff that I had hanging around on guitar.”

Elsewhere, Spook Racket unravels the fantastical and mystical side of showmanship. “It’s a term I picked up in one of my favourite books, Nightmare Alley [by William Lindsay Gresham].

“It’s about the conning mediums who used to go around in the early 20th century. I translated the term to a live band, exploring the magic of it. I was just thinking about how someone from that time, if they saw a rock show now, they’d think it was magic. They’d wonder how the hell it was being done. Like, where are the wires and pulleys?”

No such illusionary devices are required for Cunningham’s live performances; just the talent of her own band. “They’re all great musicians – virtuosos in their own right," she says.

"Live, there are always a lot of extended improvisational bits, which I think this album definitely has room for, with all the new blues and jazz elements. Also, we’re a more bombastic rock show live than I ever have been on record, so it’ll be more energetic than before.”

Despite having been part of the prog scene for more than a decade, Rosalie Cunningham still exists very much in her own space; no one does