Singled Out: Roses & Revolutions' Brightside Of Me

Keavin Wiggins | 05-26-2022

Promo photo courtesy Prospect PR

Roses & Revolutions will be releasing their new EP, "Keep A Little Light On" on September 19th, and to celebrate we asked Alysa to tell us about the lead single "Brightside Of Me". Here is the story:

You know that feeling when the sun is out, it's a good day and you put your arms out and let the sun hit your face? That freeing, hopeful, warm feeling, almost where you feel like you're in a scene from a movie and you can't help but smile a little? That's the kind of feeling we wanted to give the listener of our song "Brightside of Me". The feeling that things are looking up looking brighter, because that's precisely what the song is about.

We all deal with a lot of darkness in our lives. It's easy to succumb to pitying ourselves if things aren't going our way. Matt and I really are strong believers that our minds are extremely powerful. We can make ourselves believe whatever we want, as well as convince ourselves of anything we want, which is both scary and liberating. You tell yourself you're miserable or sad, or having a bad day... you're going to continue to be miserable or sad or have a bad day. You're going to react to situations as if "of course this would happen to me". On the other hand, if you genuinely try to smile and be positive and find yourself in a not-so-great situation, you may instead say "yeah, that sucked... but it could be worse".

I really think the moment I realized how our attitudes and outlook affect us happened when I was a kid. I remember waking up in the middle of the night when I was about 7 or 8 years old and felt like I was going to get sick. I was slumped over the toilet with my mom beside me, comforting me. I think about this now as being so weird, but it stuck with me... I was smiling and saying "oh, I'm fine!" (which is sort of strange for a kid), meanwhile I was ghost-white in the face. I kept myself positive and happy, and I actually ended up not getting sick. I'm not saying it's a cure by any means, but I do strongly believe in the power of our thoughts and attitudes.

You may not always be able to control situations, but you can control how you deal with them and that's what this song is talking about, being optimistic and looking on the bright side.

When recording "Brightside of Me", we thought an acoustic guitar would capture the feeling we wanted to achieve. Between that and the piano through the verses, we wanted them to feel small and build the anticipation. We also wanted the vocal to be a single lead that's very upfront and present. When the chorus hits after "when my feet hit the ground", we immediately knew we wanted to add big distant drums & cymbals, along with several layers of breathy vocals, harmonies and a synth pad under the choruses to give the "free" and euphoric feeling. We felt that the dynamics between the verses and the choruses captured what I feel like is the cadence of optimism.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the EP here