Around Carnival time in 2024, Esther Rose ended up at Poor Boys to see The Shitty Stones. Rose had moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2020 after a decade ensconced in New Orleans’ singer-songwriter community. But needing “a perspective shift,” she says, she came back to town for a few weeks to be around friends, work on her forthcoming album, and continue to write music.
Rose had been in a raw, emotional place, and the crowded Shitty Stones show gave her space to “excavate my heart,” she sings on “Want Pt. 2,” the closing track to her 2025 album, “Want.” She found immediate inspiration for the reflective song in that night at Poor Boys, including the profound lyric, “Your heart will keep breaking until it stays open,” spoken to Rose by folk musician Gina Leslie.
“I was going through a lot of questions about partnership and what I want from the album, having a lot of doubts,” Rose says. “So hearing that line from Gina in that moment felt like a touchstone, something I didn’t want to forget.”
“It’s like that paradox that’s so human,” she adds, “which is we all want love and to experience love, but nobody wants to get hurt anymore … You have to be willing to put it on the line and get hurt and be vulnerable and expose yourself. That’s part of growing and loving other people.”
Rose is again spending time in New Orleans during Carnival and plays a show at 9 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 5, at Saturn Bar with Thomas Dollbaum and Sundarta. Rose and Dollbaum also will tour the West Coast together in March.
Rose released her fifth full-length album, the alt-country record “Want,” last May and earned praise from publications MOJO, No Depression and American Songwriter. The album also landed on Stereogum’s list of 10 best country albums of 2025.
Rose’s songwriting has always been straight from the gut and the heart. Vulnerability in her music isn’t new, and the directness has resonated with listeners. But on “Want,” Rose found herself revealing more of herself in songs tackling complex and emotional topics.
She reflects on her restlessness both in places and in relationships, confronts the contradictions of what she may want in life, and notes the rawness that can come from therapy work.
“With this album, I felt like I was able to feel powerful in my vulnerability, and that felt new,” she says. “I am sharing, vulnerable, laid open, and in that I’m finding this massive strength.”
Rose spends a lot of time on the road, but after wrapping up a tour for her 2023 album, “Safe to Run,” she was feeling burnt out when she got back to Santa Fe. She knew she had to make some changes, so Rose asked for help and hired a manager. She also decided to quit alcohol and dive further into therapy, and a lot of that reflection influenced the songs on “Want.”
When it came time to record the album, Rose turned to several New Orleans-based friends, including guitarist Kunal Prakash of the band Silver Synthetic (and The Shitty Stones), The Deslondes’ Howe Pearson and John James Tourville, and Gina Leslie, who plays bass here. Ross Fabre produced the album and appears with his Video Age bandmate Ray Micarelli on the track “tailspin.” Singer-songwriter Dean Johnson also guests on the duet “Scars.”
“Want” is rooted in country, but with a full band behind her, Rose expands her sound into indie rock and pop. She can ease the energy back, like on the bare, piano-backed performance on “Color Wheel,” and accelerate things with songs like “Ketamine” and “New Bad.”
“I really believe in this album and everything that it kind of took to get to the point of writing these songs,” Rose says. “Joni Mitchell has this quote from when she wrote ‘Blue,’ that her skin felt like cellophane at the time of writing it. And I really relate to that feeling of being raw in the most amazing way.”
Tickets for the Feb. 5 show are $18.70 via dice.fm. Find more at estherrose.net.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source bestofneworleans.com ’
