Rose Hill Drive

Rose Hill Drive

On the Road with Rose Hill Drive

Jacob Sproul has always had great hair. When we were eight, he sported the ephemerally-popular rat tail beneath a blond bowl cut. Today, at the ripe age of 22, Jacob’s hair is still blond, but now it’s longer than that of most of his female fans. Jacob, bassist and singer for up-and-coming rock band Rose Hill Drive alongside his younger brother Daniel and high-school friend Nate Barnes, has matured since the last time I saw him (in eighth grade) — and not just in terms of his hair style.

One thing, however, has remained consistent: the Sproul brothers’ love and talent for making music. Even back in our grade school days at the now-defunct Baseline Middle School in Boulder, Colorado, Jacob and Daniel were rock stars, ripping up the finale of every one of the school’s talent shows with aptly chosen Beatles’ covers. Even then, as a brace-faced dork who wouldn’t have known good music if Bob Dylan himself had handed me a CD, I was awe-struck by their skill.

So, nine years later, I am not the least bit surprised to hear that the trio, on tour with Letter Kills as I interview them, has played with artists like Van Halen, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Gov’t Mule, the North Mississippi Allstars, and Robert Randolph; enjoyed a two-week stint on the Vans Warped Tour last summer; and had major labels lining up to sign them last year.

Rose Hill Drive formed while the boys were in high school as a four piece, but “became a three piece after I graduated because we lost our bass player,” Jacob notes. “So I picked up the bass.” With guitar and piano experience as his guide, Jacob taught himself to play the bass and Rose Hill Drive’s status as a trio was cemented.

“This band is the product of doing whatever we could to make a working thing to express what we were hearing in our heads,” Jacob explains. “We just started playing and got booked a few things, like the Boulder Creek Festival, and small shows. We met our manager through one of those shows — all these kids came to see us and left for the bands he booked, so he wanted to manage us.”

With a manager and a booking agency, Rose Hill Drive began to tour, building up a fan base that spread beyond the borders of Boulder County — and attracting the attention of major label A&R executives.

“We had major label attention,” Jacob says. “It was a really cool affirmation for me. I was really appreciative.”

But for reasons the band will not disclose, Rose Hill Drive did not sign any of the labels.

“We had interest, and it sucks that none of it worked out, but I felt like I made some friends,” Jacob says. “You can’t please everybody, but it wasn’t for us at that point in time.”

He won’t rule out signing to a label in the future, though. The band is currently in the process of working on an album and Jacob won’t say how it will be released. “When we release it, it’ll be a good thing no matter how it happens.”

Although Rose Hill Drive is accumulating fans across the nation, their greatest fans reside in Boulder. (“Everybody in Boulder knows the words to our songs,” Jacob notes.) But how did Boulder, a town known for its vital jam band scene, manage to spit this band out?

“We’re a ‘Boulder band’ because we’re from Boulder,” Jacob says, “But we don’t follow in the tracks of anyone. We do everything that we want to do and we don’t do anything we don’t want to do. Being associated with a jam scene is cool, but we’re not like any of those bands.”

Just because they don’t fit into the jam band mold doesn’t mean they haven’t been warmly embraced by the town. In fact, Rose Hill Drive can sell out Boulder’s Fox Theater — a venue some major label bands can’t even get half full.

“At a sold out show in Boulder there’s a huge explosion happening,” Jacob explains. “It’s definitely a pure thing.”

How does Jacob describe his music to someone associates Boulder with jam bands like the String Cheese Incident?

“We are rock ‘n’ roll,” he says firmly. “And I think that just means whatever you want it to mean, because it’s going on now. We’re not copying anything; we’re just playing what we feel like playing. We just play it because it’s coming straight out of us; that’s the most magical way to write a song and to play it. It sounds like rock ‘n’ roll to me; feels like rock ‘n’ roll. It’s energetic, makes you dance, makes you happy.”

And it does. Rose Hill Drive’s performance following our interview marked the first time I had seen the boys play since eighth grade, and let me tell you, Rose Hill Drive, like a fine wine, has only gotten better with age.

[band website]