The story behind Rose Tiger's debut album 'The End Forever'

Explore Cyprien Jacquet’s journey to create Rose Tiger’s debut concept album, ‘The End Forever.’ Join Cyprien in conversation with Jason Barnard as they unravel the group’s new sonic universe.

Can you tell us about the inspiration behind ‘The End Forever’?

The main inspirations behind the story and the universe are a blend of video games, manga and anime from my childhood, which is definitely a very strange thing to mix with the 70’s rock / rock-opera aesthetic of our album. But it’s also what I find interesting about it. It’s basically geeky lyrics about robots and dinosaurs on top of a cool rock’n roll soundtrack! I guess I always enjoyed writing stories. I’m still very shy regarding writing about my own life, but some deeply personal things are definitely hidden within the lyrics of my songs, even though they’re telling a fiction.

‘The End Forever’ is described as a blend of 70’s glam-rock and 80’s synth-pop. How did you manage to combine these diverse influences into a cohesive sound?

I don’t hear the 80’s synth-pop influence on the album at all, but if there is one it’s probably because this band started as a solo project in 2017, and back then I was definitely making some 80’s synth-pop / new wave. But I totally switched in 2019 when I moved to London and met Domi and Irene, the two other members of the band. I am a huge The Lemon Twigs fan, and their second album “Go To School” really reconnected me with my 70’s rock roots, which is basically the music my parents were listening to at home. It’s also this album that pushed me to write my own rock-opera, even though I already was into stuff like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust”…

Can you share a few favourite tracks from the album, and tell us the inspiration behind them?

My favourite track on the album is “I Won’t Go Back” because it’s the most recent song I wrote, compared to some others that are very old already. I think it’s been influenced by prog-rock a bit, with some complicated parts and a lot of changes and surprises. It’s definitely the craziest song of the album and I’d like to move towards this type of thing in the future.

“When You’re Here” is another of my favourites, because it’s the only pure acoustic folk song we have on the album. Domi’s vocals sound amazing on it, very Rod Stewart, and Adrian Edeline’s (great french musician who plays guitar on the whole album) guitar solo will always give me the chills.

Then I guess I will end with “Could Be A Fantasy” because it’s the first song we played together as a band. It’s also the song that gave us the opportunity to sign with a record label in Paris, and the first song of the album that we released. The cool thing about that one is that you can truly hear our three vocals singing together in harmony on the chorus, so it’s a good showcase of who we are.

The album is divided into three acts and tells a complex story. What overarching themes can listeners we expect?

There are three main themes in the story which are: the research of the truth, the urge to run away from our past to be free and the ambiguity that can sometimes be found between friendship and love.

When did you meet and decide to collaborate and how did your individual backgrounds contribute to the creation of ‘The End Forever’?

I met Domi when she lived in Paris ages ago (she was dating a guy from my previous band and was always kind of hanging out with us). Irene’s story is quite funny because I found her on Gumtree through an ad I posted. I didn’t realise because I just moved to the UK, but apparently it’s not a very common platform to look for musicians and form a band! I could totally have been a creep (which I kind of am in a way), but she liked the songs on my ad and we met for a coffee near King’s Cross. I was very lucky that day ! The album was already 95% written when the two girls joined, so they didn’t have a chance to participate to the creative process. However their vocal performances and personalities are a huge part of the album and the live show, I couldn’t have done it without them.

Can you share some of the challenges and rewards of creating such an intricate musical narrative?

Writing the album wasn’t really a problem because I really did what I wanted to do musically, and the story has already been written for ages so it was really flowing. For me the main challenge was : where to find the money to fund such a project. Because I wanted it to be recorded live in real studios like in the good old days, which is quite expensive because you need to pay for the studio, the sound engineer, the mixing engineer, additional musicians… We recorded four songs in London with my own money, but I was completely broke after that, so I thought I was just gonna release an EP and put an end to the project. But right when I was on the edge of giving up, the french label Upton Park offered me a deal for the whole album, so they took care of everything and we were able to record all the songs in studios between London, Paris and Annecy (in the French Alps).

The reward is definitely to see this crazy project printed onto a vinyl, and to release it into the world after such a long time!

You have worked with several notable artists in the past. How did your previous experiences influence the sound of Rose Tiger?

I think that every time I work with an artist, I take a bit of inspiration from them, even if we don’t make the same kind of music at all. For example, I recently worked with Australian artist Kirin J Callinan, and watching him perform right next to me on stage really impressed me. His charisma and the way he sings are very different to other artists I’ve worked with. He has a craziness and a freedom that will inspire me for sure in the making of the next Rose Tiger stuff.

The live performance aspect of this album is intriguing. Could you give us a glimpse into your plans for bringing ‘The End Forever’ to the stage?

It’s not that complicated to bring this album to the stage because, even though it sounds very layered, it’s been entirely recorded live with a band. So we can play everything on stage with a five piece band (with an additional guitarist and bass player). The only thing we can’t do is bring the string quartet and trumpets, but those were pretty much just additional arrangements, the songs totally work without it. As a matter of fact the whole album was written with just an acoustic guitar and my vocals, and we also have a really nice acoustic live set with just the three of us that works pretty well (we are actually going on tour in France this week).

What’s next for Rose Tiger – are there any future projects to look forward to?

I have no idea about what’s next because I’ve been mostly focused on the release of the album lately. But as the days go by I start to have some glimpses of ideas. I’m not sure if I want to go even crazier with the next one and make more complicated music, with loads of musicians and guests but without being able to play a single live show, or to do the opposite and make a very stripped down / acoustic album, cause that’s something I really enjoy too and would be very easy to tour with. Maybe a double album then!