Rozzi Talks Berry, Performing Sold-Out Shows in L.A. and New York, and Growing After Heartbreak

Congratulations on releasing Berry (Deluxe)! For its release, you’ve done a series of shows – How has this experience been for you? Yeah I have to say these shows this past two weeks kind of overwhelmed me in a good way. I’ve spent a lot of my career trying to get people’s attention; I’m used to opening for people and trying to win them over. And you would think that would be the scarier version, but for some reason for me, the stakes are lower there – there’s nothing to lose.

Now I’m starting to have people who know my songs and who are coming to see me, which is obviously a dream come true. But it’s just like all of a sudden I feel this pressure to deliver because I’m like these people paid to come, and I want to give them the show they deserve. So in L.A. and New York, everybody was paying attention and knew all the words. And obviously that’s an amazing thing, but sometimes, I think the things you’ve been waiting for to happen – it just caught me off guard.

How do you deal with that pressure? Like, do you have any pre-show rituals? Yeah, like a lot of anxiety; I mean like the moment I booked these shows, I was already anxious. I can’t avoid it; I get really nervous and it’s just excitement. I’m really excited to do it, and I care so much, and it’s my favorite thing in the world, so it just really matters to me that it goes really well.

So, for me that means a ton of alone time beforehand. I like to be alone as much as possible and just like aggressively chill because I’m energetic and chatty and kind of fast moving naturally, so I need silence to chill me out a bit. That’s the main thing I need which can be confusing a lot of the people that I work with.

You released the first version of your album Berry in April, and now today you’ve added four more songs. Could you tell us more about these songs? Do you have a favorite song? Basically, I released part one of this album, actually last year. It’s called the Hymn For Tomorrow EP. Then I released Berry the second-half of the album, earlier this year. And then today, finally, both of those EP’s are put together in the order I always intended the album to be, plus the four new songs.

Basically,  I wrote an album, and then the label wanted to release it in pieces and spread stuff out. So what’s impactful about today for me is like, it’s the vision I had from the beginning finally realized, and all the songs will now live on forever, in one place, and in the order I intended. It’s like a snapshot of my life over the past few years, you know.  And that’s always really trippy about writing. I write such personal songs like those in my last album Bad Together – It just captures this moment in my life. It’s surreal to have; it’s like an audio journal.

In terms of my favorite song, I change my mind all the time. I think Hymn For Tomorrow is one of my favorites. It’s just a song I wrote for myself when I really needed some optimism. I needed to feel like the next day was going to be better than yesterday, and that’s a continuous need. I have to feel like good things are coming, and I feel that as a world and as a society we need to feel that way. So I really like when I sing live and I can spread that message.