Downtown Phoenix’s folk music scene continues to grow as Run Boy Run’s Grace Rolland launches her solo career performing her first album, I See Jane, at Valley Bar Saturday.
Initially a cellist and vocalist for Tucson’s blue grassy Appalachia band Run Boy Run, Rolland formed Rising Sun Daughter in 2015.
Since then, Rolland has primarily performed in downtown venues, and said she draws artistic inspiration from the diverse community she’s come to know.
“There are a number of other musicians exploring their craft and tinkering with different things, so it’s nice to see the variety of people creating within the music scene and art scene,” Rolland said.
Rolland is a natural performer. Born into a family of musicians, she’s been performing on stage since she was seven years old.
“For myself as a performer, I love the intensity and power on stage it’s a beautiful thing to see and that is my goal as a performer,” Rolland said.
She said the people closest to her have inspired her belief that anything is possible.
“If you don’t believe that you can make it, it’s not going to happen,” Rolland said. “I want to give what I can as a musician and I look forward to sharing more.”
Stephanie Lucas has spent more than a year working with the artist to direct a music video for Rolland’s song “I See Jane” and said she has seen Rolland’s warm and engaging personality within that time.
“She is refreshingly present when you sit down and have conversations with her,” she said. “You never feel like it’s just small talk and it’s not just about her, it’s about bigger themes.”
Rolland said she tries to create and perform music that has deep emotional resonance and creates a sense of safety in the audience.
“It allows me to have a space to be vulnerable with that aspect of my life in a way that makes me feel strong,” Rolland said. “Feeling safe and connected is something I want to promote.”
With her solo project, Rolland said her goal is to create a feeling of home and comfort in the audience and she hopes to convey that feeling when performing.
It’s taken a years worth of work to complete the five song album’s accompanying music video, which is set to be released later this month.
“What ended up happening is we started to just film things in different landscapes and there was a hybrid vision between the choreographer, myself, and Grace,” she said.
According to Lucas, Rolland is flexible in allowing a project like this to go on for a year.
“I don’t know how many people would let a project develop like that over time, but she is able to see the bigger poetic parts,” Lucas said.
“She has excellent technical skills as a performer and plays multiple instruments, but she also has this memorable voice that you could listen to on repeat all day long if you wanted to,” she said. “There’s this deep, timeless beauty in her voice.”
Matt Rolland, her brother and band member of Run Boy Run, said Grace loves to connect with other people and share stories about herself and the people she meets.
“I think that aspect of her personality is reflective of her music which is expansive and gives space to breathe and communicates stories not just through words, but through feelings,” he said.
Matt said they were lucky to have parents who are musicians and were excited about their children’s music careers.
“They gave us any support we needed really,” he said. “They really had our back in taking the leap and leaving our jobs after college.”
He said Run Boy Run started in 2009 and toured almost 100 shows a year.
“You get to learn small quirks about people like how they like their coffee, but also more important things like how someone express themselves and how do they communicate,” he said.
Matt said the band was made up of two sets of siblings, including Rolland and himself, and it allowed him to understand his own music.
“We were really close as a band and there was a musical chemistry in what we made,” he said. “The way I play fiddle today is impacted by the way Grace approaches her cello playing.”
He said Rising Sun Daughter gave Rolland the space to try new approaches to her music style and production, since she wrote all the songs on the album.
“I would describe it as an effort to explore new sounds and this is one of the best showcases of her voice that I’ve ever seen her done,” he said. “It has a lot of variety on it for just five songs.”
Contact the reporter at hfoote1@asu.edu.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Grace Rolland was Tucson-based as a cellist and vocalist for Tucson band Run Boy Run. Rolland has always been a Valley-based artist.
