Rosy Nolan

Los Angeles country artist Rosy Nolan’s upcoming LP Main Attraction (out Oct. 17) is steeped in Americana roots, Western swing, honky tonk, and old-time country, paying homage to the great American records of the 1920s–1940s. The album is drenched in heartache and longing—core themes that have defined Nolan’s songwriting throughout her career.

Designed to take the listener on an emotional journey, Main Attraction kicks off with lively, toe-tapping tracks perfect for a two-step, then slowly descends into haunting ballads that’ll shatter your heart. It’s a record that lifts you up, breaks you down, and ultimately reminds you that you’re not alone. It’s the perfect album for anyone seeking comfort in trying times.

Nolan has shared the stage with country legend Dale Watson and critically acclaimed Emily Nenni, co-headlined a West Coast tour with Rachel Brooke, and performed at major festivals including SXSW, AmericanaFest, the Topanga Banjo & Fiddle Festival, and Stagecoach 2022. Her EP Footprints & Broken Branches was co-produced by punk icon Tim Armstrong (Rancid, Operation Ivy), blending her traditional sound with a raw edge. On Main Attraction, she’s joined by Cajun-country royalty Dirk Powell (Rhiannon Giddens, Joan Baez, T Bone Burnett), who lends his accordion magic to “How It Feels to Fall in Love” and “Don’t Put Her Down You Helped Put Her There.”

The album kicks off with “Dead on the Vine,” a feisty, sultry honky tonk shuffle about diving headfirst into a relationship you know won’t last. Nolan paints a picture of romantic inevitability and looming disappointment by using vivid metaphors like gifted roses wilting and stalled cars on the I-5. “I let you take me for a ride / Now we drift off the side / Oh, we’re dead on the vine,” she sings with bittersweet charm.

“You hook up with someone, and you’re like, ‘Okay, I trust you,’ and then they drive you off a cliff,” Nolan laughs. “That’s love, man!”

The country rumba “How It Feels to Fall in Love,” co-written with Ted Russell Kamp, captures the dizzying beauty and risk of opening your heart. Rich with lyrical metaphors—“It’s a flower that blooms at night / and opens up when the time is right” and “Like a tree in a lightning storm / Your raging fire will keep me warm”—the song pulses with emotional and musical heat. Cajun legend Dirk Powell brings the track to life with his expressive accordion work, while a strong fiddle melody, fluttering mandolin solo, and danceable Latin percussion give the track its irresistible sway. “It’s a song that could’ve felt tortured,” says Nolan. “But I wanted to take it in a sweeter direction to really dig into what it’s like to fall in love. Falling in love feels like this huge expansion.”

She drew inspiration from the queen of the night, a rare cactus flower that blooms just once a year, and only at night. “They’re gigantic one day, and gone the next,” Nolan explains. “I kept thinking about how fragile and special it is to have that kind of opening… how falling in love is this delicate, fleeting thing that only happens under the right conditions.”

The upbeat and playful “Get On Me” bursts with cheeky humor and Western swing flair, driven by a relentless fiddle and rowdy, sing-along gang vocals. It feels like a celebratory saloon scene with beer bottles flying, bodies dancing, chaos and charm in equal measure. Inspired by Nolan’s short-term flings, each verse catalogs another character from her tryst-filled tumble through the dating void. It’s messy, it’s fun, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously, just like some of the men it’s about.

“Guys on the internet are so aggressive,” says Nolan. “One literally said, ‘Get on me.’ Like, what are you, a caveman? They don’t even try. They’re dragging their knuckles around, waiting for you to please them.”

That frustration, and the absurdity of modern dating, fuels “Get On Me,” but the final verse shifts the tone. “That one’s about me, and what I actually want: a real partnership. Something meaningful, sustainable, fulfilling. I need an equal dynamic with someone who can show up and meet me halfway,” Nolan says. “Sexual demands without emotional effort get boring and unsatisfying. The men I’ve dated seem to be able to go only so far, leaving me with no choice but to walk away.”

The music video for “Get On Me,” directed by Jack Hackett of country-comedy duo The Doohickeys, features Nolan suggestively riding a vintage coin-operated horse. Cowboy suitors (Americana artists Gilbert Louie Ray, Jordan Hook, and Hackett) tip their hats and flirt while Nolan bounces, sings, and winks. Set against a backdrop of red velvet curtains, the video pays homage to old Hollywood with footage of the Tujunga Wash (the same location featured in the film Chinatown) projected behind her.

“I wanted to find a natural habitat in Los Angeles,” Nolan explains. “Something that wasn’t all concrete. Hollywood before it was all built up. Nature that wasn’t the desert.”

She laughs about the video’s playful metaphor: “It’s me on this horse with cowboys trying to talk to me, but I just keep riding, man. I keep riding and don’t stop for no one.”

The somber country-blues ballad “Your Kinda Lovin’” is a slow, heartfelt song of surrender, longing, and heartache. It's perfect for curling up under a favorite blanket and letting the tears flow. The pedal steel weaves an aquatic vibe that complements Nolan’s ocean-inspired metaphors.

“Lured by the moon, tricked by the sea / Those tides are gonna take everything outta me / I’m not saying I don’t like the rush / But your kinda lovin’ hurts too much,” she sings, capturing the bittersweet pain of knowing better but repeating the same mistakes.

“You can gently hit your head against the wall to this song,” Nolan laughs. “I’d just broken up with my ex. One of many breakups. I was in Hawaii, snorkeling and chasing sea turtles, thinking about how powerful the ocean is. How beautiful, quiet, and serene it can be, but also how it can turn terrifying and overwhelming in an instant. Our relationship felt the same way. When you’re in love, something outside of yourself pulls you in. The moon has that kind of power. It's a force bigger than you that compels you. Even if it’s wrong, you do it anyway.”

The video for “Your Kinda Lovin’” was shot at the Santa Monica Pier on a ’90s camcorder, giving it a vintage, stylized aesthetic. The final product feels like something Dwight Yoakam might’ve crafted in the ’80s, as it follows Nolan with a handheld intimacy along the beach coastline, through an arcade, among amusement park rides, and beside a David Lynch–esque sunset.

The politically charged, old-timey bluegrass track “Rising Up” carries a gothic country vibe, with haunting lyrics evoking apocalypse and an outro featuring dueling fiddle and mandolin. Written during the 2016 presidential election, the song has gained renewed urgency, drawing on metaphors of floodwaters, destruction, and the chilly, winding roads of Northern California.

“I was sitting in a Los Angeles café when a torrential rainstorm came down,” Nolan recalls. “Nick Cave was playing on the radio, and it sounded like his voice was dripping down the walls. The 2016 election was underway, and it was clear Trump was going to win. I was donating money, phone banking, going to protests and rallies. I was really caught up in it all. The kind of rain we got was so uncommon that people were worried the LA River might flood. Folks were sandbagging their homes. I felt overwhelmed by this deluge—both the rainfall and the political adversity—and silenced by the storm and the tense political climate.”

“Coming To See You” is told from the perspective of an old man journeying to visit his estranged wife somewhere in the frozen north—Montana or South Dakota, perhaps. The song follows this stubborn, flawed man as he struggles to mend a fractured relationship: his car won’t start, and he keeps making mistakes along the way. In the final verse, the truth is revealed that he’s actually headed to her grave. It’s a poignant meditation on regret and the difficult process of learning to move on.

The fiddle-driven barnburner “Them’s the Breaks” paints a nostalgic picture of growing up in 1980s San Francisco with a father who wasn’t around and being raised by a single mom...and the television.

“None of the kids can come and play / Daddy moved out just today,” Nolan sings. “We had this TV that my grandma gave us. The dial had fallen off, so we had to use pliers to change channels. Coat hangers served as antennas. It was a behemoth of a TV that was falling apart.”

The song echoes the bittersweet vibe of The Cable Guy, where classic TV characters like Magnum P.I. and Jack and Janet from Three’s Company sometimes felt more like family than the real one.

The bluesy “I Don’t Need To Know” dives into the gossip swirling through the LA country scene, with Nolan firmly asking listeners to keep her love life private.

Her cover of Hazel Dickens’ “Don’t Put Her Down You Helped Put Her There” stands as a powerful feminist anthem. Nolan, a bleached-blond fighter for social justice, delivers the lyrics with conviction: “Well, there's more to her than powder and paint / Than her peroxided bleached-out hair / Well, if she acts that way / It's 'cause you've had your day / Don't put her down you helped put her there.”

The album closes with the gently tragic “Bad For You,” a song steeped in intense longing and loneliness. Nolan finds herself at home, haunted by the specter of a man who lingers in her thoughts through long, solitary nights.

“I wonder sometimes if I pick people as partners because they’re going to deliver the loss and longing,” Nolan reflects. “This goes back to my childhood; it’s a consistent theme in my songs.”

In an era where meaningful, mutual romantic connections feel increasingly elusive, Nolan sings with aching vulnerability: “You know I got it bad for you / I still wanna tell ya / Put you under my spell, yeah / How come you don’t come ‘round here no more?”

Main Attraction is a heartfelt and honest album where Nolan lays bare her desires for love and companionship. From childhood, we’re all searching for connection—a promise woven into us by birth, something we might even feel entitled to by God or society. Nolan emerges as a confident and skilled bandleader, songwriter, and performer. She’s unafraid to express her feelings and thoughts openly, and that fearless honesty is what makes Main Attraction such a touching and intimate experience.

–

Nolan is a California girl through and through. Born and raised in the East Bay—first in San Francisco, then Berkeley and Oakland for middle and high school. “I’ve lived in California most of my life. It’s in me, and it comes through in my music,” she says.

Her songs draw richly from the state’s varied landscapes, weaving metaphors of highways, desert, ocean, and redwoods. Raised by Bay Area activists, with a poet mother and a father who fought injustice, Nolan’s upbringing shaped her fierce commitment to advocacy. “Activism remains a constant for me,” she says. “I use my voice to fight for women’s rights, have lobbied bills with the ACLU, and recently, I’ve been protesting the I.C.E. raids in Los Angeles.”

Nolan’s father was always with a guitar in hand, serenading her with songs. “I honestly thought he’d written ‘Ring Around the Rosie’ just for me,” she laughs. He also played trombone in the Pickle Family Circus, a troupe he helped found in 1974. This circus was a major influence on the circus revival of the ’70s and ’80s and helped pave the way for what would become Cirque du Soleil.

Growing up, Nolan was immersed in a world of circus performers, live music, and theatrical whimsy. She even learned piano from the Pickle Family Circus’ pianist, weaving music and performance into her childhood.

“I was six when my parents split up, and there was a lot of chaos growing up,” Nolan reflects. “My dad could do amazing, exciting things. He introduced us to acrobats, trapeze artists, and jazz musicians. He took me to lunch at Diane Feinstein’s office when she was mayor. He worked with Bayard Rustin on the March on Washington. But then he could come home and be a very different person. Sometimes that was violent, and often terrifying. Maybe every song I write is about my dad in some way. I carry these feelings of loss and longing.”

Nolan and her sisters came of age in the circle pits of the East Bay hardcore scene, spending their teenage years immersed in the seminal punk rock mecca of 924 Gilman Street. She embraced the fierce empowerment of the riot grrrl movement, inspired by bands like Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney. At 15, Nolan started her own four-piece riot grrrl band with friends called The Rape Utic (a play on “therapeutic”), taking up the drums. They played relentlessly through high school, where Nolan also began learning guitar. The band dissolved as the members went their separate ways for college, but those years left a lasting mark.

“That 15-year-old punk kid is still at the heart of me,” Nolan says. “I recently revisited those old songs when I transferred them from old tapes. Even though I’m playing different music now, I still feel that punchy punk spirit inside.”

Nolan attended UC Santa Cruz, where she played drums and guitar in a variety of indie rock bands, experimenting with distortion, echo, and looping pedals. After graduation, she moved to Los Angeles and worked a “soul-sucking” receptionist job... until she met a man living in London. On a whim, she relocated to London, sparking a whirlwind romance that quickly turned serious. But listening to her instincts, Nolan left the U.K. and headed to New York City, ready for the next chapter.

In the early 2000s, New York pulsed with the techno-infused retro synth-pop and cool-kid fury of electroclash. Nolan found herself swept up in this vibrant club scene, but the nonstop partying and drinking eventually took their toll. Hitting rock bottom, she embraced sobriety through a twelve-step program and began focusing inward.

Seeking something more organic, Nolan honed her craft as a singer-songwriter, forging a sound rooted in traditional folk. She immersed herself in the records of Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams, as a new wave of alt-country artists helped spark a fresh scene.

“When I heard Lucinda Williams’ World Without Tears, I was like, ‘Who is this?! I want to do this,'” says Nolan. “I identified so deeply with what she was writing about. It got under my skin in a way that made me realize I needed to create music that confessional. She writes so honestly about the trials of trying to have a romance with someone. I really related, on a heart level, to the content of her songwriting. That’s when I started incorporating some of those instruments, themes, and tones into my own work.”

Nolan began recording demos of her new material and eventually made her way into the studio to cut what would become Blackout Nights. “Recording that album was painful,” she admits. “It felt like staring at myself in one of those big, magnified mirrors—seeing every pore. I’m proud of the record, but I’ve taken it down from streaming. I can be so critical of myself and my recordings.”

Nolan had planned to be a New Yorker for the long haul, but after turning 30, the fire she once felt for the city began to fade. “I can retire now,” she told herself. “I’ll just go back to the land and become a farmer chick.” On impulse, she moved to Mendocino, a remote Northern California town tucked between the coast and the redwoods.

Her year and a half in Mendocino became a deeply formative and tumultuous period. She drifted from sobriety while performing at small hotels and cafés, channeling her experiences into the songs that would become Footprints & Broken Branches (2019). The track “Old Ravine” captures the emotional weight of that time, evoking moments of both surrender and catharsis as she tossed things into the ravine, literally and metaphorically. “It was hard to stay sober in such a small, isolated town,” Nolan admits. “Especially working as a bartender.”

“I sing, ‘Take me down / the old ravine / where I threw away your love / trying to get clean,’” Nolan says. “I was dating this man who looked like Thor, this six-foot-six mountain man. He was so masculine, which was definitely attractive, but maybe we didn’t really function so well as a couple. I didn’t think I could stay there, be around him… and get sober,” she sighs.

Nolan packed up her things and left Mendocino, heading south to join her sisters in Los Angeles. There, she began working in the art department for film and television, but it wasn’t long before the musical itch returned.

Wanting to write songs that felt lighter, more joyful, she picked up the banjo, an instrument she calls “a happy one.” She started writing again and playing at old-time jams around L.A., reconnecting with her roots and carving a new path through traditional folk and country.

Nolan first encountered Tim Armstrong (of Rancid and Operation Ivy) during her Gilman Street days. Years later, fate brought them back together at a house concert in Los Angeles. They reconnected, and that chance meeting eventually led to Armstrong co-producing her album Footprints & Broken Branches alongside Kenny Feinstein, recorded at Armstrong’s studio.

“The first show I ever saw at Gilman was Rancid,” Nolan recalls. “So I already knew that Tim Armstrong was the dude. I ran into him at this house show and said, ‘I know you,’ and told him how I used to hang out at Gilman. And he was like, ‘No way.’ So we kind of reconnected... or really connected for the first time. He said, ‘You gotta come check out my studio,’ and so we ended up making the record there. He was very generous with his time.”

When the COVID shutdown hit, Nolan took time to slow down and reset. She leaned into bucolic hobbies like gardening, puzzling, even learning how to play poker. She also began dating again, which led to a brief entanglement with a fellow musician who wasn’t emotionally available, but still managed to captivate her.

Out of this period came a wave of songwriting, including “Get On Me” from her upcoming album, and “One of Your Songs” (2024, Blackbird Records), produced by Taylor Kropp. The latter is an up-tempo, old-time string band romp about a two-timing man, delivered with sharp wit and a knowing wink.

Nolan assembled a band with the intention of recording a new batch of songs that would eventually become Main Attraction. Her manager at the time connected her with an engineer in San Diego, which meant a lot of travel...and creative tension. “We didn’t get along very well,” Nolan admits. “I’m so critical of myself and my recordings. There’s always a lot of woulda, shoulda, couldas. I’ve learned I need to record it and walk away. I can’t trust my own mind in the studio. That’s why I need people around me that I trust. I heard those first mixes and was like, ‘nope.’ I frantically started looking for something else.”

That “something else” came in the form of engineer Jason Hiller of Electrosound Recordings, whom she found through fellow artist Heather Anne Lomax, who'd go on to co-produce the record. Together, they recorded the new and final version of Main Attraction at Hiller’s studio tucked in Beachwood Canyon.

“I've walked away from a record label. I've walked away from partners. I’ve walked away from people who said they were going to help me...and maybe they did, for a time,” says Nolan. “But at the end of the day, I’ve got to be the one who helps myself. I can surround myself with good people, but it's up to me to make the choices and put out the music I believe in. Scrapping an entire session takes guts. It really does. People get mad when you say no. Feelings get hurt when your vision doesn’t line up with theirs. If they’re professionals, they’ll adjust. If they’re not, then you’ve got trouble. And I ran into some trouble. But I’m out of that trouble now.”

The cover art for Main Attraction leans into Nolan’s circus roots with a vaudevillian flair. She’s perched on a vintage coin-operated horse, dressed in full rodeo-queen regalia, framed by rich red velvet curtains. The imagery nods to old-time sideshows while cleverly playing on the album’s title—both a reference to the spectacle of performance and Nolan’s recurring attraction to emotionally unavailable men, a theme that runs through many of the record’s songs.

Nolan is already at work on her next album, with half the songs written and momentum building. To celebrate Main Attraction, she’ll play two Southern California album release shows: October 16th at the world-famous Pappy & Harriet’s in Pioneertown, near Joshua Tree National Park, and October 18th at the LA Farmer’s Market Fall Festival.