Mitch Rowland is becoming the man who needs no introduction.
For the past seven years, he’s largely been regaled as the “Mr. Mysterious” guitar player in Harry Styles’ solo career, contributing largely to the superstar's three solo albums and various tours, including helping to write uber hits like “Watermelon Sugar.”
Yet, since stepping out in late 2023 with his own debut solo album, “Come June,” Rowland has found that people increasingly want to get to know him and his own music, even if it’s a pop about-face. In fact, his stunning collection of pensive indie folk compositions harkens to the gilded Laurel Canyon tribe and the 1960s British folk explosion, with one of his biggest influences being Bert Jansch.
On his first headline tour (arriving at Thalia Hall on March 21), Rowland says he’s seeing the shift each night as he talks to fans at his shows.
“Around the time the album came out, a lot of people just kind of leaned into Harry Styles questions, and I think now meeting these people face to face, day in and day out, that doesn’t come up as much. Instead, it’s people confessing [my] music has helped them in a tough time. I’m making real connections,” he says during a recent Zoom chat from his Brooklyn hotel room.
MITCH ROWLAND
When: 7:30 p.m., March 21
Where: Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport
Tickets: $25-35
Info: thaliahallchicago.com
The chat is just hours before he’s set to appear on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” for a performance of “All The Way Back” alongside Ben Harper on lap steel guitar. Harper is yet another chum (his daughter Harris Harper will open for Rowland’s Thalia Hall gig), and another example of the brilliant company Rowland keeps.
Collaboration and community have truly been the heart of the guitarist’s career from day one. After relocating to Los Angeles almost a decade ago, the Columbus, Ohio, native was working as a dishwasher in a pizza shop in L.A. when his then-roommate, audio engineer Ryan Nasci, called one morning in 2016 with an urgent plea to get Rowland into the studio. A hired gun failed to show and he needed a guitarist to help on sessions with Styles.
From there, it’s been a whirlwind with Rowland winning Grammys for that work, going on arena tours, working with additional artists like country star Cam, and even meeting his wife, Sarah Jones, an accomplished musician in her own right and drummer in Styles’ band. Rowland sweetly recalls a date night the last time they were in Chicago for the “Harry’s House” mini-residency when the couple raced out of the United Center parking lot to catch Wilco playing a special gig at Carol’s Pub on the north side. “We’ve all become pals and I’m a great big fan of their music. It’s hard to be in Chicago and not think about them,” Rowland admits.
The couple has a three-year-old son and another baby boy on the way and split their time between L.A. and the English countryside just outside Wales where Jones hails from (it’s here where Rowland will hole up the next few months to write a new record he hopes to have out later this year). And if you ask the artist, it’s his wife who deserves all the credit.
“It all comes down to her; if I’m the bowling ball she’s the bumpers, she’s been helping me get down the lane,” he declares.
In fact, it was Jones who introduced Rowland to Rob Schnapf, his eventual producer for “Come June,” who has worked with everyone from Beck to Elliott Smith to Kurt Vile, the latter a huge influence on Rowland.
“I remember the first couple weeks working with Harry, flicking through voice notes and labeling ideas like [the Vile track] ‘Wakin On A Pretty Day version.’ I’d be in my living room with the drum kit and amps going and have a loop pedal and guitar, and at one point it sounded like Kurt,” Rowland recalls, noting one of those songs made it onto the first Styles record.
It's a similar back-to-basics approach he employed for much of the material on “Come June,” too. It’s a record that Rowland says, “I think I would’ve always made … despite the hectic last seven years or so.” Notably, it hit No. 4 on Billboard’s Top New Artist chart and has racked up 3.1 million streams since being released last October on the reformed Giant Records in conjunction with Erskine Records, Styles’ imprint.
Rowland was the first signee to the roster and says of Styles, “He’s been my number-one supporter as long as I can remember; it was a very fitting and natural decision."
