Lowell Teacher to Bring His Music to The Showboat
By Bill Lee || Contributing writer
7/11/2024
Most school teachers love their jobs. They love the art of teaching and love helping children of all ages. It can be a very fulfilling but challenging profession. For most, the profession is enough to fill their creative souls. But for others... they need more. Josh Rose is that type of teacher. As a high school science teacher for the last 26 years - many of which have been right here at Lowell High School - Rose has a not-so-secret side gig: musician.
In the mid-90s, during college, Rose played on the coffee house circuit in Traverse City and Mt. Pleasant, where he attended Central Michigan. Then he got his first teaching and coaching job in Metro Detroit, and he decided to put his guitar in the closet to focus on his teaching profession. But the musical bug inside him never went away and in 2003, he pulled his guitar out again and hasn’t put it back since. Over 20 years and hundreds of gigs later, Josh Rose will bring his songs and his band, The Founding Fathers, to the Lowell Showboat stage on Friday, July 12 at 7 pm. He played at The Showboat in 2007 but is excited to be back after so many years later.
“I love Lowell,” said Josh Rose. “It has been so good to me. I love teaching at the high school and love our community. It’s a fun community. Look at us. We have our own arts foundation. How many communities our size have an art foundation? It’s just so cool. We have all kinds of live music and our restaurants are great. A walk downtown to The Showboat or eat dinner and watch the sunset. Lowell has been nothing but good to me and I’m so please that I’ll be able to give back to them.”
Rose’s music has many influences – rock, jazz, folk, soul, and other genres. He credits these interests with what his parents listened too on the radio and on record players. “It was that great time in history that I got a little bit of everything. And that’s how the radio used to be. It used to be all kinds of genres and I hope that comes out in my music. I’m steeped in folk, rock, and soul. We would put Marvin Gaye on. My aunt was really into jazz and would buy me jazz records when I was 15. I would listen to Stan Getz and Miles Davis. I would put those records on and I’d play along with my guitar or trumpet. It was ear-training. I have a wide variety of influences.”
A resident of Alto, Rose played everywhere he could, and when he could, before starting his family in 2008. In the summers, he would pack his time with shows and tours. He would be in the suburbs Chicago every other weekend and even put in many shows at Vitale’s in Ada. One year, he had played over 110 shows. He admits it was tough but he also credits that time with helping him refine his musical chops in front of live audiences. After all, if you can get applause from a dinner crowd at Vitale’s, you can probably do it anywhere.
“Now, thankfully, in my career I can pick and choose which shows I want to play and it has allowed me to play some quality gigs,” said Rose. “I’m down to about 30-35 shows a year. It’s actually perfect. I still load up my summers, and my daughters are old enough now that I can leave the house and things are still standing when I get back. I feel like I’m in a good balance in my life right now – able to play great shows, and still embrace that artistic side and also be there for my family and career too.”
In the beginning of his teaching career, Rose would hide his music from his high school students, as he tried to establish a professional barrier and tried to gain respect while finding his place in the school system. But as he became a bigger name in the Grand Rapids music scene – with newspaper articles and local shows – Rose finally decided to give in. Now he has embraced his “other identity” with his students and they have reciprocated wonderfully. “The beauty of it was that I started bringing my guitar to the classroom and played for the kids and they embraced what I was doing,” said Rose. “Now it’s great to see kids at my shows and to show them that this is part of me and part of what I love to and do, and that you can do this too and that you can be a part of this great thing we call music, on our planet. It’s a celebration, it’s about beauty, it’s about love, and I feel the kids have totally embraced it now and have embraced me. I’ll catch them listening to my music in the hallways and that is pretty sweet. It’s been nothing but awesome.”
Rose has written hundreds of songs and has four albums to his name, including Foreverland, which was released in December of 2022. His song ideas come from many places but he credits his voracious reading habit as a main source. He will wake up at 1:00 every morning and read for at least an hour. With everything in Rose’s life, it does beg the question: how does he balance it all? “I have a lot of energy,” he admits. “I don’t need a lot of rest, I guess. I feel like I only get positive energy back from performing. It energizes me and that’s the reason why I have the ability with all the things.”
The Lowell community will have its chance to see Josh Rose’s energy in person on July 12. He, along with his band The Founding Fathers, are looking forward to bringing the energy to The Showboat. “Everybody I talk to loves Lowell and loves playing at the Showboat. I’ve been at this a long time and our musical community in West Michigan is really tight. I know so many of the men and women in the bands and they all love coming to Lowell.”
You can find out more about Josh Rose’s music on his website josh-rose.com
