Claire Rosinkranz: on Her Debut Album Just Because
By Lana Clifford
Claire Rosinkranz photographed by Caity Krone
I was fortunate to meet Claire Rosinkranz at a press conference hosted by UMG’s °1824. A true California girl who grew up basically living at the beach and loved creating music with her family, Claire Rosinkranz emerged from the COVID scene and polished the summer 2020 jam we devoured called “Backyard Boy” after it gained attention and went viral on TikTok. The singer-songwriter promoted her work on social media before, but the positive responses to “Backyard Boy” was a breakthrough moment in her career. Rosinkranz was first introduced to music by her dad when she was 8 years old, helping him write jingles and songs for commercials. Since then, her family has always been her biggest inspiration when pursuing her love for music, especially songwriting.
“My writing process is like journaling a blur of thoughts and then I kinda piece together what sounds good in my head,” Rosinkranz said at the press conference. She carries herself as a free spirit and a girl just trying to figure out life like the rest of us are. She wore a star pimple patch, which I thought was just a cool sticker, on her forehead and longed for another bite of the breakfast taco she had that morning.
On October 6th she released her recent album called Just Because. Rosinkranz described it as a coming-of-age movie soundtrack filled with ambition, optimism, and hurt— and that's only a fragment of the story being told on this album. It was a happy coincidence that she pushed back the release of the album the first time to October. In her song “Wes Anderson,” she sings “Fallin’ out of bounce when October hit”. Rosinkranz writes music in the moment when it comes to her, and it is usually very lighthearted, but Just Because brings out emotional topics. She spoke a lot about how the upbeat melody and production helped her cope with the dark topics and thoughts she was dealing with at the time. The sound she created molded with the polar opposite undertones found in her lyrics is a lot to unpack. Her song “Sad In Hawaii” was the first song to set the mood for the album, ricocheting into the other songs. Claire went to Hawaii and was sexually assaulted. When it happened, she didn’t know how else to process it other than through her music.
“I didn’t know how to explain it to people, and I felt like I was drowning,” Rosinkranz said with composure.
As she unburdened herself, everyone at the conference was impressed by how graceful she acted in such a vulnerable and open state. She received so much love and support afterward from everyone there.
Her most precious and special song in Just Because is called “Swinging at the Stars.” The song is about craving invaluable experiences and adventures, and putting yourself in a position to take them. Her favorite lyric is “want to be tired when I get to my grave”.
Rosinkranz has a lot to say in her music, and in a way she embodies that lyric when she took the risk of sharing a part of her life in this album. I can't wait to see her perform it live, and I'm sure we can expect great things from Ms. Rosinkranz in the future.
EDITED BY STEPH WARE