“I got really lucky,” Mitch Rowland reflects on his incredible journey, which led to an eight-year collaboration with Harry Styles, culminating in a Grammy for Album of the Year in 2023, for Harry's House.
As one of pop's biggest stars, Styles' band is where Rowland found his groove. “The guitar player who was meant to be there couldn't make it at the last minute. So I got invited. I think our spark is what made the project last,” he shares.
Rowland appreciates the creative freedom he has while writing with Styles, saying, “I have personally had nothing but freedom. It's work for some people, and I'm very grateful that it stays in the fun zone.”
As well as being a solo artist, you're obviously known for your work with Harry Styles. What does he look for in a guitarist?
“I think he looks for something he can sing along to, and that can be anything. I don't pitch ideas to him. I think we got to a point where we were texting back [and forth], I'd text him guitar parts, and maybe I had an A section into a B section, and he would send me a voice note back with a vocal on top of that.
“I'm always trying to come up with something without knowing where it's going to land. And his ears will perk up if he likes it, and then we end up trying it out. Not everything makes it onto a record, but you've got to see it through. So it's a very casual sort of thing.
“And then that's another thing I don't think everyone has with a co-writer, sometimes it's very laborious and other times it's not, it's a mixture of things, but with Harry and I, it's never been a tooth-pulling kind of ordeal."
I see you play a unique-looking Gibson Les Paul live with Harry Styles. What can you tell me about that guitar?
“The Goldtop Les Paul was the first guitar I bought leading into the Harry rehearsals. The guy who I bought it from [was] Ben Harper's guitar player, Jason Mazursky. We became friends over this guitar. He had modded it with Bill Asher out in California.
“It was a ‘57 reissue. [Originally it had] two P-90s, and then he swapped out the bridge [pickup] for a Firebird pickup. So it was kind of doing the Neil Young thing. I guess it was more similar to Daniel Lanois’ Goldtop, but it looks like he tried to copy Neil Young's Old Black. I played Saturday Night Live with it – that was our first show. And I've probably played it every night since.”
Moving on to amps and effects, are you running anything that people may not be expecting?
“Well, I started out using a pair of combo amps. I was using these fantastic J-20s, the Lazy J Tweed Deluxe copies. I was running two of those behind me, and well, those were the good old days because now we're on Kempers. At least with the Kemper, you're not putting together a pedalboard anymore with those. What we tend to do is in rehearsals, when we have the time, we'll kind of program [the] album sounds.
“You can probably do that quicker with a Kemper, but it's fun to go out and shop for stuff and see what works and what doesn't. You take five pedals to try out in practice, and only one of them works – that whole game. I miss that, but the Kempers are reliable. I wish I was moving some air on stage, but it is what it is.
“[The Kemper] keeps the stage kind of cleaner, which I don't believe in [laughs]. But I see why we have them.”
When discussing your new solo work, the Nick Drake and Bert Jansch comparisons often come up. What first drew you to their style – and what aspects of their playing do you try to channel in your own songs?
“Maybe it’s just that it’s very singular. It's easy to attach or relate to. If the sound of a guy with a guitar sitting on the end of his bed is inspiring, that's not that hard for me to go and do.
"One of the records that really made me want to get serious about making music was Rosemary Lane by Bert Jansch. By the end of it, basically, when the needle lifted, that's when I realized it was just a vocal and a guitar. I think that’s the hardest thing to do – if you can create a world around those two elements. I mean, it's just very musical songwriting.”
I know you mostly played a Martin HD-28VS on the last record. Was this the main guitar on the new album as well?
“Yeah, that was played a lot on the first record, this 12-fret HD-28. I didn’t have that one with me this time. My two main guitars [were] a 1920s O-size Larson Brothers guitar – so spruce, rosewood – and the other was a 1945 [Martin] 000-18. Both are just really dry, woody-sounding. I don't change the strings on them – not yet. They're perfect where they are right now.
“There's a shop in Cardiff, Moto Music, that I started going to. Little by little, I started bringing guitars home. The stuff I’d come home with kind of informed the music on the record – using gear that I didn’t own before.
“One guitar in particular was [made by] this Cardiff-based luthier, [Dave Dearnaley]. He's been making Strat and Tele style guitars for a long time, and he finally started making acoustic guitars a few years ago.
“I’d notice them every time I visited the shop, but I never pulled one down. And then one day, our recording group went over there. And more or less on my way out, I was like, ‘I’ll just try that.’ When I pulled it down, it was just instantly like, ‘Stop what you're doing. I don't even know how much it is. I think I have to have it,’ one of those moments.
“It was one of Dave Dearnaley’s guitars. He makes parlor-sized acoustics, but very deep. So, it was a sound I didn’t have in my palette, and I had to have it."
I saw you cancelled all but one of the shows on your upcoming tour. Are you OK to talk me through what led to that decision, and what it’s like being a solo artist in 2025?
"It was just that the costs were really adding up. Since my first record, I wanted to play the album that I made, and it got to a point where it was going to be too much money to pull it off.
“I’m back to the drawing board a little bit, and maybe the way to get around it is to re-approach. Maybe just play acoustic. I love playing with an upright bass player, but I don't want to just put a line through everything and sit at home.
"So I want to figure out how I can string together some more dates and maybe reformat how I was going to do it in the first place. I was pretty tail between my legs about it, but I think since I put that out, I hear other people telling me about cancellations left and right.
"I don't really have my head, looking around, seeing who's doing what, but I think [a lot people are] having a hard time pulling it off at the moment.”
What do you think that says about the industry right now that someone like yourself can’t go out and tour?
“Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, there are people doing it, but I'm not sure what they're sacrificing. On the first tour, when we were doing Come June, I opted for a tour bus because I had my son going to bed on the bus every night.
“He was two-and-a-half at the time. And then my producer, Rob Schnaff, happily agreed to tour with us, but touring isn’t something he does. So, I wanted to make it comfortable for him and comfortable for my son.
"I sold a lot of merch, I sold a lot of tickets, and still, I didn't break even. I think breaking even for a lot of people is the new goal. I don't know how many years people need to put in before they start seeing a profit, or maybe for some of us, that’s not in the cards.
"But that was my scenario in terms of not wanting to be away from my family. Would it be better or cheaper in a sprinter van? Yes, but I guess I wasn't willing to make that compromise. If you’re not touring with a family, though, there are definitely cheaper ways to do it – but, cheaper isn’t cheap, though.”
- Mitch Rowland’s new album Whistling Pie is out now. For more information, head over to mitchrowland.com.
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