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THE RODEO It’s a big world out there and The Rodeo is keen to explore it. The singer-songwriter has already travelled as far as San Francisco where an open mike at the Hotel Utah prompted the realization that there might just be an audience out there for her twisted take on folk. “It’s a pretty legendary place,” she says of the Bay Area venue where Frank Black of the Pixies, has been known to perform. “There were about 40 artists there, all from the US, of course. After my set, everyone stood up and applauded. It was quite a moment. I remember thinking: I don’t have to limit my horizons in any way.” Fittingly, The Rodeo’s second EP, a 5 track taster for Music Maelström, her debut album to be released on Naïve in February 2010, is also called Hotel Utah, an affectionate nod to the venue where everything changed. Since then, The Rodeo has played her rough and tender songs at SXSW in Austin, Texas, in New York, Montreal, Finland, Portugal, Switzerland, the UK and her native France. The Rodeo is the alter ego of French singer-songwriter Dorothée. “A friend of mine pointed out that if you rearranged the letters of my first name, it spelt The Rodeo. My music has a lot of folk, country, blues and gospel influences, what people call roots, so it all fits,” she explains, before naming Sweetheart Of The Rodeo by The Byrds as one of her favourite listens. Dorothée found an acoustic guitar in her uncle’s attic when she was 15. “I loved the feel of it. I still have it. I think it was made in 1970,” she recalls. “That’s how I started. I’m self-taught. After a couple of years, I started to sing. I didn’t even notice I have a rather unusual voice. I was quite shy and music helped me to come out of my shell”. While her uncle instilled in her a love of musicals, her older sister supplemented her diet with Nirvana, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Serge Gainsbourg. Dorothée’s inquisitive nature did the rest, joining the dots between the soul music of Marvin Gaye, girl groups like The Shangri-Las and The Supremes and the jazz of Billie Holiday. “My influences don’t have much to do with the music I make. I get inspired by everything around me” she stresses. The singer-songwriter has also developed a knack for unusual covers since her repertoire includes a detour via Marilyn Manson’s The Beautiful People at the end of her composition ChaChaCha, and versions of Kanye West’s Amazing“. I listen to rap, R&B and electronic music, as much as anything,” she reflects. “I really try and stretch my range, use the contrast between the low notes and the high notes. I like my music to have balls.”
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