An Interview With The UK-Based Sibling Trio, THE RUA!

Meet the English trio that make up The The Rua: They are the brother and sisters Roseanna Brown,
Alanna Brown and
Jonathan Brown.

The Rua is best known for their percussive guitar style, rock genre, and thematic lyrics. Alanna plays the piano, Roseanna provides the vocals and Jonathan plays the violin and fiddle.

On their debut album, “Essence”, they have collaborated with Nigel Harrison, a bass player from London, and Portishead drummer Clive Dreamer.

Learn more about The Rua in the following All Access interview:

Thanks so much for your time! Where does this interview find you today?

We are at home in sunny Windsor just outside London- in fact we can’t believe it’s as sunny as it is at the moment!

Can you remember the moment you first decided to start this group?

Well, we have always played music and we come from a very musical Irish family. We did competitions in singing and piano in Ireland when we were younger and we were also in choirs together and studied music. Then about 4 or 5 years ago, we decided that we enjoyed playing together far much more than on our own. We also found that when working together our songs became better and it all just fitted into place perfectly!

As siblings in a band together, what’s that been like for you? Do you fight about silly things ever? Your parents must be very supportive?

We have extremely supportive parents they are very proud of us and as musicians themselves they always wanted to see us succeed. We are just like every other family, we have our moments of silly bickering but its forgotten quickly and we have a lot of fun together so it’s more laughing at each other!

How did you come up your band name? What other names were you considering?

Our surname is Brown so we came up with loads of names none of which were any good! Then we found the word Rua which we thought meant brown in Irish – unfortunately we were wrong about that but we did like the word! Then we found a word with a similar spelling Ruah, which is a hebrew word that has the meaning ‘essence of a group’ and it fitted us perfectly as our music is our essence! But we didn’t like the ‘h’ on the end so we took it off.

You’ve acted in big movies like the Harry Potter films and Thor. What were those experiences like? Do you have any future film projects in the works?

We enjoyed it so so much! It’s a lot of waiting around but one of the best experiences we have ever had. Everyone on set is so lovely and it’s like being apart of a big family, in fact we still keep in contact and meet up with our friends from Harry Potter all the time! We are full force ahead with music at the moment so no more filming projects at the moment but we do miss it!

Would you still like to act more or his music really your true passion?

We love acting but music has always and will always be our love! We wouldn’t be able to get away from it even if we wanted to try.

What are some of your all-time favorite bands? What artists have consistently inspired you and your music? Who would you love to work with and why?

We all have different tastes in music however it all seems to fit together in our songs when we write. We literally like all kinds of music and listen to everything but if we had to say a few… Alanna likes, Ella Eyre, Clean Bandit and was a super Spice Girls fan! Jonathan likes Frank Sinatra, Taylor Swift, Arctic Monkeys and Roseanna likes Paramore, Muse and Royal Blood.

We all listened to bands like Fleetwood Mac, The Cardigans, The Corrs, our mum loved T-Rex so we listen to that too.

So we feel that because we listen to so much we are influenced by them all in some way. Also, we would be excited to work with anyone! There are so many amazing musician out there from Taylor Swift to Dave Grohl to Stevie Nicks ..the list would be endless for us..that if they wanted to work with us we would be beyond nervous and excited.

Can you describe your songwriting style and general process?  

When we write a song it usually starts with someone sitting at the piano or playing the guitar, someone will then run into the room and join in by helping them to tweak the tune or words here and there. Sometimes a song can come together in a few minutes and sometimes it can take a lot longer! When we all write together we are able to use the strengths of each of us. For example Jonathan is good a hooks, Roseanna is good at words and Alanna is good at making it all fit together.

Is there anything else about yourselves or your music that would like our readers to know about you?

On the album our label F.O.D brought in some incredible people to work with. On drums we have Clive Deamer who has played with Radiohead and Portishead, on bass we have Nigel Harrison who used to play with Blondie, on guitar we have Dani Robinson who plays Jimi Hendrix in the Official Jimi Hendrix Experience and on keyboards we have Mikey Rowe who has played with loads of people including Mick Jagger and Oasis.

We also have two co-writes on the album, we wrote “Into The Crowd” with Nigel Harrison and “As Good As It Gets” with Rob Davis (played with MUD)

Also we tend to miss our dog more than we miss our parents when we are away.

Alanna loves white sandy beaches and white hot chocolate. Roseanna loves Disney ( though we all do ), dinosaurs and sci-fi and scary films and Jonathan loves roller coasters, aircraft and gluten free baking! And let’s not forget that we all have an unhealthy obsession with Netflix.