When a psychic tells you to go back to your hometown and play music with your family, you go!
That was the advice Milwaukee musician Ila Rose was given as she was about to graduate from the University of Minnesota, where she taught herself to write music and play guitar as a form of therapy.
Despite being new to creating her own material, Rose is no stranger to the world of music. Her father is guitarist Greg Koch (Greg Koch & The Tone Controls), and her brother Dylan is a drummer (Koch Marshall Trio). With her dad on guitar and her brother on drums, Rose added Matt Turner — an honorary “Koch” — on bass to help create debut album Miss Young Paranoia.
The new album features Rose’s sharp, clever lyrics and her father’s distinctive guitar playing, both of which will be on display Feb. 6 at The Argo in Whitefish Bay. I talked with her about the winding road to familial collaboration and the various pieces of advice that propelled her down that path.
Interview highlights
The following has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
On her winding journey to songwriting:
It was really happenstance. I of course was surrounded by music growing up with my dad (Greg Koch). Even my extended family members all are musicians. But I never touched it until I went to college.
I was just by myself in my apartment and had this overwhelm of emotions, ideas. It was [during] the pandemic, and I just had this freak health-crisis situation and needed some way to get out my grief with the world. … My therapist actually first sent me over there, 'cause I had this health crisis, and she was like, “You know, a lot of people have a lot of success regulating their emotions just by singing.”
On her dad’s reaction to getting into the “family business”
He actually found out I started writing and playing guitar through TikTok. … I had this burner account separate from what I posted my funny stuff on, and he just found it 'cause we're contacts or whatever. And he was like, “Are you kidding me? You learned how to write songs by yourself? You're playing the guitar? You know I do this for a living, right?”
On the unusual source of advice that brought her home:
I was living in Minneapolis, and I was like, “No, no, no, I need to finish school, find a job, find income,” all that stuff. Just very practically minded. … And it was actually a psychic who told me to move home to Milwaukee.
Obviously, I'm into all the woo-woo stuff. So, yeah, I went to Mary Ellen Pride in the clock tower right across the Whole Foods on North Avenue, and she said, “You need to move home 'cause you have a project to do with your dad.” She didn't have my name, so she couldn't have Googled me. And she was just like, “You just have something to do. I think you need to switch it up. Minneapolis is cool, but you need to come back to Milwaukee.”
And of course I did exactly what she told me. … You don't go to a psychic when you're certain about your life. Nobody confidently goes into a psychic. … It's like, “No, please point me in the [right] direction.” And the reason why the album is called Miss Young Paranoia is that it was really the defining title of that time in my life.
