A funny thing happened to Josh Rouse on the way to indie-pop cult status -- he found his soul. There it was, waiting for him in the form of songs inspired by the era of his youth. It was 1972, to be precise, that the Nashville singer-songwriter used as his launching point for an album that goes where none of his three previous efforts had. The year Rouse was born. The year of his main instrument of choice, a Telecaster. The year in which the fabric of popular music and AM radio ranged from Marvin Gaye and Al Green to Neil Young, Steely Dan, and Carole King.

King's classic "It's Too Late" is referenced in the first lines of the album, on the title track "1972," and in many ways the album unfolds as an entertaining bout of spot-the-influence. But Rouse is much craftier than to give his entire self over to someone else's sound. The album succeeds as a celebration of sorts -- a merging of Rouse's own melancholy pop style with the sounds of yore. It's sweet, smooth, crafty, fun, sexy, and, if possible, smartly innocent. And, as Rouse tells MoMZine editor Neal Weiss, "There's gonna be a lot of ladies showing up to the shows. It's better than a bunch of indie-rock guys standing out there looking at you."

MoMZine: Was there a particular moment when you decided that 1972 was the proper inspiration for an album?

ROUSE: I had always said, "I'm gonna make a record that sounds like 1972," like After The Gold Rush or something like that. I had the song "1972" written and a couple other ones. So, I got together with producer Brad Jones and started playing him songs, and we were just talking about how we were gonna keep the production really raw, really dry, kinda soulful, kind of a blue-eyed soul thing. That's what I was going for. The early-'70s is my favorite period in music.

MoMZine: What it is about that music that appeals to you?

ROUSE: Just the quality of songs and artists, it was just better, to me. There's been good stuff throughout the '80s and '90s but the sheer amount of talent that was around then, even in commercial music, it was so much more sincere, better. Even the mainstream stuff, if you look at the charts from the '70s, it's just astounding really. You got Neil Young and Carole King, things like that. At that time you could make a record without too much pressure to have a single and it could do well. There were artists that were actually doing career development then, which doesn't seem to go on much these days. That's kinda what I've been doing. I've kinda been able to develop. I'd rather hear an Al Green song than one of these R&B singers today. It sounds better, it seems it's got more soul. There were just a lot of good records coming out in the early-'70s, the Stones, Dylan, all that stuff is timeless.

MoMZine: When did you start looking back to that era?

ROUSE: I grew up with those records. The first 8-Track I had was Carole King's Tapestry, actually. Being a singer-songwriter, and this being my fourth record, I started looking at artists like David Bowie, for instance, who kind of reinvented himself all the time. He really had a lot of fiction, even science-fiction, in his work. And I was looking at a new approach to not writing a bunch of love songs. I don't want four records full of songs about girls or relationships. So I started just making up stories -- I even started doing this on the last record -- about different people that I wouldn't necessarily have met, or just different situational things. I have a song called "Come Back (Light Therapy)" that's about light therapy and the winters in Norway. Looking at Bowie and Tom Waits and people I really looked up to and kind of studying their careers a little bit and the steps they took and the way they developed. And I said, "You know, I'm gonna start having fun with this." Using more humor in my music, things like that.

MoMZine: Would you consider this liberating?

ROUSE: Oh, completely. I think there's nothing I can't do, really. I mean, I always thought Josh Rouse was a sound and your fans are gonna expect something, they're gonna expect a Josh Rouse record to be somewhat melancholy, the lyrics introspective, that type of thing. But just because it's my name, I'm kinda open to do whatever I want to do and take different turns. Neil Young did it for a while, sometimes it wasn't so good, but that kinda goes with it. I just feel like, if I'm gonna make 20 records I'm kinda open to experimenting with different things.

MoMZine: Would you look at this as a new direction or just more of a side trip?

ROUSE: It's too early to tell. I'm definitely aspiring to do different things now. I think it would be fun to do a real rock record, or do a piano-vocal record. So it has kind of opened my mind up to really trying to throw some curveballs out there. I'm already kind of looked at like that anyway, why not keep doing it? I've come to the realization that if I'm gonna have some huge hit it's gonna be a fluke or it's gonna slip through the cracks some weird way, like on a soundtrack. So I might as well keep experimenting with it. But I write catchy pop songs. It's not like I'm really doing anything avant-garde. I like melody and I don't think I'll ever move away from that.

MoMZine: What about your fans? Do you risk alienating them?

ROUSE: I think I've probably lost a few fans and gained a few fans with every record. But from my website, what I can tell is that everybody's really loving it so far. You know, I don't know about doing a punk rock record [laughs] because I think a large part of my audience is kind of pseudo-intellectual, you know? We'll see.

MoMZine: What's the oddest thing you've heard someone say about the album?

ROUSE: There was a writer who referenced an odd thing, there's a Hall & Oates record called Abandoned Luncheonette that came out in 1972, and he thought I went song for song with that record. And I'd never heard it, expect the song "She's Gone." It kinda ruined the whole interview because he was, like, "You're kidding! You've never heard Abandoned Luncheonette?" I mean, I like Hall & Oates but I never had that record. So, I went out and bought it and kind of didn't know what he was talking about.

MoMZine: Was there a particular moment during the making of 1972 when you realized you were on to something special?

ROUSE: I think when we did the song "James." That was one of the first tracks that we did. I think when we laid that down, Brad and I just kinda looked at each other and said, "Wow, we just raised the bar." Because nobody's really doing anything like that, you know? I mean, there is a lot of R&B that is commercial, Justin Timberlake, stuff like that, but nobody's doing the grittier stuff. It felt good. And I wanted to make kind of an up record. I wanted to make something that just felt good. I think playing live we would always gear our sets towards the up-tempo numbers so I kinda wanted to make a record that had a lot of groovy things on it, a lot of really good grooves on it.

MoMZine: How important was your collaboration with producer Brad Jones?

ROUSE: It was huge. He took it to a whole different level. All the flutes, those are all his ideas. The string arrangements, they're all off the top of his head, none of that stuff's written out. He plays bass on a lot of it. He plays a lot of instruments so it's always great. He had a huge part in just arranging the songs. I just sat down with most of these songs on acoustic guitar and would play them for him and he's go, "That's great, what about putting this chord here?" I'd never done that before. On earlier records I had the songs written and we went in and cut 'em. But not how Brad really got down into the songs and said, "How can we make them as great as they can be?" He always sees the song before I do, and say, "Oh let's put a Curtis Mayfield flute on "James."

MoMZine: Did you really talk about parts in such terms, like a Curtis Mayfield this or an Al Green that?

ROUSE: Totally. "Slaveship," for instance, I want "I Feel The Earth Move"-type piano on the beginning of it. Then we'd do it and we'd be like, "Man, that's so Stones," it's so "Let's Spend The Night Together." Yeah, everything, "I want Al Green snare drum," "I want vocals up front like Al Green," or "I want Marvin Gaye background vocals on this," or "I want Clash gang vocals" or "I want it to sound like '75 Jersey, like a sweathog singing background vocals." The '70s were referenced constantly in the studio. It's a good way to communicate because he knows exactly what I'm talking about.

MoMZine: Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye… did you ever stop and think, "What is this white boy trying to do?"

ROUSE: Sure. But you know, everybody's got their own soul. Musically, maybe I'm referencing it but I can't sing like Marvin Gaye or Al Green. I think it still sounds like Josh Rouse singing. And I think we knew that going it, whatever I was gonna do, even if we were doing kind of an R&B type record, it was going to sound real and sincere because I'm not trying to sing like Michael Jackson or something like that. I've got my kind of trademark on it.

MoMZine: Where on the album do you feel like you stuck your neck out the furthest?

ROUSE: The song "Under Your Charms," that's the first kind of sexual reference I've ever had in a song. I remember writing that lyric or singing it feeling a little uncomfortable. I kept thinking, should I put this song on the record or should I say that?

MoMZine: How do the old songs fit into a live set showcasing 1972?

ROUSE: Great. We just play all the swingin' numbers. It's a pretty groovy set. I think people that come to the shows will definitely get a chance to shake their asses a little bit, which, in my world of music, there's not a lot of that going on. We play "Under Cold Blue Stars," "Miracles," "Feeling No Pain," "Directions," "Marvin Gaye," "Laughter"… I'm not doing too much off of Dressed Up Like Nebraska just because it's been so many years I've been touring that. If I do I usually do it kinda solo-acoustic. We're doing a Marvin Gaye song called "Where Are We Going?," which I think is was a B-side. It's a great tune. We're doing a Steely Dan's "Dirty Work," off '72's Can't Buy A Thrill. I just want to have fun with it.

MoMZine: Have you worked up any dance moves?

ROUSE: No, my wife keeps pushing me to choreograph some stuff, but I don't think I'll take it that far.

MoMZine: Nothing like Al Green passing out the roses?

ROUSE: I might do the roses thing. I've been thinking about that. The rose thing is nice. It kinda makes everybody smile.