On his latest, The Embers of Time, singer-songwriter Josh Rouse lives in the moment

In the mid-'90s, like countless aspiring songwriters before him, Josh Rouse parked cars at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Nashville. He'd just dropped out of Austin Peay State University in Clarksville and moved to Music City to make his mark.

"Nashville for us playing music always represented the big city next to us," Rouse tells the Scene. "If you got a gig in Nashville, it was going to be big news, you know? It was always my New York City. And still when I come back here — I haven't been here in a while — those memories come into my mind, thinking, 'Wow, this is where my dreams could come true.' "

For this interview, Rouse offers to meet at Barista Parlor prior to a band rehearsal. It's his first visit to the gleaming East Nashville establishment, but it only takes a minute to get his bearings. Settled behind a long table just behind the elaborate coffee-making machinery, he nonchalantly notes that his latest album, The Embers of Time, was born out of a midlife crisis. To cope with the inevitable changes, he says he turned to Gestalt therapy, which encourages him to live in the moment.

"It's about trying to be in touch with how you feel," he explains. "It's very easy now to live in the future and plan, get stressed out by thinking about what's going to happen, or looking at the past too much. It's about trying to go day by day. So in sessions that I was having talking about my childhood, a lot of that stuff came out subconsciously in my songs."

Stylistically, Rouse's early R&B, country and bossa nova influences sparkle on Embers, richly produced by Brad Jones. The first line of "Time" underscores the album's overall theme: "Early 40s, how ya doin'? / And what's the deal? / How am I supposed to look? / How am I supposed to feel?"

"That was the first one I wrote. It just kind of came out," says Rouse, 43. "My wife was in the next room, and I was like, 'Are you listening to this?' It sounded classic to me. It sounds familiar but not too familiar. It sounded like it might have been someone else's song, but I couldn't figure it out. Usually when I do that, I enjoy playing those songs. It sounds familiar, but it's current at the same time."

Before moving to Clarksville around age 15, Rouse's roots were in tiny Paxton, Neb. His first solo set, 1998's Dressed Up Like Nebraska, earned positive press and paved the way for the still-satisfying albums Home, Under Cold Blue Stars, 1972 and Nashville, all on the Rykodisc label.

"When I think back to those days — talk about Gestalt — I was completely living in the moment," he says. "I wasn't thinking about the future at all. I was just going with it, you know? Of course I complained like everyone else I knew about the record label, but I was never really pressured. I drank a lot in those days too, so that numbed you from any feeling, or really stopping and getting a look at what's going on. I was just having fun and going with it."

After that label deal ended, Rouse issued albums through several different imprints and built a domesticated life for himself in Spain, where he's lived for about a decade. In 2014, he accepted a Goya Award — the Spanish equivalent of a Grammy — for best song in a film: "Do You Want to Be in Love," from La Gran Familia Española. He delivered his acceptance speech in Spanish.

"It was on TV and everything," Rouse recalls. "It was a big deal. When I'd go to a restaurant I was treated like royalty for a minute. It was funny, because I got pulled over by the cops a few weeks after I won it, and I thought, 'Man, I should have had it with me in the car.' "

Although it probably contradicts the principles of his Gestalt therapy, Rouse is asked what he'd like to see happen in the coming years.

"You know, not much, to be honest," he replies after a beat. "We all make plans about buying a Volkswagen van and touring with my family and doing it hippie-style, which I'd like to do. I want to come back to the States in a few years. I have little boys — one is 3 and one is 5 — so when the younger one gets a little bit older, I think we'll come stateside. I don't know if we'll come to Nashville or California or where we'll go. I'm not trying to think about that too much. What happens happens. But I'll keep playing music."

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