Tommi Rose Trades Six-Shooters for Six-Strings in “Rose’s Song”
- By: Meera Rathod
A Gunfighter’s Deal…
Tommi Rose is no stranger to shape-shifting. She’s played a super-powered android on Nickelodeon, a small-town teen in Sweet Magnolias, and—later this year—she’ll ride into cinemas as Rose Tanner in the supernatural Western A Gunfighter’s Deal. But it’s the film’s original country single, “Rose’s Song,” that may prove her boldest turn yet. Written between takes on a dust-blown set and steeped in 19th-century heartache, the track drops June 13 across all platforms, offering a tender prelude to the high-stakes drama arriving this fall. Loop Mag caught up with the actor-singer to talk melody sparks, genre hopping, and the Wes Anderson cameo that still lives on her vision board.
Filming in the sun-baked dust of Florida, Rose slipped her six-shooters into their holsters and—mid-scene—Tommi felt a lyric knock on her ribs. “We were filming one day and suddenly there was this line that kept ringing in my head,” she recalls. “‘I’d die in your arms before I’d live in someone else’s.’ I couldn’t put the thought away.” The melody unfurled as naturally as boot prints in sand, and within hours “Rose’s Song” had practically written itself. “Playing Rose felt like tearing down all the walls. No defenses, no apprehension,” Tommi says. “She is so brave that I think it sunk into me… She gave me the permission I needed to be vulnerable.” The result is a country ballad steeped in frontier cadence and fearless love, echoing the grit and tenderness of the character who inspired it.
Tommi hopes the track acts as an emotional prologue for moviegoers, tilting their compass toward Rose Tanner’s heart before a single frame flickers onscreen. “I think from the moment you hear this song, it’s so obvious that it comes from this place of pure, unwavering, unconditional love,” she explains. While A Gunfighter’s Deal packs “a big exciting supernatural element,” she’s adamant that listeners first sense “that beneath it all, at its core, it’s a love story.” By threading Rose’s devotion into every chorus, the single sets the tone for a film where ghostly gunfights and frontier mythos never eclipse the very human pulse beating underneath the dust.
Jump from Nickelodeon’s synth-bright I Am Frankie to a dusty Western set and Tommi’s playlist shapeshifts right along with her. “Every piece of art I’ve ever made was influenced by the world around me at that time,” she says. “I love to change and adapt and grow… new people always inspire me to think new thoughts, and it all snowballs until I find myself writing music that sounds totally different from anything I’ve done before.” That genre fluidity has carried her from bubble-pop hooks to hip-hop inflections and now to frontier-laced country—without ever feeling boxed in. “I’ve never felt tied to any specific feel or genre,” she adds. “I love getting lost in these little fictional worlds, and I’m never quite the same when I leave them.” With “Rose’s Song,” the world she’s leaving is full of gun smoke and galloping hearts—and the music carries that dust on its sleeves.
When talk turns to bucket-list partnerships, Tommi’s eyes light up like a Wes Anderson color palette. “Wes Anderson,” she says without hesitation. “Anyone who’s ever talked to me for longer than five minutes knows how much I love Fantastic Mr. Fox. I think it’s a perfect movie.” Anderson’s blend of whimsy, bittersweet honesty, and meticulous structure speaks the same language her own imagination does—“His movies feel like holidays,” she adds, leaving the interpretation deliciously open. Whether that means voicing an animated outlaw or penning a twang-tinged track for one of his vignette soundtracks, Rose keeps the dream pinned to her vision board, waiting for the day her kinetic storytelling meets Anderson’s pastel dreamscapes.
Ultimately, Tommi wants “Rose’s Song” to wander far beyond cinema speakers. “I hope people slow dance in their kitchen to this song,” she says. “I hope they send it to their long-distance love, cry to it after a breakup, or play it in the car on a first date. I hope mothers sing it to their children. I hope it plays when someone gets down on one knee or as someone in a white dress says ‘I do’. Any place where there is love, I hope this song finds its way in.” Consider that your invitation: queue up “Rose’s Song” when it drops on June 13, let it score your own tender moments, and share the memories back with Tommi—because a track born in frontier dust was always meant to travel.
Photos by Luke Riether from Light Inside Cinema
