Singled Out: Aug Stone's Rachel On The Rooftops

09-09-2025

Veteran indie rocker and author Aug Stone just released his first solo single, "Rachel On The Rooftops", and to celebrate we asked him to tell us about the track. Here is the story:

Rachel On The Rooftops is my first ever solo single as well as my return to releasing music after thinking I was done with it for quite some time. Since 2018 I'd been focusing more on stand-up comedy and writing books and stories. But in 2021 I started writing songs again long-distance with an old friend. During 2022 I had moved closer to him and on my days off from work I would drive three hours each way to the studio where we'd write and record. We finished 30+ songs that year but then lost momentum. Things dragged on and coming back from some author events in Los Angeles in August 2024, I got an email saying he wasn't going to do it anymore. And try as I might I couldn't even convince him to salvage an album out of all that work. They're great songs and it would've been a killer record. So I was pretty pissed off. And that negativity carried over into the new year.

Luckily early January, on a more positive note, I discovered the music of Damien Youth. This was super inspiring, he's incredibly prolific and has written so many amazing songs. There's 58 releases on his Bandcamp page, which meant that for the first two months of this year I had something new to listen to every day. And it got me thinking, I should just do it myself. I've got plenty of my own songs.

Also at the beginning of the year, I was waking up and playing my guitar first thing. I realized that if I do this, I am happy for the rest of the day. And on January 15th, I woke up and was in a bit of a rush and thought I didn't have time, but convinced myself to play for just 5 minutes. So I did that while trying to describe a dream I had just had. In the dream I was in the old studio of that last musical project and I just stood up and walked out. On the landing there was a window and I walked out of that too, onto the roof, and saw my old friend Rachel.

Talking myself thru the dream, guitar in hand, I found some chords and the song came almost completely finished. The lyrics are what they are, a lament about missed chances, but I think the true importance of the dream was that it gifted me this song. It was like my subconscious was saying 'you need to be making music again. Here you go, get started with this. You can do it.' And since that dream I feel I'm back into making music fully and I've written 20 or so songs this year, some of which are among my very best.

A huge thing for me too is that Rachel Love from Dolly Mixture sings backing vocals on this. Dolly Mixture are one of my all-time favorite bands and looking for someone to sing the 'la-dah-dah-dah's, she seemed perfect, especially given her name. I was nervous emailing her to ask but she's such a lovely woman, she was excited to do it and also came up with that gorgeous chorus at the end that really makes the song soar.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here