On Let the Old Dreams Die, Billie Rogue follows her musical inspirations wherever they lead, without feeling constrained by genre. While her work with Toronto death metal band Resthaven provides an outlet for her heavier musical interests, her solo music ranges from dark, guitar-driven rock to synthpop and atmospheric electronics. Six years in the making, the album also reflects a period of significant personal and creative change.
Rogue initially envisioned a more industrial, metal-oriented album, aiming to make what she describes as “badass, uplifting music.” But as the project developed, she found herself re-embracing “the beauty in sadness,” with the music reflecting her experiences with disillusionment, shifting ambitions, and the challenges of adulthood. Throughout the process, she repeatedly reconsidered the songs she was writing, at times abandoning material only to revisit it months later.
Chaos Control previously interviewed Rogue following the release of her EP Eclectric in 2021. When she recently reached out about her new album, I was blown away by what I heard and eager to do a follow-up. In this interview, Rogue discusses the album’s evolution, her musical influences, her involvement in Toronto’s music scene, and how her approach to songwriting and performing has changed.
In our 2021 interview, you mentioned that you already had a title and tracklist in mind for your first full-length album. How much of that original concept survived into Let the Old Dreams Die?
Billie Rogue: Funny I don’t even remember the title of the original concept, haha. So I’m gonna assume nothing of that survived. But I think it was supposed to be a full-length sequel of Eclectric. ‘Eclectric II’ is still in the cards though…. maybe album #3 or #4 I dunno.
When you began working on this album, did you have a particular idea of what a Billie Rogue full-length should sound like? Did that change as the project developed?
Billie Rogue: It absolutely changed, I originally wanted the industrial hyper-metal-oriented body of work. I was trying to avoid moody and sad rock songs because I thought I was finally “happy” and wanted to make more badass, uplifting music (kinda like ‘breakcore’). In a way that is still something I want to do but I also re-embraced the beauty in sadness and brought back that darker alternative rock sound I write more naturally. People relate to you more when you complain about things, lol. It wasn’t until about maybe two or three years in that it finally formulated into Let the Old Dreams Die (LtoDD).
When you’re working on music over several years, there’s a risk that your tastes will change faster than the project itself. Did you ever find yourself trying to reconcile what interested you musically when you started with what interested you by the time you finished?
Billie Rogue: I think so, yes. In times of frustrating writer’s block I’d listen to a playlist of songs I listened to since I was a kid in the 2000s. For the nostalgia. For the reminder why at 8 years old, I wanted to start writing songs and be a rockstar—blissfully unaware that it’s an unforgiving lifestyle. It’d consist of goth rock, alt-rock and post-grunge that I fully reintegrated it into my system. I think the only thing I’ve really had to reconcile was reintroducing moodier topics, depressing sounds. Just facing the fact life is shit, the economy sucks and this generation has its issues, but am also living in hope, I like to call it being “posi-mistic”.
In our previous interview, you talked about how much you enjoyed experimenting with electronic sounds and how quickly you could work that way. Did that spontaneity become harder to maintain as you grew more critical of your songwriting during the making of this album?
Billie Rogue: It did. I’d try too hard to experiment with sounds and textures because I so wanted a unique production style. I wanted to be like NIN, I wanted the cool unique production of Bjork and SOPHIE. Electronic music is easy to work with in its own ways: the tools, the overwhelming library of synths and the endless ways you can experiment with it—I personally abuse the hell outta arpeggiators. BUT, I’m not as great as the late producer, SOPHIE. I don’t know the exact fundamentals of every knob in a synthesizer and eventually I just thought “write the fucking song, you can add those electronic elements later and maybe ideas come from there.” Guitars and instruments were the first things I touched, it’s natural for me. The thing with rock music is the skill from the instrument comes entirely from you, you can always hit a note on a MIDI and expand it from there but with an instrument it’s different. I wasn’t sure why I thought to ditch it in favour of electronic music especially when my whole *thing *is marrying the two genres. Keep in mind, around Eclectric I just had a breakup with a toxic band and I think I was in a “fuck bands, fuck all this—I can make music in my bedroom” type of mentality.
Listening to Let the Old Dreams Die, I was reminded of a lot of music I first discovered in the 1980s, but not necessarily the sounds that tend to get associated with that decade today. I’m curious about your own musical reference points. Were there particular artists or eras you found yourself drawing from while making this album?
Billie Rogue: You can maybe tell I’ve been deeply inspired by HIM in this album. I started listening to them in 2024 and have no idea why I never bothered to become a fan a long time ago. Ville Valo’s 2023 debut solo album is also an honorable mention considering it’s an unofficial sequel to the band’s discography. HIM and Ville are now cemented as one of my inspirations alongside Depeche and NIN.
I actually found myself wondering whether you were Canadian while listening to the album, before remembering that you are. I can’t quite explain what prompted that association, but it made me curious: do you think being part of the Toronto music scene shaped your musical tastes or creative outlook in any particular way?
Billie Rogue: Lol love that. You guessed right though. I’m pretty active in the Toronto scene due to the success of my band, Resthaven. We’re a melodic (closeted metalcore) death metal band. Being part of it did shape me musically but mainly personally. I feel like I’m starting to find my people, who see me for what I am and I see all these young kids starting things, organizing shows and fighting for things and it makes me so proud; but I also see the egos, the ugliness and the sad realities of being part of a scene and it’s affected my outlook on life and relationships. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a bad thing, though, it’s a humbling experience that shows that there’s no such thing as a perfect “la la land” anywhere. I’m finding that life is about seeing all the beauty and disgust and still trying to fight for something you deserve. So to the pals from the scene, you know who you are—without you guys, this album wouldn’t feel as eventful. To the opps, fuck you and stay broke.
In terms of musical influence: I’ve been a metalhead since I was about 13 and being a part of Resthaven allowed me to funnel all that “metal-self” into that project. I still consider myself genre-fluid but it makes things easier now to differentiate my solo stuff from my Resthaven stuff. One less identity crisis. In my opinion that’s how it should be anyway, why be in multiple projects if they’re essentially the same thing.
There’s a combination of gothic rock, alternative rock, and synthpop throughout the album, but it doesn’t feel like you’re deliberately recreating any one style. When you’re writing, how conscious are you of genre, and how much does the sound emerge naturally from the song?
Billie Rogue: I try not to put too much control or pressure on trying to make a song sound like a unique mix of A, B, Z—whoever. I am conscious of genre in a way where if an artist or a song inspires me, it REALLY inspires me and you hear it. If I’m listening to divorced-dad-rock then I can easily shapeshift and make that nostalgic 2000s post-grunge song. If I’m listening to darkwave and I feel inspired, then out pops a dark synthwave track. I think I’m a shapeshifter which is why genre-fluidity is a necessity for me. I have an eclectic palette and need to bounce off every color I add to it.
The album draws on several different musical styles. Did the variety of sounds help you explore different aspects of its subject matter, or do you see those styles as parts of a single musical identity?
Billie Rogue: I’d say single musical identity because I was so focused on it being on the coming-of-age theme of broken dreams, adulthood, letting go. This time around I just cared about the lyrics regardless if the sound was electropop or goth rock. It’s kinda like Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain. Genre-fluid dark album but it tells an entire story about a girl running away from her religious shackles only to get used and abused by men, then cannibalized by the end. One of the tracks is dream pop and then next thing you know, you’re hit with an evil sounding doom-metal-y ambient track. Every song sounds different almost like capturing the ups and downs of how the character was feeling in every chapter. Thinking about it…that album subconsciously influenced me, not so much in a genre-sense but the absolute creative artistry of it all.
The album covers a period of considerable change in your life. Do you hear those changes reflected in the music itself, beyond the lyrics?
Billie Rogue: Oh yes I absolutely do, almost to a point it makes me sad at times. It’s out now and…it’s finished. That’s it. I underestimated how much the journey of a project means. I remember my lead singer of Resthaven—also my close friend—expressed some of that melancholy after our debut album came out. At the time I didn’t understand them but to be fair, they’re the primary songwriter of that project. Now that I wrote and released a full body of my own work that represented a chunk of me in a period of time, I relate a bit now. Overall though I still am happy and looking forward to the next project–ironic because I used to think this would be my last release and then just disappear. I would say releasing *Let the Old Dreams *Die now was the perfect time. In the years I was writing it, I was in a job I hated, then graduated school in honor roll, living paycheck to paycheck, couldn’t find a job in my field despite impressive work and grades, then **out **of a job, job market burning me alive, scene drama happened that made me question if trying to make it to the top is even worth it. SO much stuff but I suppose just the natural process of getting older and realizing you have no choice BUT to feel like shit at times. I’m in a pretty good place in my life right now, finally aced the post-grad job and I like it here. Personal life is also peaceful. Ascending to the new chapter—whatever this new chapter may be—is timed perfectly.
You’ve described repeatedly writing songs, rejecting them, and sometimes rediscovering them months later. What was it like returning to material created by an earlier version of yourself? Did you ever find that a song you’d dismissed suddenly made sense because your perspective had changed?
Billie Rogue: Yeah I’d periodically comb through past sessions, listen to the early demos and would wonder why I hated it. It was also a nice reminder of the “innocent” times of songwriting. No production skill yet, no band, just a guitar and me in my room alone at night. I’m not so sure if that’s a perspective change but it’s definitely a time capsule that brings me back to days I didn’t overthink about the finished product. Sadly none of those demos made it to LtoDD because it didn’t fit the album theme but they’re something still in the vault for the future.
Given that the album is partly about learning to let go, was there something particularly difficult about deciding it was finished? How did you finally reach the point where you were willing to stop revisiting and reconsidering things?
Billie Rogue: Not at all, actually I was excited to finally see it begin to wrap up. The interlude, BESET, was supposed to be a full-blown song but I had absolutely nothing left to give anymore. Lyrically, compositionally. That was when I took it as me running out of gas. This was the last stop. I re-read my song list and realized that there were enough songs to spread the message I wanted. Sure I had a lot of titles for song ideas but I was dead set on releasing this in 2026 and being a perfectionist could have held me back another six years. It had gone on for too long at this point. So instead I turned BESET into an interlude.
Does the finished album feel like a snapshot of who you are now, or more like a document of several different versions of yourself over the years?
Billie Rogue: A document. It’s definitely a chronology of different snapshots of me throughout 2021 to the late 2020s; when I was a student planning my life, to an adult with a quarter-life crisis. Plus you can tell from the earlier question where I was straight up rambling about the problems I was facing. But looking at those ‘snapshots’ vs. where I’m at right now makes me very happy. Even though some of those chapters sucked, I clearly matured, gained humility, got tougher and can look back on that period and know now that things will always fall into place—maybe not all dreams have to die.
You’ve described how a disappointing live performance contributed to questioning whether continuing with music was worthwhile. Has your relationship with performing changed since then, or do you now see recording and live performance as serving different purposes?
Billie Rogue: Yes that particular live performance basically pushed me over the edge I was already leaning towards. It sucked and I felt like shit so I kinda just hid from the world after that. But from experience performing with Resthaven, I’m seeing that even if you have the biggest, most epic show, you’ll still get gigs performing to a half-empty room or worse, a dead crowd. I used to think that after 1 amazing gig I would feel permanently changed. Euphoria wears off. Performing to statues still pisses me off, it’d piss anyone off and it doesn’t feel good but you just gotta give it your all ’cause you *will *make an impression on at least ONE person. No one wants to watch a sore loser on stage. Regardless of the not so great moments I think performing is necessary, it’s a chance to reach closer to listeners, gain new listeners, etc. It’s where I feel I can show my highest form before I’m back in reality just sipping coffee and paying bills. So that being said I am looking for bandmates so I can finally return to the stage as Billie Rogue again—anyone in the GTA, please hit me up.
Buy or listen to Let The Old Dreams Die at https://ffm.to/let-the-old-dreams-die and for updates follow her on Instagram.
