The Morning Brew with Chris Bennett

Country Climb with Rose Falcon: From Friday Night to Whiskey & Water

• Chris Bennett • Episode 169

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Not every holiday movie earns a spot on your watchlist — and we start this Friday episode by saving you two hours with a quick, honest Hallmark Christmas Movie Review of The Five-Year Christmas Party. Then we shift gears to something truly worth your time.

This week’s Country Climb Star of the Week, sent our way by Austin Burke and the Playlisted Podcast, is the incredible Rose Falcon — a songwriter’s songwriter with a story as powerful as her lyrics. Rose takes us through her journey from a shy poet growing up around Nashville studios to becoming a chart-topping writer whose songs have found homes with some of country music’s biggest names.

She shares unforgettable moments from her early life — singing at the dinner table for Jon Bon Jovi, signing a major-label deal at just 14, and learning firsthand that success doesn’t always come on the timeline you expect. We dig into the long, winding road of Friday Night, from an early work tape pitched to Lady A to its eventual climb to No. 1 with Eric Paslay — proof that sometimes your instincts are right, even when the wait is long.

At the heart of the conversation is Rose’s haunting new single “Whiskey and Water.” Inspired by a chance human connection while snowed in at a Minnesota casino, Rose unpacks how a “semi-true” moment became a deeply honest song. Working alongside Hillary Lindsey and Dylan Altman, she chose restraint, emotion, and storytelling over trends — and it shows.

Before wrapping up, Rose shares two more essential listens to round out her catalog: “Put Me Back Together” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” a Christ-centered holiday song from her duo Rod & Rose with husband Rodney Atkins. We also look ahead to her upcoming EP arriving this February.

If you love country music that’s built on truth, craft, and stories that stay with you, this Country Climb is for you.
 Follow the podcast, share this episode with a fellow lyric-lover, and leave a review telling us your favorite Rose Falcon line.

And as always — huge thanks to Austin Burke and the Playlisted Podcast for sending another incredible artist our way.

SPEAKER_00:

From the Horn Auto Center Studios, Chris Bennett and the Morning Brew.

SPEAKER_03:

And now it's time for Chris's wife to give us her Christmas Hallmark movie reviews. All right, my love, what is today's Hallmark Movie Christmas Review?

SPEAKER_02:

So we're going to review the five-year Christmas party.

SPEAKER_03:

Ooh, the five-year Christmas party. Here's what I think this one is about. I think people are having a Christmas party, like in like some cool mountain town, and there was an avalanche and it covered them. But they were all safe, but they were all kind of just underground for five years. And just for five years, they had a cool uh Christmas party, and they would fight a lot because they kept doing uh white elephant Christmas exages. And that gets pretty intense after five years. But yeah, that's what I think this one's about. Am I right?

SPEAKER_02:

This sounds like a horror movie.

SPEAKER_03:

What's the five-year Christmas party really about?

SPEAKER_02:

So it's about two struggling actors that work at a catering shop as a side hustle while they're trying to become famous actors. And so every Christmas season they're working at this catering business, doing all the Christmas parties. And I don't have a lot to say about this one. I I really disliked the character, the main character. She was really snorky and said really rude things, and everyone just kind of laughed it off, like, oh, she's so quirky. And it and like the casting was so so strange to me. So I would skip this one. It was not good.

SPEAKER_03:

It's not good. Did it did it feel like uh five years watching the five-year Christmas party?

SPEAKER_02:

It kind of did.

SPEAKER_03:

How many cups of hot cocoa do you give the five-year Christmas party?

SPEAKER_02:

I give it two stars.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh my gosh, two out of ten stars. Unless you like to punish yourself, my wife says stay away from the five-year Christmas party. Thank you for helping save people's time from watching a horrible Hallmark movie, my love.

SPEAKER_02:

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_03:

All right, thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

We can't all be winners.

SPEAKER_03:

That's right, that's right. You have to throw in some duds in there for sure. Well, thank you so much for doing our Hallmark Christmas movie reviews this week, and we'll talk to you on Monday.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, sounds good.

SPEAKER_03:

All right, love you. Bye.

SPEAKER_02:

Bye.

SPEAKER_03:

Chris Bennett's Country Con, Star of the Week. It's an artist whose life and music are woven together with incredible heart. She signed her first record deal at 14. She's written songs for artists like Faith Hill, Lady A, Wyatt Flores, Rodney Atkins, Chase Matthews, and Eric Paisley's Friday night. She's one of those rare storytellers who can make you feel every word she sings. She's back with a powerful new single we're gonna play later called Whiskey and Water. We're excited to have today's Country Climb star of the week, Rose Falcon. Woo!

SPEAKER_01:

Hey! Hi, Chris. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_03:

Absolutely. It's an honor to have you on. And before we get into the serious segment about your country climb and your journey, we're gonna start off with some fun icebreaker questions. You ready?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm ready.

SPEAKER_03:

All right. What was the first concert you ever went to?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, um, I kind of grew up going to concerts because my dad is a songwriter as well and a performer, but the first one that really stands out to me that I remember was he was opening for Stevie Nicks, and um I got to be, you know, backstage and hang out and see Stevie, and I was on my dad's shoulders. I remember I was probably like five years old, six years old. Um, so that was really amazing.

SPEAKER_03:

Holy moly, that is so cool. Do you have a uh go-to comfort snack when you're doing your writing?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. When I'm when I'm writing, I mean, you know, our publishing company, we have like veggie straws and like all the junk, Cheetos, Doritos. When I'm on the road, it was it's uncrustables because those are just so easy. But I I have two kids, so when we go on the road, I'm always like thinking about what everybody else wants to eat, and I rarely think about you know what I'm gonna be eating.

SPEAKER_03:

We had some fun, Rose, and now it's time to get to the nitty-gritty of your country clan.

unknown:

Let's go.

SPEAKER_03:

So uh you had mentioned earlier that uh your father was a musician, so music has been around you uh your whole life. Why don't you tell us a little bit about when you really started writing music and uh uh a little bit about your journey?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. So um my mom passed away when I was four years old of breast cancer, and so it was really just my dad and I, and we were like best buds. And but my dad, you know, he's a single guy raising just a daughter on his own. So he was a singer-songwriter, and pretty much didn't really know how to fully be a dad. So, like, pretty much whatever he did, I did. So when we moved to Nashville, um, I'd go to the studios with him, I'd go to write. So I've just always been around it. Um and about probably 12 years old, I had some a hard time at school. I didn't really enjoy it, not gonna lie. Um, and I started writing poems. And then my dad was just like, I've got this daughter, I don't know what to do with her. Like, she might as well just write songs, you know. So I brought my poems and we started turning them into songs. My dad was my first co-writer, and um, you know, it was really weird because I never once had the thought, like, I want to get a record deal. You know, it's like not really a thought in my mind. I just knew that I hated school and didn't belong where I was, and wrote a handful of songs, and this is gonna sound crazy. So my dad writes with Bon Jovi quite a bit and always has. And so John started making his trips to Nashville and would stay at our house. And I was a very shy kid, but for some reason I said I want to sing for John. And so John was sitting at our dining room table, and I sang for John, and he kind of freaked out, and I was like, okay, like, and then he was like Billy, like my dad's name is Billy. Billy, like, you she's got something, you know, this is this is something. I I made a little demo. Um Jim Ed Norman gave me some some money to make a demo, and I went to John's house in New Jersey and I made a demo, and we started shopping it to uh some labels, and it was weird, man. Like, I don't I feel like at the time I didn't have a ton of talent, but I had a lot of opportunity because I was so young and doing something that not it wasn't like it is now, where like all kids are getting on TikTok, singing, YouTube, you know, it wasn't like that, and so it was a rarity. And so um, I got signed to Columbia Records by this woman named Teresa LaBarbera Whites who discovered Jessica Simpson and Destiny's Child, and um uh it was a weird like chance encounter in a bathroom. I met her and she took to me, and I it just the rest is history. I ended up making this song um that was on the Disney channel and kind of blew up for a minute. It was called Up Up Up, and I was honestly kind of embarrassed about it because by the time it came out I was like 18 years old and I felt like I shouldn't be singing this like teeny bopper music because the rest of my record was deeper than that, but this is the song that took off, and you can't really control that, you know. And um, that's kind of the beginning of my story. I later transitioned to country music when pop music started becoming a little bit more hip-hop-y kind of. Um, and I signed with Toby Keith's label when I was in my 20s, and so the you know, there's a lot to this story, but that's kind of the beginning of it.

SPEAKER_03:

I normally ask everyone, do you have any pinch me moments in your career? Your whole life has been some like amazing pinch me moments.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. Um, but I do, I have one that stands out because um when, you know, first off, I've always been a songwriter first. If I didn't write songs, I absolutely would not sing. I am not Carrie Underwood. I I'm just a vocal stylist, like I only sing because I write songs. And so um I had written this song with Eric Pasley and Rob Crosby, and it was called Friday Night, and we pitched the work tape to Lady Annabellum. The work tape for people who are not songwriters or in the music industry is literally just the crappy phone recording that we do at the end of a write, not a demo, nothing fancy, us singing it in the room. We pitched it to Lady Annabellum and they recorded it, and they kept telling us it's gonna be a single, it's gonna be a single, never was. And we were so sad, you know, because we thought we were not only gonna have a single but have a number one because they were so hot at the time, and that didn't work out. But the cool thing is, and I think this is kind of how God works, like you think you want one thing, but really there's something better for you that you can't even imagine, you know. And so Eric, my co-writer, wound up recording it for his record, and it ended up going number one for him, and it was my first number one as a songwriter. And and you know, when you're a songwriter, you don't really get a lot of proof that what you did at the end of the day was good, you just guess. And you have proof now, you know, you got a number one song, and so I was in Manhattan when it went number one. I was on the road with my husband, and I got I jumped off the bus and I went to Bloomingdale's and I bought a pair of red bottom shoes. I paid cash, and it was just awesome. It was like the best feeling in the world to be in New York and have that number one song.

SPEAKER_03:

We are back with Rose Falcon today's Country Climb star of the week. And I'm so excited because uh we are going to play a uh new song she recently released, Whiskey and Water. Rose, tell us a little bit about whiskey and water, how it came about, what the song means to you.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. Um, I was on the road and we got snowed in at a casino in um where were we? We were in Hinckley, Minnesota, and uh we played some blackjack. It was me, uh Rodney, Rodney Atkins, I'm married to, by the way, so I didn't know for people who don't know that, and Tyler Farr. And so we were playing blackjack, and I just started becoming so interested in our dealer. She was a young girl, she was so pretty, um, but she seemed very just sad. And the setting was like a little bit sad, and so I I don't know, she just stuck in my head, and I got back on the bus and I started making up a story about her. So I call it kind of a semi-true story because it's based on the truth that I was like making up in my head about this girl, but I have no idea. I just noticed her name tag said Rebecca, and that's in the song, and I am super curious if she's ever gonna hear it. Yeah, and um, so I wrote like a little poem at first versus a chorus, and I I thought it was a little obscure, and I didn't know if it could really be a song, but I brought it in to Hillary Lindsay and Dylan Altman, and they really liked it, and that was so so awesome, such a gift to me as co-writers for them to just be like, we love what you did, and we don't want to change a lot of it, and to encourage me and to go ahead and write that second verse and and finish the song with me because not everybody is up to write a song that's not so commercial, you know, that's more just heart and truth.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and this song has uh a lot of heart and truth in it. I've been uh listening to it on repeat all morning, and I'm a happy that means so much. I'm a sensitive guy, and uh this song is just uh pure poetry, and I'm so excited to play it for our Q Country audience for the first time. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Rose Falcon with her new song Whiskey and Water on Q Country 925.

SPEAKER_00:

Rebecca deals blackjack at the grand casino. She never looks nobody in the eye. Twenty-one, and the odds are in her favor, but damn it sure don't feel that way tonight. She wanted to be a ballerina Spinning around to a never-ending song. But all that daddy taught her is to mix whiskey with her water, so the mornings don't come on so strong. Shirley over there is Pushin Sixty. She's heard every dirty joke and pick a blind. And Becca swears to God she's gonna get out before she gets that vacant look there in her eyes. She wanted to be somebody's princess, leaving this shit down on a white horse and staying gone. But oh that daddy totter is to mix whiskey with her water. So the mornings don't come on so strong Laddie day-day Laddie day da da da day She goes home, counts her tips and lads a camel now. She didn't do too good for Friday night, pours makers on the rocks with splash water and drinks away another day of this so called life it up it up she's her father's daughter, taking whiskey with her water So the mornings don't come on so strong So the mornings don't come on so strong so strong Holy moly that is Rose Falcon with her song Whiskey and Water.

SPEAKER_03:

She's today's country climb star of the week. Rose, that song's so beautiful. I I don't know what it is, but every time I just it it it uh just makes me feel and it's just pure, I just I just love the song is basically what I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. That means so much, really, really, it really does. I didn't know it's like a four-minute acoustic song. I like I didn't know if anybody would like it. I know like it means something to me, and I just hope that it means something, you know, to somebody else.

SPEAKER_03:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's just it's just so beautiful. And for people that are meeting Rose Falcon for the first time on Q Country, what other two songs do you think they should check out of yours to get to know the Rose Falcon experience?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. Is this so since it's the holiday season, um, we have, well, one really special Christmas song that Rodney and I did together called Mary Had a Little Lamb, and it's one of my favorite songs I've ever been a part of writing. Um, it's about Jesus and the real meaning of why we celebrate Christmas. And probably the other one right now would be Put Me Back Together, which is another Rod and Rose song. I this isn't the first song off of my new EP, and so I'm yet to I've yet to release more music, but it's coming in February.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, great. So there's more music to check out from Rose Falcon. We should all fall follow your socials. And you had mentioned uh your husband, Rodney Atkins. We play his music on our station all the time, and you guys have a duo called Rod and Rose.

SPEAKER_01:

We do.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, and that's and that's part of the Mary uh Had a Little Lamb.

SPEAKER_01:

Mary Had a Little Lamb and Put Me Back Together are both Rod and Rose songs.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, well, it is Christmas season. Do you do you think we could play uh Mary Had a Little Lamb? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

I would love nothing more.

SPEAKER_03:

Heck yeah, we're going to uh close our country climb segment with one more song from today's Country Climb star of the week, Rose Falcon. Uh Rose, this has just been an enjoyable conversation with you. Your music, your artistry is amazing. Everyone, go ahead, follow Rose, download her music, and check out new music that is on the way. Chris Bennett's Country Climb, Star of the Week.

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Chris Bennett

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