‘Live music might be the one form of music we really truly have any control over anymore’: Storyteller Rajah Bose turns from photography to songwriting

Photojournalist Rajah Bose views the world through the eyes of a storyteller, but it took a 9,000-mile train excursion around the country to elicit stories through song.

The journey of Bose’s debut album finds its origins two decades ago, when he was a fresh Washington State University graduate and working news as a photographer in the Tri-Cities. Being from WSU’s home of Pullman, Bose felt he never had the college “growth experience” of moving away from home, but it didn’t take long before the new emotions and lessons that come with setting off on your own were being expressed in music.

The longtime violinist, who also picked up guitar, sang his own poetry to the point of completing multiple songs, but that was about as far as they went. He would sing the folk-oriented tunes at campfires, fill in for bands and was a member of the local hip-hop sensation Flying Spiders, but as his career progressed to the likes of The Spokesman-Review and New York Times, music was put on the back burner.

That is, until summer 2023, when Bose and his wife Ellen Picken decided to take their first proper post-COVID adventure via train across the country.

“We felt that we should really get to know this country a little better,” Bose said. “We considered the road trip, we considered flying to different places, but there was just an itch, something that I had been thinking about for so long – the idea of the train.”

Over the course of about a month and a half, the loop took them from Spokane to Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Portland and back.

Bose was constantly taking notes that he initially thought would become a story about the romanticism of seeing the nation by train. From glimpses into unique cultures, the forgotten beauty of old train stations and staring out the window at the diverse views of America that grant new sights every day, he couldn’t help but be heavily moved by the experience.

The couple were particularly touched by meeting such a wide array of new people at each stop, even staying with strangers in their homes through Airbnb.

“How would you possibly know what life is like in Atlanta if you didn’t just go and meet somebody in Atlanta?” Bose said. “There’s nothing better, and I think more important, that we can do with our time than getting to know one another in this world that we’re living in.”

Through meeting locals and hearing their stories, Bose not only felt more connected with the country he calls home, but he was also in a more heightened state of self-awareness and introspection – similar to the emotions of nearly 20 years prior.

Those same songs came crawling back in the form of new lyrics and the enthralling allure to explore them fully with a freshly reinspired mindset.

“The art is a mystery in some ways, and I didn’t understand that fully going into this,” Bose said. “There was something that was happening within that really couldn’t just be written down in a journal … it had to be felt in another way.”

The result is a new music project under the name Raj Saint Paul and a nine-track debut album, “The First Sounds,” which will be released Friday. The release of the neoclassical folk-rock record decades in the making will also be played by Bose in full Friday night at the Hamilton Studio Listening Room.

The performance will be a true multimedia experience featuring Bose’s photo and video works.

How Bose has viewed, documented and lived in Spokane over much of his life is an aspect of his career specifically exhibited for local attendees.

“I feel responsible for knowing of this place and trying to see it, trying to see it in a way that’s not just for me only,” Bose said. “What do I understand about Spokane? What do I understand about this region?

“What do I understand about growing up in Eastern Washington, and how can I share that?”

When it comes to the album itself, Bose hopes listeners take the time to truly take the music in. He’ll be the first to say that the record is simple in nature, instrumentally featuring acoustic and electric guitars and violins with harmonica on a single track.

Bose wants the listener to be alone with the music, listen to the stories and find their own sense of meaning wherever it may lie.

Bose believes hearing a song live, at a place as special as Hamilton Studio, may just be the best musical medium in the expansive digital age.

“Live music might be the one form of music we really truly have any control over anymore,” Bose said. “I don’t want people to get lost in the commercialization of art.”