New Jersey songwriters Jacob Tremont and Lauren Rosato have come together for a split EP that highlights both their individuality and their shared commitment to honest, independent music. Tremont, based in Hoboken, leans into a raw blend of ’90s grunge energy and Americana storytelling drawn from city life, while Rosato, from Jersey City, offers some of her most confessional and emotionally charged songs to date. Though their styles remain distinct—his marked by immediacy and grit, hers by patience and vulnerability—the release creates a natural dialogue between their approaches, balancing contrast with common ground. More than just a collection of songs, the project underscores the strength of New Jersey’s indie community, where personal journeys intertwine to amplify the power of direct, unfiltered songwriting. We caught up with them to talk about the new split EP.
Q: In your opinion, what are the essential qualities that make a “good songwriter”?
Jacob: A good songwriter is someone who creates from their heart and with the intention of helping others through their music. At the same time, they also help themselves by processing their feelings into something beautiful.
Lauren:This is a hard question, because in the past I’ve sometimes called myself a “feeling writer” because I always thought I was just writing my feelings to a melody and that my lyrics were so “straightforward” in the way where no one had to wonder what I was feeling or singing about. However, with those insecurities of my writing, other musicians have said that’s exactly what a songwriter is. Now, I think a “good songwriter” is someone who sings and writes what they feel, and then evokes feelings in others. My favorite thing is when people come up to me after a show and say “I felt that”. I’m like, “sorry you feel the same pain” but yes, I think that’s what a songwriter should do, make others feel.
Q: How did you both choose to engage in a project together? What was it that drew you to working with the other person, was it a specific song and if so which one and why?
Jacob: I have been a fan of Lauren’s music since the first time I heard her perform. I think it was at an old open mic at the since-closed Fox & Crow Parlour in the Jersey City Heights. Her songwriting is direct and extremely honest. It reminded me a lot of Lucinda Williams. There wasn’t a specific song. I just heard certain lines and the way that she delivered them was both humble and emotionally courageous.
Lauren: I’ve been a fan of Jacob for a few years fr the Jersey City music scene. I would go to his shows and he would come to mine over the years. Recently, a lot of our friends all became friends and we started hanging out more and Jacob is the one who asked me to do this. I haven’t released music in four years due to some personal situations, and he said we have to do this because I need to put something out again. It was a good push to get me to release again, because I get stuck in wanting to release songs in the order I wrote them. If I do that, it would be years before anyone heard these. So Jacob pushed me out of that and now these beautiful songs came of it. I’ve been a big fan of Jacob’s music for a while, his songs always make me feel and I think that’s why I am drawn to his music and why this split EP worked.
Q: Can you pinpoint some specific songs and songwriters that changed the way you write music? Did you write these songs to specifically be on a split release or did they accidentally end up that way?
Jacob: Lucinda Williams is extremely important to my writing because she showed me the power of direct writing and transparency. Important writers for me would include: Adrianne Lenker, Sufjan Stevens, Elliott Smith, Kurt Cobain, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan. These are writers whose songs I learned a lot and would write their lyrics out or memorize them to internalize them. Sometimes I can’t understand why a line is so truly great, but I have the urge to say it out loud, or sing it, or write it because I want to remember and take a piece of it with me.
Lauren: I don’t think I write like any of my favorite artists or songwriters. I love Phoebe Bridgers and Samia, but I don’t think I write like them, but they definitely inspire me production-wise and in terms of evoking feeling.
These songs were not written to be on a split EP release, I just came into it with 6 songs that were already written that I felt could work and I had Jacob listen to them and suggest which three would be a good fit.
Q: Did you find that the other persons writing style influenced how you wrote these songs?
Jacob: Yes. Lauren’s writing is always surprises me. There is a lot of subtlety with some of the lines. Some of them you have to hear twice or three times to catch certain things. She has patience with her writing as well. She lets the songs lead where they want to go. It’s all very natural and reminds me of something important about writing I sometimes forget when I get too in my head.
Lauren: These songs were already written, but the ones I was choosing out of definitely were ones I picked that I thought could go along with his music.
Q: For your new album, what inspired the lyrical content, album title, and overall vibe? Maybe focus on "Conversations" and "Jersey City"?
Jacob: Jersey City was inspired by my walking between Hoboken and downtown Jersey City, sometimes the Heights as well, this summer. I must have crossed the highway by the Holland Tunnel a dozen times. Sometimes I would go around Coles Street as well, or over by Newport on the waterfront. It’s a song mostly popped into my head on a songwriting retreat this summer. I had the riff and the the first couple verses but I was struggling to figure out the chorus and I walked up this steep hill behind a swimming hole we were all at upstate, and just asked nicely to whoever or whatever and then there it was, I thought of the chorus. Then I came home from the retreat and hammered out the reset of the song.
Lauren: “I Won’t Be Anywhere” was written a few years ago and I just never got it right, edited it a lot for a few years until I felt it was ready. “Power Lines” and “Conversations” I actually wrote. in songwriting courses through the School of Song. It’s a super cool online school that offers classes each month. I took one with Adrianne Lenker back in January 2024, when I was going through a personal situation and my mental health wasn’t great. I couldn’t get myself to play guitar, to sing, to write, to do anything related to my music because it made me think of all the things I recently lost at that time. I took the course to force myself to play, sing, and write again. It’s the first time I did something like that and I ended up taking a bunch of courses after that (Buck Meek, Sam Evian, etc). I can’t remember which course I wrote those two songs in, but that’s what inspired them. And it got me out of that dark place where I could think of my music as my own again and not those related to it.
The prompt that I wrote “Conversations” from was to go to a place outside and just write down what you see for 5 minutes. I did that at a park near my place, and ended up writing about different places in the park and the surrounding neighborhood where I had specific conversations or moments that affected me greatly.
Q: Do you find that you ruminate over writing songs and hold on to them for a long time before including them on a record? Or do you prefer to write them, release them, and be done with them? Do you ever re-visit old material to do a re-write or once it’s done it’s done? The songs on this Split EP, are they brand new or are they pieces of previous projects?
Jacob: For me, these 3 songs are all brand new. I wrote them and recorded them all during the summer. I finished Friendz while on a road trip down to Nashville. Starlight in June I had drafted part of it earlier in the Spring but most of the lyrics I wrote this summer, including the chorus. I like to move efficiently, while the song still feels fresh and has a lot of power for me. I think that leads to a better recording sometimes. Resurrecting old material can be valuable though, sometimes I find that I miss things and have to dig through my old voice memos on my phone. I have over 2000 voice memo’s now and no organizational system except for emoji’s like stars or clovers.
Lauren: I don’t ruminate over songs when writing them, but I usually take a few years to release them. I used to feel that I had to write a song to get through a feeling, then play it by myself for months, then finally start sharing it online after a year, then start playing it live. After that, then I’d feel like I could release it. I think it’s because to me it’s a therapy, I have to write the song, share it, then release it to fully process and make it through the feeling. Even songs I wrote in 2018 I still feel like I need to release some day, just for the process to be completed. I usually couldn’t share songs as soon as they were written because the feeling was still too present. Now, I’m starting to move past that a little. These songs were all written before we started making the split EP but the way they sound was definitely inspired by collaborating.
Q: Were there any lessons you learned in the writing and recording process or the collaboration process?
Jacob: I learned that bringing the right people together in a room can lead to some incredible recordings! I worked with several new musicians on this record and I am so grateful for their contributions. Trusting my friends to play from their hearts on my songs is one of the most important lessons I continue to learn.
Lauren: I didn’t learn any lessons specifically, but I did have a lot do realizations, I’d say. In the past, I used to let others take control of my songs because I felt they were better than me or they knew more about music than me. So, I would be afraid to suggest ideas because they could put the ideas down. Now, when recording this EP, I found myself suggesting my ideas first in terms of how I wanted a song to sound or what instruments should be softer or louder, etc. These are things I never did in the past due to fear of my ideas being “stupid” or embarrassing, or just because I was insecure or not confident in my abilities and ideas. I noticed that I have grown a lot there and Jacob gave me the space to say what I felt or how I wanted something to sound.