Interview by Mitch Theodorus and Ted Helm
We talked to Rob in his home studio,an 1850 farmhouse located in the rolling hills of Mansfield, Ohio, midway between Cleveland and Columbus. At the time of the interview, the new CD was in the process of getting duplicated. But we got a sneak peek at what appears to be his most ambitious project to date: All of the music, lyrics, and instruments were done solely by Rob. Originally hailing from the heart of Queens, NY, he headed to the heartland when the scene went belly up in 2002. His modest studio is a bare-bones 8-track Yamaha MD8 with hardly any outboard processors, a handful of microphones, and a good set of ears. Rob discusses the influences and the nuances of his upcoming self-produced release, Madness Of Obsession, a bold and creative album that could surely turn the music industry upside down, if only he would let them have it!
It must have been really liberating, really exciting to go off on your own....
Yeah! In many ways. I mean, I had no heads to clash with except my own. Total creative control. And that's the beauty of remaining an unsigned artist. But on the downside, I would have loved to have some help especially with the basic tracks and some of the tape machine operaton. I got a foot switch to help with the punch-in's! (laughs) Sometimes it's nice to collaborate, especially when it's with musicians that can push you further. And it's really hard to track drums without any other instruments going in the headphones.
You are playing every instrument on this new release. Who are some of your influences on the various instruments?
Most of my influences come from people I have jammed with in the past that have pushed me to become a better player all around. I was a bassist, pretty much exclusively, in every band I was ever in. I also played keys and did vocals for a few later projects. Now, I'm playing everything, but lets break it down one by one. One of the biggest has to be Mark Achabal, a drummer I hooked up with around 1991 when I was in Toasted Fishermen (which later became known as Unround when vocalist Adam Lewis was recruited). This guy was a seasoned pro, having toured across the country and overseas as well as playing as a studio drummer on some hit records. When a guy with talent like Mark comes along, you gotta push yourself to keep up! Not only that, but I had to buy new amplifiers just to keep up with the sheer VOLUME at which Mark plays! I'd say his drumming was a major influence on not only my bass playing, but on my musicianship as a whole. And another great influence on me was a good friend and vocalist I worked with for a while named Adam Lewis. He is an extremely creative soul, and musically, so uninhibited. That's what I love, musical freedom! Guitar-wise, I get my influences from guys like Jimmy Page, Randy Rhodes, Steve Vai and the rest of the big innovators like that. Also I have to mention Andrew Muller, from one of my very first bands. He is just a musical genius who turned me on to a ton of great underground music that I would have otherwise never heard of. On keys...I really haven't played with too many other keyboardists. I get my influences from Pink Floyd's productions, Deep Purple's John Lord and alot of Gothic-Industrial music, like Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM and Ministry.
On the vocal side of things, I like singers that can create a good character. Some of my favorites are Alice Cooper, Nick Cave, Tom Waits, and my good friend, Chris Newman (VonMunster, Kamen/Newman/Cardwell). Chris can get a great character feel going, and I really drew alot from him. A singer should look at lyrics like an actor looks at a script. You want to convey the meaning and the emotion of the words, not just sing nice notes. I spent entirely too much money and way too much time on vocals lessons, and I didn't get a goddamn thing out of it! All they teach you is how to sing like you're in a Broadway musical. (laughs) They never teach you anything about style. They give you mouth and tongue excercises that are absolutely goofy. And I never call myself a "singer". I really don't "sing", ya know? I just call myself a "vocalist". A singer is limited to singing. A vocalist uses vocals as an instrument, such as whispering for effect, speaking, shouting, screamimng, and, of course, singing.
Who else comes to mind when you're working on music?
I always picture a handful of guys that I worked with on some of my best stuff when I'm making music. Dave Barkow (drummer from Mortal Remains) always blows me away with the way he approaches music. Michael Pacheco - another one, musical f-in' genius! I picture Mike standing behind me, pushing me for the best performance he can get out of me. This guy should be a world-class producer, as well as guitarist and songwriter. (Michael Pacheco was the vocalist/ guitarist for Mortal Remains, Guitarist for Bass Of Spades, Drowning Sorrow, and also produces his own solo records). I can't leave out John Fig (Producer/engineer). He's another great mind that took me under his wing and showed me alot about making a record. I learned a heck of alot from him!
You left alot of flubs on the record, like missed notes and out of tune things. I'm sure you could have easily fixed these things up before realeasing the record. Why did you leave them in?
Not just because I'm lazy! (laughs) but you knew I was gonna say that! For the most part, alot of the mistakes that were really bad got fixed. But a few minor ones give a record a much more natural and realistic feel. If you go to a concert, they don't often stop on the flubbed notes and say 'do-over!'. Well, actually, I've seen some famous bands do that (Down, Metallica, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds). But look at bands like Led Zeppelin. Now, they were a huge influence on my music. Even their production techniques, not just their playing. When I was in my early years listening to stuff like Zeppelin III and Physical Graffitti, my favorite things on it were the mistakes. It made a God-like band such as the mighty Led Zeppelin come down to Earth and be seen as mere mortals, and that helps listeners connect with them, I think. Now, I'm no Jimmy Page or any of those guys, but...Well, I was just going for that imperfect type of feel. That's all!
...Like on the intro to Classicl?
Exactly! Well, hmm... that song is kind of another story. Yeah, it has the most flubbs out of the whole album right there in the nylon string guitar intro. First of all, the classical guiatrs that I own have pretty warped necks, so the strings get higher off the fretboard as you go higher and higher up the neck. To finger a note on the upper frets, you actually have to bend the strings down to reach the fingerboard, and that puts the notes out of tune with the open strings! Aside from that, it's a really hard piece for me to play. I had that song in my head for 2 years before I could even play it straight through, including with mistakes. So, honestly, that sloppy recording is as good as I could probably get it without punching in every other note. I really wanted to play those takes straight through without stopping. Sometimes a musician will play until he screws up, back up the tape a little, and punch in the record button right before the bum note to fix it up. This would have taken me weeks, plus the fact that it would just not be real!
Tell us about the making of the song, "Madness Of Obsession"
In a nutshell, the music took me about an hour to write, but it took about 5 years to come up with lyrics!
Did you bust out the ol' 8-String Bass for this record?
Oh yeah! How could I do one without my trademark bass? It's on Where Do We Begin and also on Funeral For A Fiend!
Out of all the instruments you play, what's your favorite?
Well, lately, it's been the electric guitar. I've really been practicing my ass off on that...
..and we can tell!
...hey, thanks! But, if I were to get a band together or join a band, I couldn't picture myself playing anything but the bass on stage. The bass is what makes ya groove.
Lets get a little more technical, now. Talk about the dynamics of the album.
Oh, that's a very important subject to me. And another thing I can't stand about the way music is made these days. Everything is louder than everything else. That's how they make a pop record or a 'hit' sound these days. No dynamics. Just everything in the red. The other way, which I prefer, is a more musical and dynamic approach, where you have ups and you have downs. But you can still hear everything, all the little quiet subtlties, like the fret squeaks and breath and things like that. When I record a guitar, say for example, I want to hear the WOOD on that guitar. I want the listener to be able to tell that that guitar is made of mahogany or that bass is a P-Bass, or that solo had the neck pickup verses the bridge pickup. I don't want them to just say, that's clean and that's distortion! Dynamics really affect the listener, the music can really change your moods. If it sounds alive, you can feel it, or as I like to say, you can 'see' the sounds! Most rock and pop producers compress the shit out of everything and try to blow the roof off! It just doesn't "breathe". And it can be really fatiguing on your listener's ears. Are ya with me?
I think so. Is that why everything new coming out sounds squashed?
Yeah! See, you know what I mean. Dynamics also come to play in the sense of heavy and light music. You can't be going 100 MPH all the time, sometimes you wanna just cruise.
You've done extreme metal, jazz, industrial gothic...everything but Rap in the past. But Madness Of Obsession seems more like a rock album than anything you've done in the past.
It's all rock and roll to me! I was originally going to make a straight up classic rock sounding album and call it Rock Is Dead, because, when I started working on it five years ago, rock literally was dead, and I was hoping I could help bring it back to life. But as I got more into working on this, and stopped pissing around, rock sort of seemed to be coming back, little by little. So I couldn't really say Rock is Dead anymore, because, well first of all, it kind of sounds cliche, doesn't it? And second of all, it might have very well came back just as this album drops. So that wasn't feeling right anymore. But, yeah, mostly it's good hard rockin' stuff, but I'm throwing in some out-there shit too, like In The Quarter, an ambient, gothy tune, and the title track, which is pretty progressive. You got some spoken word stuff on there, now, too. Which is something I haven't done in the past, right? The opening cut, Mockery, that's pretty much just a dark tale spoken like a poem. Even Recreating The Magic, that's barely sung. Oh, and I never did any country music, either. Well, not yet! But, yeah, Rap, well, that ain't gonna happen!
Recreating The Magic reminds me of "stoner rock".
Yeah, I was kind of going for a hypnotic, sludgy feel. That's why the bass and drums never change throughout the whole song. Just hyptnotizes you.
It sounds like a Precision Bass on that track. Am I right?
Absolutley, yes! See, that's what I'm talking about!
How would YOU catagorize your own record?
Hmmm...I always liked to call it Acid Rock.
That would explain the cover! You've cited Jimmy Page as one of your main influences as a producer. You got any backwards messages on the new record?
That's for you to find out! (winks)
Tell us something that's unique about this album.
Huh, for the most part, it's tuned to standard pitch! (laughs) Unlike every other record that comes out today, tuned down to "Z-flat"!
Can your fans ever expect to see another collaboration between you and Mike Pacheco?
I sure hope so! I'd like to see that myself.
If you could put together your ultimate band, who would be in it?
tough question! Ok, I'd have to have two drummers, Mark Achabal and Dave Barkow. I'd get Chris Newman on lead vocals. Maybe we could share lead vocal duties. Me on bass, of course. Andrew Muller and Mike Pacheco on guitars. I'd have to get this guy I work with, Steve Gasieki, on the keyboards. That guy is like the friggin' maestro! (you can hear Steve on the web-only bonus track version of Funeral For A Fiend). Lets get Adam Lewis to write the lyrics. He is a musical enigma. Then I'd get Eddie Kramer to mix it all for us! And while we're dreamin', Bob Ludwig to master the final sound.
Have you hooked up with any musicians at all since you relocated to Mansfield?
Actually, yeah, a few. There's Steve, the keyboard player, and a fella named John Warrington who is a kick ass drummer. Best drummer I've met since I left NY, hands down. Put him in my ultimate band, too! We'll have three drummers! Can you imagine? John, Steve and I all get together whenever we all have time and do these incredible improv jams. We record everything straight to DAT live off two mics, then later I burn it to CD's for everyone. They call it the CD of the week club! It's really satisfying to jam with these guys because they're both amazing players. We lock in on everything, and we always go into our jams without anything worked out ahead of time. I wish we had more time to get together, but with work and families and shit, it's never enough.
Any chance of these recordings making it to your audience?
Sure. I'll put some stuff in the music section of my web site for people to download. These guys are too good to go unheard.
Let's get off the path for a second. What bands or musicians should give it up?
Only the ones who are doing it for the money or for any other reason other than because they love to play and write music.
Who do you think is over rated, and who's under rated?
Over rated, aside from the obvious millionaire karaoke singers out there, you know who they are - Eric Clapton. I never could see anything special about his playing. He seems pretty average to me. Some of his most famous songs weren't even written by him, like Cocaine and After Midnight, those were written by J.J. Cale. Really, what is so great about Clapton? Everyone talks about how he's this genius, but I just don't get it.
Under rated? Trouble, from Chicago. Ever heard of them? They are a doomy, stoner rock band. They have their own sound but you can hear alot of Sabbath and Floyd influences in their music. Check them out! They have a bunch of albums out. Also Corrosion Of Conformity. They got a great groove. King's X is another under rated band. Why are they not huge?
What CD is in your stereo right now?
I have a 6-disc changer and it's loaded with all of Mike Pacheco's solo albums. I just can't say enough about this guy's music. Mike really bares his soul in his work, and that really comes through in his records. I strongly suggest you seek out his stuff.
If you were going to a deserted island and you could only take 5 records with you, what would they be?
Trouble - Manic Frustration
Down - NOLA
Rush - Exit Stage Left
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Murder Ballads
A pretty obscure mix, there! But I can see how all those artists got rolled into one on your album. Thanks alot Rob. Good luck with Madness Of Obsession!
Thanks, I hope people enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed making it.
Madness Of Obsession is loosely scheduled to drop sometime this spring. According to Rob, you can only get a copy by word of mouth, or by figuring out how to contact him directly. Price? Free! He wants to keep it out of the hands of record companies for fear that they would stifle his "madness". Money is obviously not the motivation for this artist. It seems that staying true to himself is his "obsession".