rob lamothe

"Escalating success as a producer and songwriter means it’s been three years between Rob Lamothe albums. A Californian who moved to Canada after minor success with Riverdogs (who are still a going concern) and Aircraft (who are not), for a decade he’s been making albums of sure beauty. They’ve been powerful and radiant, tough yet soulful and delivered in a brilliant and brittle voice. Here his consistently vivid lyrics resonate with a sometime weary eye, but their impact is none the less for that. He captures the inflections of love, the echoes of happiness and the loneliness of distance and bears them up on tunes full of warmth with a roaring heart and the undeniable power of grace under pressure." Philip Wilding 9/10 (Classic Rock Magazine Feb. 2006)

Sometimes a straight line isn't the best way to get to where you want think you want to be. "Sometimes pain is heaven sent, and beautiful is chipped and bent". At least that's the way Rob Lamothe sees it. A line in one of his new songs, has him giving thanks to “every glorious mistake that brought him here”, indicating a depth of personal acceptance that is not easily or painlessly reached. His new CD 'Long Lazy Curve' might be a story about a man growing up and taking a long time to do it, traveling curving, winding roads, following his instincts, his music and sometimes trouble, making mistakes and finding redemption, not the least of all in his own heart. Rob lives in a small town in southwestern Ontario now, surrounded by farm land and Lake Erie. It's a long, long way from the sunny technicolour beach town of La Jolla in Southern California where he first tried to grow up. It seems like a long way away too from gritty, grey Hamilton in 1994, where he arrived in the middle of a particularly cold November without a hat or winter coat. He found friends in that unlikely place though, he found love, kindness and an incredible community of musicians, some of whom make their special marks on 'Long Lazy Curve' all these years later. 'Long Lazy Curve' is Rob's 7th solo release. He has made albums for Epic Records in America, released CDs from his kitchen table and just about everything in between. He’s won an Edison Award in Holland, been on the Billboard Charts and had one of his songs on "Melrose Place". He's been featured in High Times Magazine, written songs on a triple platinum-selling CD in America and survived the “eighties” on the sunset strip in Los Angeles, buying leather pants instead of food, rehearsing a 90 minute full-on rock show twice a day and sharing stages with the likes of Guns’n’Roses and Cheap Trick at night. There were groupies and drugs and yes, sometimes it got ugly. Things didn't slow down much after he made what he figured was a career-killing but absolutely necessary move from Los Angeles to Hamilton, Ontario in 1994. With any move, there are losses and new opportunities, some things are gained, other are left behind. Testing his theory that ultimately you make your own luck Rob dragged his tired ass out to open mic nights and looked around, scoped the opportunities. He sat on stages, alone, just him and his guitar for the first time in his career. It was terrifying and exhilarating. For the next few years Rob traveled across the country performing. He helped other musicians make records and write songs. He made a few trips to tour on familiar ground in Europe, he got back to Los Angeles a couple of times. He drank a river of beer and more or less, carried along the same twisting road he'd been on since he was 14. In 2002 Rob was collecting frequent flyer miles like crazy, flying to Europe 4 times, touring on his own and also with a blues rock project that released two CDs. He played what he considered to be one of his best shows ever in the wind and rain at the legendary Stan Rogers Folk Festival in Canso, Nova Scotia. In Ontario there were appearances at the Festival of Friends, the Eaglewood Folk Festival and the Hillside Festival. He signed a publishing deal with Nettwerk Songs Publishing. He travelled to Los Angeles and Nashville to record with some old friends and band mates for a new ‘Riverdogs’ release. Then in the fall, after what many people would consider a pretty good year he took another unexpected curve and decided to stop playing his own material live. He was tired, he was burnt out and he thought perhaps, he was done. It was almost a year later, in mid-2003, before Rob braved the stage again, though only for a couple of shows. One of them was at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe as a guest of songwriter Don Henry. Rob was in town writing with Billy Falcon, Gwil Owen, Don Henry and others. During this time some of the songs for his new CD started to take shape, so he took them to Los Angeles and work began on what would eventually became "Long Lazy Curve". The CD was originally called 'Romeo's Barbershop' after a song Rob wrote with Tom Wilson (Junkhouse, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings). This song found a home on Rob’s new CD, and Tom also recorded a version for his new CD “Dog Years” (released Feb/06). Tom’s version made John Sakamoto's ‘Anti-Hit List Preview' in the Toronto Star in early January 2006. In the late summer of 2004 Rob got a call from a young artist signed to Sony/BMG named Liam Titcomb. Liam wanted to know, "just thought he’d ask", if Rob wanted to go on tour with him opening 33 shows for Great Big Sea. Rob would play guitar and sing backups, be the ‘side man’ for a change. Honoured to be asked, thinking it was an opportunity to be part of something musically beautiful and personally satisfying, Rob accepted the adventure. He got a sweet new electric guitar, packed some pedals and some clothes and flew to Vancouver. He met up with Liam and company and they trekked from Victoria, BC to St. John's, Newfoundland, in a slightly beat up RV, with Liam's dad Brent at the wheel. Rob sometimes jumped a plane to get a day ahead, spending time in a hotel room somewhere to work on his CD. Inevitably, the trip started to creep into the songs that were already recorded for the record. The oceans and the Rockies, the Trans-Canada highway, those long, long stretches between big Canadian cities. The beauty, the loneliness, the people lost and found. The reality of knowing you’re on a road, going somewhere but not sure where "just as afraid of where the road leads, and was it leads back to”. Some of the songs he had recorded in Los Angeles were asking for change, they weren't as right as they were and Rob pushed back release date. While 'Single' Rob's co-write with Canadian Idol Kalan Porter climbed the charts and got all kinds of radio and video play, Rob was saying good-bye to Victoria and Calgary and Montreal and to some ghosts that needed leaving behind, getting lost in the mountains and on the prairies and trying hard to find out what was missing. The road continued to curve just out of his sight. After the tour, though still not sure about a lot of things, Rob made a major decision. He felt like Canada was his home now, in every way except on paper. He’s applying to become a Canadian citizen, and he's excited about it. He thinks the timing is perfect, but he always thinks the timing is perfect. And he’s going to study for the test too, something entirely new for him. So what do you do with all that? If you're Rob Lamothe and you’re in the middle of making a record, you pour it into your songs. You record some things again or you sing something once and let it be. You leave things out even when you're not supposed to, you leave things behind in order to move ahead. You trust perhaps in the wisdom of the universe, your own ability to survive and learn and some day really grow up. And even when hope seems as far away as your old surf board propped against a sun bleached break-wall, you keep trying to find it. Rob Lamothe's 7th solo release "Long Lazy Curve" will be available in April in the UK and Europe on Cargo records. Shortly after the release there, "Fallen Sky Records" will release it in Canada, distributed by Universal Music. Please visit www.roblamothe.com

uh...yes...lots of places...mostly...sure...

my grandma campbell, cat stevens, mahalia jackson, neil young, led zeppelin, chris whitley, my children, growing up in southern california, moving to canada...

big ol' gibson j-100 acoustic guitar...and now my little red guitar has a pick up i'll be playing it out there too...

peace