Having spent his early life in Mentor, Ohio, before his family moved to Northville, Michigan, Rob’s musical path is both wonderfully unique and totally relatable. Intrigued by his brother’s Gibson LG-1 before he was even old enough to know what a guitar was, by the age of seven, he was taking guitar lessons and placing highly in talent shows. Like many of his generation, he heard the Beatles, and there was no going back.
At 16, he was playing rhythm guitar in his first band, Pegasus, and post-high school, he could be found in an all-originals band called Black Market. Then, as it does for most of us, life took over, and music and songwriting became more of a hobby.
Fast forward to 2016, a year of both loss and creativity, with the tragic loss of his older brother to Pancreatic Cancer and an invitation into a friend’s home studio to record some of his songs. The following year, Rob released his first album, Rhythms of Consciousness, marking a steep learning curve that drove him to raise his own benchmarks and capitalize on the knowledge he gained. That culminated in A Quiet Mind a year later, and subsequently acoustic remixes of both albums with the perfectly named naturally (e-koo-stik)
2019’s Northern Lights saw Rob refining things even further, taking his folk-infused sound and weaving it through and around and beyond all manner of adjacent (and some more far-reaching) genres – New Age, Progressive Rock, Progressive Folk, Indie Folk, and Dream Pop – diversity and genre-hopping was the name of the game.
When the pandemic descended upon the world, Rob used the time wisely. In 2021, Thousand River Sun and its 12:26-minute opus, “I Hang on Every Moment,” saw the light of day. His increasing interest and growing skill in more ornate arrangements and orchestration were evident in his inclusion of a cover of “Onward” by Yes.
His 6th album, Ascension, saw him team up with David Roof from Roof Top Recording, who brought a wealth of recording experience and fresh perspectives to the process, helping the songs come to life. The success of this partnership was recognized in a flurry of critically glowing reviews.
Old Soul is his latest album, a gorgeous collection of genre-hopping songs that sees delicate folk music go for a spin around the musical landscape, taking in everything from rock energy to indie cool, classical grace, dance with deft grooves, sumptuous sonic grandeur is tempered by space, and atmosphere and proggy ornateness is balanced with poppy infectiousness. It is hard to think of anything he has left out.
And that is where we find Rob today, a man at the sharp end of a fascinating musical evolution, someone who has forged a unique signature sound and, through a string of beguiling albums, has explored not only music but his inner self.
