Rocky Votolato - Why I'm High on this Guy

The "Makers" album was released a year ago and it has taken me that long to really understand the greatness of Rocky Votolato's album. He is the Musician of the Day here on the RSL Blog. Votolato is a talented sing-songwriter with tremendous promise.


Musician of the Day
Rocky Votolato
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His Story (Thanks to Wikipedia)

Rocky Votolato was born in rural Texas in 1978, though was raised in the Pacific Northwest. When his former band Lying On Loot (made up of himself, Red Stars Theory violinist Seth Warren and Bugs in Amber guitarist and his brother Sonny Votolato) dispanded in 1996, Rocky Votolato (singer/guitarist), along with friends Rudy Gajadhar (drums) and Andrew Hartley (bass), started playing under the name Waxwing. Rocky's younger brother Cody (The Blood Brothers) soon joined the band on second guitar, and the band recorded their debut 7" for Henry's Finest Recordings. In 1999, Second Nature Recordings released their first full-length, entitled 'For Madmen Only'. Blending straight-up rock with elements of post-hardcore, and Cody's metal reminiscent guitaring, Waxwing soon established a strong local following. It was a feat built upon with their two succeeding albums 'One For the Ride' (2000) and 'Nobody Can Take What Everybody Owns' (2002).

In 1999, Votolato branched out from his work with Waxwing, having written a handful of songs which did not really fit in with their more aggressive, fast tempo syle. Along the way he has toured with the likes of Damien Jurado, Small Brown Bike, The Get Up Kids, The New Amsterdams, Owen and the Casket Lottery, members of the latter having provided assistance as backing musicians on occasion. His studio albums have also been littered with appearances from some of Seattle's finest musicians (including players in the bands Red Stars Theory, Sharks Keep Moving, The Blood Brothers, Death Cab for Cutie, Pedro the Lion and Sub Pop solo artist Rosie Thomas). On the production side Matt Bayles (Pearl Jam, Botch, Murder City Devils, Hayden), along with Chris Walla (of Death Cab for Cutie). It is a creative imput which has helped see Rocky progress sylistically with every release, from his low key self-titled album released in 1999 - all pretty much recorded live, right through to his recent, alt-country, folk-esque offering, 'Makers'. A video was shot for the first track of Makers, White Daisy Passing.

Votolato also starred in the film 'The Edge of Quarrel', which he worked on with Dave Larson from Excursion Records. It also includes members of the Murder City Devils and Botch, and is about a gang war between straightedgers and punk rockers. He is married with two children, and lives in Seattle.


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The real proof? It's here:
THE SONGS


Goldfield
Makers
One Day You Won't Be Here


Rocky Votolato on myspace


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Comments

Anonymous said…
good post; we got about 4 inches of snow here in baltimore and some ice. I witnessed about 5 major wrecks on my way to work this morning.... thank god for good music and thank god for four wheel drive jeep cherokees
March2theSea said…
he is playing the living room in providence on 3/30..hmmmm
Jetchro said…
great post, great music -- are his other albums this mellow?

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