BBW Interview: Singer and Songwriter Robb Nesbitt

MCL: You're in your sixties ... which I find hard to believe ... you are still pursuing your dreams when so many give up. What drives you?

RN: Now that I am retired I have enough money and the time I need to pursue what I could not when I was working. I have so MANY dreams I have to be selective - but that also results in more success - because I choose the things I will be most effective at ...(stopping Fracking in NY - yes, I certainly helped deliver a knock out punch to the 'drill-baby-drill'ers...and other political goals // Collecting Beatles and other great music on both vinyl and cd // photography // learning more about music and instrument skills // collecting well-written Science Fiction // pushing for better recycling in Buffalo // finishing custom features of, and restoring my 1919 east side home // block clubbing my neighborhood // travel (which I will spend a great deal of next in 2018 across the US and W.Canada.

MCL: When did the arts catch you? What was it? Poetry? Music?

RN: Arts caught me in HS - but I elected other courses - the art teacher insisted I continue, I insisted "only if I get Mr X's class" which was the most creative. I have a few of my works going back to a 1963 water color. But I was never happy with my abilities - like PROPORTION winktongue emoticon

In my senior year Mrs. O'Neill's Creative Writing set me free. She was a sweetheart and encouraged us to ignore limits or convention.

MCL: I remember the first time I played the guitar when it actually sounded like the song I was playing? When did you start playing?

RN: I started learning guitar in 1972 after my first relationship crashed frown emoticon ...being self-taught, I learned some great unusual skills but again had little encouragement and no mentors. I went to my first open-mic in 1980 and quickly realized that I did not know ANY songs - even my own were incomplete and crude.

So I worked hard at memorizing my own and several popular type songs. Realized my success at that on one particular night at Bullfeathers in 1985 - it was exceptionally packed (maybe 200 students) I took particular care that night to dress and perform and present Very creatively - when people were singing along to MY OWN SONGS !! and 5 or 6 people grabbed my hand to shake as I came off stage. The next day I was called back to work from lay-off - - - no more time to stay out late - the momentum evaporated pretty quickly... frown emoticon

MCL: Please describe your style of music. I've heard a few tracks of your upcoming release.

RN: As in poetry - I have no respect for the established ruts - I have no desire to create anything mundane - or like someone else has done. When I was a mentor at the Teen Writing Camp and Canisius in 2002 - I gave a very inspiring, short seminar on songwriting - I showed that style was irrelevant that rhyme was unnecessary, that we are all capable of original music - the kids went wild and parents came in to see where their kids were because we went nearly 40 minutes overtime as every kid wanted to present what they had just created.

So for me - each song demands it's own style - I like a conversation - natural speech rhythms should rule how a poem or a song lay out. I feel it's a mistake to torture the language for the sake of the rhyme.

MCL: Who have been your musical influences? Why?

RN: The first song to blow my mind was Ring Of Fire - and I like a lot of early 60s stuff. But around 66-67 it was the Beatles that finally grabbed my serious attention - to this day their approach is my adopted one - every song given an original treatment (unlike, say, U2 who pretty much always sound the same) Beatle experiments fascinated me - and after they broke up - it was stunningly apparent that the way they worked together created a synergy that far exceeded the individuals ...

I also love lots of others - too many to mention - I still discover new people to this day - but never from the radio - I haven't listened to the corporate slime since 1975.

MCL: The music industry has changed so much over the years? What do you find good about the changes and bad?

RN: Music industry killed creativity - Beatles broke it open for a few years but the Richman retrieved his grasp with a vengeance. Buffalo stations refuse to play local music. I have no idea at this time How I will promote it when it's done and in hand - but I promise to try things that have never been done. I have a few ideas - but I will refuse to "beat my head against some buggers wall".

MCL: What do you think about the Buffalo, New York art scene?

RN: Buffalo music scene was phenomenal in the 80s - but industry refusal to support it killed it pretty dead. There are some creative young folk and veterans but the young ones seem quickly discouraged (or some, like my Cello player - TJ Borden - don't mind traveling all over the place doing abstract art to small audiences and recording when he can) and the veterans seem to all have become teachers. On the other hand, the Infringement Festival - is unique - if you want to see us roar in all the arts - those 10 days at the end of July/early August - are an overflowing jackpot.

MCL: What inspires your songwriting?

RN: Anything! haha. I have no set way. Sometimes and old poem (or someone else's) starts singing ("Choosin'"; "Welcome To My World"; "Robert Burns"). Sometimes a great tune comes to me and needs a lyric ("Time Blues"; "How Do You?") - sometimes everything comes at once - seemingly out of nowhere ("This Mortal Recoils"; "Ageless Fire"; "Everybody Happy")

Rarely do I sit down and say "now I shall write a song".

one inspiration damper is this unfinished backload of songs to record - I constantly get great Ideas but it would clutter up the process to pursue them right now - can't wait til recording is finished ...

MCL: What's the title of your upcoming release?

RN:It is a song cycle in two parts. The first, called "DREAMS UP THERE" concerns our hopes, expectations and striving in life - it's fairly bright and more humorous.

The second disc "GRAVITY B-LO" is the downward, darker arc of life - the face of the interference of reality. of recovering from our defeats and carrying on - coming back at it afresh.

MCL: Please talk about some of the songs. Where did they come from? Real stories? Life stories? Favorite cuts?

RN:These songs I've written between 1975 to 2015.

The oldest, "Dream" actually came from a dream. It was one of the first complex songs - the subject is simpler - the longing we feel for a relationship.

My favorite recording might well be "Heart In The Fire" - one of the few I haven't produced myself. It was recorded, produced and accompanied by Wreckless Eric (who sold Millions of copies of "Whole Wide World". Since 1977 it has been in several movies and covered by many groups - even, gasp! - The Monkees) and his wife, also a very accomplished songwriter and musician, Amy Rigby. "Heart In The Fire" is an absolutely true and heartrending story of the demise of my second marriage. It has a very strong Doors feeling - which Eric went for sonically. I didn't even realize how much so - until others heard it and pointed this out.

The most complicated song of all is "Ageless Fire" which is very odd in structure - from whispers to roars - with somewhat abstract lyric - it is about those people in our lives who we haven't seen for decades - then you get together - and it's like no time has passed...

The loveliest song might be "Who Told You" - which is also based in the demise of marriage #2 combined with religious allusion to the resurrection. The orchestral segments - so perfectly executed have dwelt vividly in my head since 2002 - what a relief to have them out breathing free.

I write from both experience and from learned experience of others - but all songs may have a combination of truth and fiction - whatever I feel really delivers the idea. Someone said, "Never let facts get in the way of a good story." Ha!

It's hard to pick a favorite - each one is a child of mine. A special piece of magic that came. I had to choose the best ones that told stories I have never heard told in this way. And melodies and arrangements that are different than anything I've heard before.

MCL: All artist deal with rejection and critics? How do you handle that?

RN: Rejection and critics? Actually if I've experienced rejection I've put it out of mind...can't think of any at the moment. Critics are great if they are truthful - I prefer criticism 10 to 1 over compliments. I learn from criticism. Love it. (like Northside Writers - no kissing ass, but telling people where they failed. I am not thin-skinned about that kind of thing - only thin-skinned about dishonest, manipulative, attack criticism - those come from aholes... screw 'em.

MCL: Finally ... Promote yourself. What's coming up with you for 2016 and 2017?

RN: I don't really know how to promote. I don't think anyone does today. Maybe I'll hire Taylor Swift to do it. hahahaha. - I kind of wish good music simply promoted itself - yet I know that is naive. I will have product in hand before the year is out and I will be a mad experimenter re: publicity etc.

I WILL start hitting the open mics again - and will obnoxiously post online (I already have about a dozen serious fans worldwide who want the cds - and many others who have played my soundcloud tracks or the few videos on YouTube have been very encouraging really. I plan to travel a lot in 2018 - every 15 years I trek. This time I will have a product in hand, and so intend to visit every open mic in the country. Ha.

...until Gravity brings me back down.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ROBB NESBITT:

https://soundcloud.com/slowheart-1/for-a-good-time-sf31

https://soundcloud.com/slowheart-1/05-who-told-you-studio-home

https://soundcloud.com/slowheart-1/heart-in-the-fire

https://soundcloud.com/slowheart-1/dream-early-mix

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