Robin Ross | Matt Connarton Unleashed
What's This About?
Listen, watch, and explore more episodes at MattConnartonUnleashed.com
Want to be a guest on the show? Visit MattConnartonUnleashed.com and choose Be A Guest.
Follow the show, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, and join us live for Matt Connarton Unleashed.
Talk. Music. Entertainment. Interviews. And More.
Speaker 1: All I Want is a Lover by Robin Ross and the Mellow Dines. And let's see. I think we've got Robin with us via Microsoft Teams. Hello, Robin Man, how are you good, Harry, Welcome to the show. Yeah, love morning, Good morning. I love that song. I don't know if you I don't know if you were listening. And I was talking before we introduced it. I was saying, how it's a very Pennsylvania theme today on the show, because we also have grim Rock coming on later on the show. Later on in the show. I don't know if you know Grimrock, but he's from he's from your state.
Speaker 1: All right, he's gonna be uh right, that's right, that's right. Yeah. A lot of great a lot of great music comes out of there. Yeah. I love that song, and I really I really like the whole vibe and your sound. And I was listening to I was listening to the album of course. Uh, but this is not this is not on the newest album. Correct, This is a standalone single.
Speaker 2: This, Yeah, both we released this as a single and it's on an album. It's on the first album.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's on the first album. Okay, so it's not on Mindspace correct.
Speaker 2: It's not on mind Space, Okay, gotcha. First albums come On In, and there's a song called come On In on mind Space, so it's a We played a little twist with releasing the song after the album of a come On In, right, So this song is on that one, and we released it as a single when it got picked up by the Margo the television show.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well, I wanted to ask you about that because that is kind of an interesting It is a twist the way you did it, but that makes sense because you've had some some success with this song. All I want is a lover landing on what is it on Apple TV Plus and Peacock Margo's Got Money Troubles as the name of the show, and the song landed in the show.
Speaker 2: Correct, Yes, I know it's on Apple. I'm not sure about Peacock, but I know it's on Apple.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, Yeah, that's that's amazing because anytime you can get I mean, it's so important and people outside the industry won't necessarily realize this, but if you have a song, if you can get it placed in a television series or in a film or anything like that, it really uh, I mean it can kind of change your world professionally. It can make a huge difference and introduce an audience to your music who otherwise would not, you know, necessarily be aware of it. It's so amazing, so good for you.
Speaker 1: That is wonderful that that has happened. And so obviously I assume the process was, and you know, where a lot of us who listen to the show, and if you're on the show where music industry nerds, I assume the process was. So once the song was you found out the song was placed in the series, then you said, well, we need to put this out as a single even though it's on even though it's on an earlier album.
Speaker 2: Is that correct, Yeah, we wanted to market it more.
Speaker 1: Yeah makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's do you know what what's worked when you got to do what works.
Speaker 1: Right exactly exactly. If something catches on that you weren't expecting, you know, you still got to go with it. Absolutely, it says here. So I haven't seen the full disclosure. I've not seen the television series, but it says here it was placed during a pivotal scene in episode two.
Speaker 1: And does this, you know, does this experience of having having a song appear in the show like that. Does that kind of does that change your approach to to songwriting and creating music at all? I mean, now that this has happened, do you kind of have an eye toward doing more of that, making music that you hope will be placed in a film or a series, or are you just kind of continuing on doing what you're doing, or how do you approach that now that you've had success with this song?
Speaker 2: No, not changing anything, Yeah, just right from the heart.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh uh. And and you know that's really your My best advice is the many you try to kind of adapt to things. You're you're you're not You're not You're not you anymore so to speak. So uh, I mean you are, I get it if you especially if they're you know, if you're if you're a conductor and they're paying you different story. Uh. But I would No, I would not change a thing. I would. I would just keep keep being free with with writing and and let's let the wind blow where it may, you know, and so far sometimes you never know what what hits.
Speaker 2: So I think I think being on the soundtrack Matt is More has had more of a kind of cool feeling. I guess you know from from you know, there's Dire Straits on it, there's Shania Twain, there's Billy Oh, there's there's even more people on it. I can't even I mean reap but McIntyre, Oh, this long list and then there's me, so that you know, it's like so so that that actually means a little bit from an artist perspective, as you know, it's kind of cool to be on a nice collective sound. So that's that had more of an impact on me than I think than the show.
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, it can take. I mean, now we don't have albums, but I mean you know, like you know, if we pretend we had an album, that would be an album I put on the wall, you know, right, So you know, so that's kind of cool. I mean there's a lot of great movie tracks that you know, a lot of great soundtracks and people that are only in soundtracks. You know, to get back to Aerosmith and you know, there's a whole bunch of bands that do soundtracks and it's cool.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And I like what you said too about how it doesn't you know, having that success, it doesn't change your approach. You know, you're going to continue to do you know, make music from your heart? And I think that's I think that's smart because if you, as you said, you know, if you're chasing something, you know you're not gonna you're not gonna make music that You're not gonna be the best version of yourself as a musician and as an artist, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And the example I always like to go back to when I talk about this with people is, you know, if you think back to Seattle when grunge was about to be ascendant, you know what if Kurt Cobain had said, you know, I just you know, hair metal is big right now, we should try to sound like Motley Crue, you know, then you know that then we never we never would have gotten Nirvana, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So it's it's better to make music that you want to make rather than trying to chase something and and uh and fit in somewhere, because that that has a way of backfiring because then it's not authentic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you could actually have success with it, and then you're not that there's anything wrong with it, but then you you could be stuck with right for stuff that maybe you're not. You're not you know, you're not. Your heart's not in.
Speaker 1: It exactly exactly, you know.
Speaker 2: But if they pay you, then that's yeah, that's it, doesn't you know, that's not a bad thing either, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Right of course, Well, you gotta make a you got to make a living.
Speaker 2: Well, it's you know, you got to go to work. So if you can make some money with music, you know, that's always you know, that's less work that you have to do, so to speak.
Speaker 1: That's true, that's true. I'm really curious about your influences because obviously, you know, I listened to a song like that, and I listened to the mind Space album, and you know, at the end of our conversation we'll play something from the from the the newest album mind Space. But I'm curious about your influences because I hear a lot of different things in your in your music. But I also but I also love the production. And you know, I'm a I'm a recording nerd. I'm gonna actually, well, let me let me approach the question this way.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious about your approach to production because you've got you know, it's it's a little bit low fie in the sense that it's not you know, it doesn't sound super slick or anything, you know, but it certainly sounds really good. Sonically. It sounds modern in the sense that the production is there clearly, but but without maybe some of the bells and whistles like you've You've got kind of a it's almost timeless really the sound that you have. And like I said, because I also listen to the album and so I'm curious about your approach to production and and also you know, influences and how you approach your music, because like I said, you're doing something that you really don't hear that much of anymore.
Speaker 1: But it sounds so so good.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well my approach is changing, Matt, really, yeah, it's it's it's probably evolving too. I'm working on my I'm working on an album now on my on my progressive side with Jack Smay's right now, we've got like another month for probably out and uh, I've used this album to really scale up the production side of things. I took some took some courses and we went back to like Square one kind of courses to learn what was what you know with prote I'm learning with well, well, I guess with digital any doll.
Speaker 2: But I use pro tools, you know, I don't. I feel like I was a disadvantaged for probably the first couple of hour albums because of my lack of knowledge of pro tools, you know, just learning it sure, And now this album, I think I've got more the learning has gotten more into the production end doing you know, a lot more bust compression and parallel compression. These things of these nature make it so things are changing from uh, from the studio perspective, I do the you know. I'm I have a studio here in PA and I've had it for about five years now, four years, you know, and it started out as a laptop, you know what I mean, probably the same old story thirty years ago I had.
Speaker 2: I went to school for audio engineering and was in the music business and doing recording, analog recording, which I would really love to do again. But right, yeah, so I you know, I and I actually have used some of my older recordings and they still hold up. It's amazing. So I've had a learning curve with pro tools kind of on the first go around, and then like I got more into the how to you know, do your production in the box so to speak. I do have a nice SSL board that I go through for all my microphones, so I get I get the analog, you know, a grime, I guess you want to call it.
Speaker 2: I get that, then get that going to tape, and then if I want, I can use the s SL for another another if I wanted to do the mixing on it too. But I've gotten better at doing in the box and and actually prefer it, you know, with doing. So that's kind of what's new with the with the production end. So look forward to the stuff sounding. It should sound better every every album. And I think, yeah, if you go, if you if you progress through the last I put out six or seven six albums in the past four or five years, and I guess it's a good problem.
Speaker 2: But I still have two albums of material that I need to record. So I need to get better at efficiency, if you know what I mean, which is a real big thing with with pro tools or any any kind of production you can it can drag on forever and that's not gonna help the song count. So you know. So it's like but it's it's the old age question quantity first quality, you know what, I mean, right, try to find a happy, happy groove sort of sort of in the middle. Yeah, maybe you could do an album every three months maybe or something like the record it and get get the production done in three months something like that, so you know to look that that'll be next month with and Jack Smays has an old album out too, so they're from the nineties, so we're more of a pre grunge nineties if you will.
Speaker 2: Sure, I don't know if you like that stuff like Pink Floyd Rush, Oh yeah, Eppelin. I would say that that kind of those are my influences too, you know you're talking about and then the new the new stuff. I tend to be more of the writer, so you might notice that the songs get a little more spacey. And I work with Caitlin. She's one of the singers in the band, and she's a real good space cadet if you will, if you know what I mean, you can travel and she has a wonderful voice. So if you hear you know, like follow or something like that on mind space, that's a collaboration between her and I just you know, you know, And those are the kind of things that I get feedback that people like, they like the you know, the theory of expanding your own mind, you know, and you know, we really can go anywhere we want in the not in the literal sense, but certainly in your mind.
Speaker 2: And and people should dream big, you know, you know what I'm saying. That's that's more of the the philosophy of the music. There. And then the other Jojo she likes to write about a party every time, so we have to control her.
Speaker 1: Understood.
Speaker 2: She's not really a big party here, but she she knows how to write it.
Speaker 1: Okay, fun okay, okay, all right. So now so when we talk about these other people, do they make up? Because it's Robin Ross and the melodynes? Am I saying that correctly? Melodnes?
Speaker 2: Yeah? You know what.
Speaker 1: Does that mean? What is a what is a melo dyne?
Speaker 2: It's a melody. It's it's melody, a melody, and that just it's like a possessive name for melody. So one of my it's better than melodies, right right, So but that it's kind of that. And I mean I've used I used melodye in pro tools and that's where the name like popped in my head.
Speaker 1: Oh I gotcha, Okay, uh that.
Speaker 2: They're editing on Melodine and uh, you know that's so I forgot to give him, give him that name. Yeah, there is quite a slew of them, actually, there's it's almost like a I don't know, there's there's probably eight or ten of them altogether. But there's a hardcore five six and Wharton Tears, who is actually a pretty popular name in the more of the punk New York scene back fun City. Uh what's the name of the Yeah, And so he's he's a big influence on the percussion, like the writing, and he helps me do I guess we like producing, you know, like vocal producing.
Speaker 2: You know this harmony here, this harmony there, this vocal here, this vocal out cut this section out of this song. That that kind of producing. He's really really, really talented at it's I get to work with. And he's got a recording studio. He's the same as you and me as a recording nerd. And he's always him and I are like neighbors, but we're always mixing in our own studio, so we don't see each other much.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: There's Jojo. She leads sings and she probably lead rights as far as lyrics go. Then there's like Tony He's he's kind of a on the side. He plays percussion, sings. He's the mostly the guy the campfire and the moon voice. He's kind of got a Frank Sinatra Joe Cocker voice,
Speaker 2: which is pretty cool. And then there's Caitlin Albrett who who's got a great voice and full of energy and she plays the gambet and also some other percussions. She sings, so we got you know, I have Joe Torrez who plays bass and he comes from Florida to do gigs. So oh wow, Yeah, he works in he works in Washington, lives in Florida, so he'll come to PA for a weekend instead of going home to Florida one one weekend a month.
Speaker 1: That's cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I've been, I've been, Yeah, I've been writing. Like he's in jack Smad's too. He's a bass player in Jacksonmady. He's also and I went to high school with him basically ten years old, so we're lifelong musicians, I guess together, locked forever.
Speaker 1: It sounds like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: He's and he's he's super he's actually super awesome on the bass. Uh So those that's kind of rounds out the current Melodine staff. I've had like, uh, Emery Road, she's been, she'll come and go. She's another vocalist, she's on mind Space, and uh, there's a few others. There's t w and then there's others too. I've got people that do gigs with me too that they're not on the album, so that people will come up and just do Tina will sing. I have a piano player that comes up, so everybody, Hey, we got t shirts and everything for being a melodye.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you like joining a club.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was curious about that too. To ask you about the live situation if you're if you're touring at all, and if you're if you're able to play these songs out, and I would imagine too obviously when you're playing them live, you know, depending on who you're playing them with, because you know, you do have some flexibility there. Do the songs change much when you do them live? Or they kind of strip down?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: How does that? How does that work? How do you approach that playing these songs live?
Speaker 2: We'll play them as long as possible, Yeah, whatever version of it, as long as possible the version we play yeah, yeah, and uh, and we might extend them to like a solo or something like that, you know, like an end of a song. We just might keep the chords going and change it to a jam.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So those are the things that I like to do. We don't play out too much, but we do play usually local place called Fauci and we I don't know, we don't get We got like sixty seventy people there and they I think the biggest thing people say is that we're just really fun and entertaining like to We're like, you know, it's not like we're this real serious you know, nothing against Black Sabbath or anything like that, but no serious theme if you will know, no dark message you know, right right, No, no, no corny message either, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It was just kind of uh, we like to sing with you, you know what I mean, not at you, so to speak.
Speaker 1: Well that makes sense, Yeah, I like that. I like that.
Speaker 2: Actually, Yeah, we have a lot of sing alongs.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Marsh We have a song called Marshmallow Blues that is a it's basically a marshmallow war between us and the crowd. Okay, yeah, it's quite quite a video that.
Speaker 1: The venues love that.
Speaker 2: Well, we we we do, we do, let we ask before we do.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 2: They really do clean up quite well. Okay, they're not as long as you get them right away. Right. So we have, you know, songs that people sing along with. We have songs that people throw like food fight, marshmallow kind of thing. You know. I think we have like a B fifty two vibe with the girls singers and all that kind of stuf stuff. And I think I'm a little like the guy from Bee fifty two is also.
Speaker 1: Fred Schneider.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not like, he's no hero of mine, don't get me wrong, But people say when I sing, it sound like him. So what am I gonna do? You know?
Speaker 1: So, Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, I don't I don't quite hear it.
Speaker 2: But I mean I don't say too much though, you're noting me too much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 2: Maybe there's a couple of songs that i'm i'm I'm I'm working on trying to do a little Beef fifty two ish with these girls. Yeah yeah, and you know that that was pretty there's nothing wrong with that stuff. So right, So, but live live would be great. I'd love to hook up with theaters. It's really what I would I don't really want to do bar gigs all over the place because I'm I'm constantly in the recording studio.
Speaker 2: But I would like to do if like a one hundred and fifty, two hundred and fifty or open up for you know, a bigger, bigger act at like Newton Theater and over in PA and Jery at any theater for that matter. Sure, I think theater is more of a you know, better way for us to We could sell tickets that way. You know, people know you're coming.
Speaker 2: And as long as we could stay somewhat local, I think we could we could handle it. So that's kind of where I'm at with the gigs. Okay, it would love to book some theaters, get some songs and get some success, and if that happens, I would love to book more theaters, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So absolutely no, I can see that. I can. I can definitely imagine imagine you doing this in a theater. We should imagine too. There's a video for the song Campfire on the Moon, yeah, which I just which I just pulled up. Yeah, tell us about this video because I see, uh yeah, well literally, I mean you know the video is uh, you know matches the title of the song, Campfire on the Moon. What can you what can you tell us about this? The making of this and whose whose concept was? I mean I assume that it was your idea, right, the video itself, the content of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the concept of the song was my, my, my, my, my doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The video creation, uh is done by my wife, Tina, and she does all the videos.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: She's also my publisher, my agent, my partner in life.
Speaker 1: So excellent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Mary a publisher. If you're a musician, Oh is that is that?
Speaker 1: Who is with you on the cover of All I Want Is a Lover? The single the picture.
Speaker 2: There, No, that's Joe Gotcha. He's singing it. That's her song, I Gotcha. Okay, that's Joe. That's we call her Jojo.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, Tina doesn't. She doesn't show her face too much. But but she'll uh, she's on a couple of tracks. She can sing some, but she does a lot of the all of the administration, handling all of like Roy be in my and you know, radio stuff even like this like with you, she's handling all the everything.
Speaker 1: Excellent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's why. I mean, if you, if you're a musician, try to marry a publisher and then you get and then you split them. I mean, the publishers make as much money as you do.
Speaker 1: Exactly, exactly. Yes, if you can own some some publishing, you're in good shape. And and that you know, that kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier with the placement of that song uh in the series and on that soundtrack. You know, that's uh, yeah, you know you get get that publishing. By the way too, as I'm looking at I'm looking at your video channel here on YouTube. I also wanted to ask you about because you have another project, Robin Ross and the t W Howlers, and I'm wondering how that differs from Robin Ross and the Mellowdnes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an EP. It's it's a little more folkadelic Americana. I almost say, like Americana and Rolling Stones, so you get a little I would be the Rolling Stones and t W would be the folk the Americana, So it's more like a I I think it's like a Stone's Rolling Stones and Americana kind of a blend. Yeah, uh, And that's like it. That's an ep. I wrote those songs. Uh. I think there's five of them on there, and there's I wrote three of them, but they're all collaborated together with tw So he would like I wrote the music.
Speaker 2: Maybe he wrote the lyrics or he wrote the A song and a lyric and I did a guitar on it or something like that. Sure, you know, So it's just a. And then we had people that are actually the melodines. Again we pulled from the melodine crew and they became howlers. Okay, so there are some melod that are only melodies, and then there are some melodions that are meladins that are howlerscha yeah. And tw is a he's a it's kind of a drifter guy travels around the country with his guitar and a backpack and he gets by and so he comes by every when it gets warm, like you know, spring and fall, so I guess that fall.
Speaker 2: We put together a bunch of songs and we recorded him and then they spent the you know, two months producing it and put it all together. So it's out. I mean, Melladions has another album out. Jack Smay says, a, I have a solo album out too. That's mostly instrumental, and that's just my name, Robin Ross
Speaker 2: And that's more of it's more easy listening Pink Floyd, Like I've had people say it reminds them of Pink Smells like Pink Floyd was exactly where they smells like Pink Floyd. I don't know what Pink Floyd smells like.
Speaker 1: I don't either, but yeah.
Speaker 2: I think I might like to know, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, just well assume it smells good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That was a Russian blog that said that about not that album.
Speaker 1: Oh I wonder if something I lost in translation then.
Speaker 2: I don't know maybe, but it sounds great. Yeah, so that's more of You can hear some songs that are really deep rooted on acoustic guitar that are i'd say like either Pink Floyd led Zeppe on her combination of both from their influences. You know, just real coffee music if you will in the morning, yep, driving music if you gotta you know, you got like a long trip to go or something power in the cards. It's like that kind of music, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Gotcha? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, Yeah, Well, very good.
Speaker 2: That's it. And Jack Smay's Jack Smays is We've got one coming and it's it's it's really heavy, I mean from a percussive side. Yeah, well we got some some dark like Jack Smays is the dark side of me, if you will. And the Melodions is like the other the the Yang I guess.
Speaker 1: The other side, gotcha.
Speaker 2: And there's stuff and between.
Speaker 1: So very good, very good, So Robin that this has been wonderful. Robin Ross. Like I said, I really like your sound or sounds, because you've got a variety of projects that all sound a little bit different, but really love what you're doing. I'm glad you're able to join us this morning. Where should our listeners go? Where's the best place to go online to keep up with everything that you're doing musically, whether it's uh, you know, whether it's Robin Ross and the Mellowdines or anything else that you're doing.
Speaker 2: Robin Ross music is dot com. That's a that's a really easy one. Yeah, just my name and music and then YouTube. There's a lot of you know, if you look up YouTube and just google Robin Ross, maybe put in video or something like that. I think we have like fifty or sixty videos up up there.
Speaker 1: You got a lot. Yeah, I'm looking at the YouTube channel. Yeah, you've got a lot there. That's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks absolutely, So those those two are probably your I mean, YouTube music is good too, you know, if you want to like listen to the whole album. Yep, that's a really good one. But Robin Ross Music will take you to my website and then you can go you go anywhere from there.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. So one other question before we let you go, I'm gonna kind of put you on the spot here, but we're gonna close out the segment with something from mind Space. But what would you what would your choice be ideally that we play to close out the segment from Mindspace. I'll let you pick the song.
Speaker 2: I think we're going mind Space, right, I think Mindspace with the title track. Yeah yeah, yeah, that one's kind of where that's the whole theme of the the LP.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, that's a great choice. I like that one a lot. All right, so we will that'll be our closing our closing track here. So Robin thank you again, Robin Ross. Of course, Robin Ross and the Mellow Dines, thank you for joining us. We'll let you go. We're gonna hit that track. But as you're releasing more and more music, we'll definitely have you back soon because you're doing a lot of great stuff, and I'm sure we'll talk to you again in the very near future.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the next couple of months. It would be great, Matt. When I'll reach out to you when I get the next ALP, which I'm expecting in you know, say, by July fourth, that's kind of my goal.
Speaker 1: Fantastic, all right, well we look forward to that. Yeah, yeah, keep us posted. We'll get you booked and we'll get you back on we'd love.
Speaker 2: That, all right, all right, Robert New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: Right, what's that?
Speaker 2: Take care in New Hampshire up here summer.
Speaker 1: Of here in New Hampshire. We sure are, we sure are. It's not very summary today it's cold and windy and rainy and uh, but it'll be summer soon.
Speaker 2: Next week, next week, there we go.
Speaker 1: All right, Robin Ross, thank you so much. We'll talk to you soon. Take care, thank you, got it all right? That is the great Robin Ross. The album is Robin Ross and the Mellow Dines.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: The the album is called mind Space, and we're gonna play the title track from Mindspace. I was kind of hoping he'd pick this one, actually, but I did want him to. I didn't want him to have the choice, but we might. We might play some more later in the show as well, but here it is. This is the title track from Mindspace from Robin Ross and the Melodines.
Podbean