Interview: Rob Webster
MATT FAGERHOLM – The Woodstock Independent

Courtesy photo Rob Webster plays at a variety of venues in Illinois and also travels to Durango, Colo., to perform.

For his golden birthday Dec. 30, singer-songwriter Rob Webster decided to spend it in Durango, Colo., the town where he’s delivered monthly performances for nearly three years. This tour arrangement came as an unexpected result of a show Webster played at a Popular Grove bar, which was attended by a Colorado club owner.

In 2011, Webster has no plans for slowing down his busy tour schedule, splitting time between Durango and various locations in the Northern Illinois area. He already has 29 shows confirmed, including three Woodstock shows scheduled for January. His performances vary from mellow acoustic shows and high-energy solo concerts to collaborations with other local musicians such as John Weber, Dave Jackson and Jeff Barney. Webster likens himself to a “human jukebox,” putting his own spin on popular covers while mixing in his own work as well.

The Independent spoke with Webster about his early days playing open mic nights at Liquid Blues, the inspiration for his new insignia and why he prefers going solo.

Describe the looping technology you utilize onstage.

I have a Boss DC 550 loop station that I use, and I basically can plug all the instruments into a four A-track mixer that converts them all into one output, which then goes into the loop station and from that goes into the PA system. It allows me to plug in any instrument that I want, whether it’s keyboards, xylophones, microphones, guitars, bass drums, everything, and I can then loop and layer them altogether in one, so it sounds like six, seven or eight guys onstage.

What are the benefits to being a solo performer?

I have ultimate freedom. I don’t have to worry about if the bass player got into an argument with his wife before he showed up at the show, or if the drummer misses a beat. It’s all on me. All the pressure is on me and I thrive on that.

How did your initial open mic performances at Liquid Blues prepare you for your career?

I went to the open mic and pretty much honed my craft onstage. I never really practiced at home. All my practicing is done live. There’s very little room for mistakes. It feels so much better to print up the lyrics and the chords to a song and bring them to a gig, having never played that song before, and perform for the first time in front of everyone else. That way, I get a reaction to something brand new. It’s so cool to see that develop in front of not only my eyes but those of the crowd as well.

Many audience members have been struck by your physical performance onstage.

It’s true [laughs]. A lot of people say that I’m the man of a million faces. When I’m up onstage, I do feel like I’m somewhat possessed, not in a negative [way]. The music moves me so much. Every ounce of my body is moving around, and my facial expressions sometime come through onstage. Some people are looking at me like I’m totally insane sometimes. You should see some of the photographs that people have taken of me. I couldn’t bend my face that way again if I tried. That’s just the passion and love of what I do coming through in a live performance.

What was the inspiration for your insignia that shows up on various products available on your website?

It [looks] like a heart monitor, and it’s actually really funny the way we came up with that. My girlfriend was having gallbladder surgery. We were at the hospital, and she had the little heart monitor thing on her finger. She was sleeping after the surgery was over, and I decided to take it off of her finger and put it on my finger. The nurse came in and caught me doing it, so I put it back on her finger and she was fine. I told the story to the web designer [Daniel Eads]. He thought it was absolutely hilarious, and he said that my music was very much like a heart monitor. It starts really mellow and as it builds and builds it gets more exciting until it ends up exploding and that’s how it inspired the design of [the insignia] where [I'm] performing at the end of the heart monitor.

Has it been a necessity for you to supplement your music career with other work?

This is what I do for a living. I don’t have a 9 to 5. I had so many 9 to 5 jobs ever since I was 15 years old. Still, to this day, my father worked two full-time jobs, and I’ve always said to myself, “I’m not going to do that. I want to enjoy my life. I want to do what my dad didn’t get the chance to do because he was too busy working two jobs to raise his three kids and take care of his wife.” It just so happens that I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to do it and actually make a living doing it.

Rob Webster will perform at 9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 7, at Odd Fellows, 214 Main St.; 9 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 15, at Trackside Tap, 101 E. Church St.; and 9 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 22, at Edgetown, 1330 S. Eastwood Drive. For information and concert dates, visit www.robwebstermusic.com.

Professor Tyler Drew Brown of Southwest Colorado Community College

It begins with the bass: three notes, two tones leading into the tonic, the root note repeated in quarter beats, through one measure, into two before returning to the eighth-note intro. Once more the quarter notes beat a pulse, constant, steady, and in whatever bars in whatever towns flung like flies across America’s breadbasket, high-heeled feet have found their throbbing ground, penny loafers, sneakers, rubber-soled tennis shoes or boots of Spanish leather are polishing the pine-streaked floor and the glass in whatever window, however fogged, quivers like a case containing a heart too large for its fragile canister. Drum sticks flicker mid-air momentarily and, in a whirl, thump a pad, every downbeat accentuated with one peremptory pump, and a tonal network spirals around the first heartbeat pulse: musical vibrations quivering like nerves so palpable you can almost feel their ecstatic fabric. And finally, a strummed acoustic guitar thrums through the room, and you might, only might, now realize all of it—drums, guitar and bass—is presently performed before you by one man. All this, before the soar of a searing vocal starts.
And what a vocal. A leonine roar slashed through with all the scars of a blues singer while sweetened with the melodic sensibility of only our best pop crooners. But it doesn’t matter now. No one can hear it. They’ve checked out. They’re all body and soul, dancing there in the arms of whatever partner they’re lucky enough to share this experience with, this moment of such beauty and sensuality you can touch it, smell it, breathe it. And this moment is the music of Rob Webster.
Rob Webster, native to Chicago, Illinois, is, quite simply, one of the most interesting things I’ve heard in modern music. Vividly I remember walking into Derailed Saloon (packed, as is always the case wherever Rob plays) in Durango, Colorado and hearing him for the first time. He was playing “Sex on Fire,” first sung by Kings of Leon, and unlike almost all covers, I could never listen with satisfaction to the original again. After hearing Rob’s vocal, the sound of a man so madly in love with the unattainable, so possessed by the unpossessible, the sound of a man whose prison is himself but can find some freedom in the beauty of his persistent cry, I could never listen to the original without recognizing it lacked the very fire it spoke of.
The relationship between Rob Webster and his audience is symbiotic in nature. Though he performs Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” splendidly, not even in that cover can you detect the least separation between Webster and his crowd. Quite the contrary, in fact. I’ve never seen an artist more passionately devoted to the satisfaction of his fans. In this way, he travels from place to place as a bee travels from flower petal to flower petal, pollinating, inseminating into a listenership whatever sense of beauty he can. Thus does his audience extend. They listen, and then they speak. The bring their friends out the next time he’s in town, the whole show begins again, and, to quote another Pink Floyd song, one I’d love to hear Mr. Webster perform sometime in the near future, “The Show Must Go On.”
And the show does go on, every night Rob Webster is in town. To listen to Rob Webster is to hear originals that, in their timelessness, strike you as strangely familiar, and covers that, in the originality of their arrangement, seemingly caress your ear for the first time. Again.

Tyler Brown
10/8/10
Durango, Colorado

Local Artist of the Week – Rob Webster

Author: BRYAN WAWZENEK

Section: Sidetracks

Local Artist of the Week

Name: Rob Webster

Also a member of: Benton Street Irregulars and Rob & The Fuzz

Active since: 2002

Hometown: Woodstock

Website: www.robwebstermusic.com

Upcoming Shows: 9:30 p.m. today, The Broken Oar, 614 Rawson Bridge Road, Port Barrington (Benton Street Irregulars); 9 p.m. Saturday, All Sports Bar & Grill, 3018 Hickory Drive, McCullom Lake (solo); 3 p.m. Sunday, Gus’ Roadhouse, 680 S. Eastwood Drive, Woodstock (solo); 10 p.m. Thursday, Duke’s Ale House, 110 N. Main St., Crystal Lake (Rob & The Fuzz); every Wednesday at The Broken Oar (solo)

How did you get started in music?

My father played drums his whole life. I remember banging around on the top part of the drums, because I was too little to reach the pedals. I’ve seen, like, 500-plus concerts and I’ve absorbed those performances into what I do. After I moved back from Chicago, I started running an open mic at Liquid Blues. Next thing you know, I was playing little shows in every room and on every stage (in the area). Now I play in Colorado once a month. It’s a word of mouth thing. It’s how I met the guys in Benton Street Irregulars. It’s how I met Matt (Szura) from Rob & The Fuzz. It just snowballed.

Describe the music you play.

The way I describe it is electro-acoustic rhythm and sounds. When I do solo shows, I play drums, bass guitar, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, lead vocals and background vocals. I loop the sounds, so it sounds like six people onstage at the same time. I take all of my different influences and bring them together. When I walk into a room, I try to play to everyone. Music is a universal language, it’s the only universal language.

What makes your act different?

The visual aspect of it, obviously. My facial expressions – I feel almost possessed by the music when I’m playing. Filling the six-man void is way different from what other people are doing.

What is your favorite song?

I’d have to say “Right Where I Belong” by Nine Inch Nails.

Discuss the best concert you’ve ever seen.

I’ve seen a lot of Phish shows. David Gilmour down at the United Center. Keller Williams. Nine Inch Nails is one of my favorite bands.

Pick one: Chuck Berry or Elvis Presley?

Chuck Berry

The Beatles or The Stones?

The Beatles

Michael Jackson or Madonna?

Michael Jackson

What is the best thing about being a musician?

I would have to say connecting with people. Inspiring people. People still want to be entertained. They’ll spend their last $20 or their first $20 after getting paid, to be entertained. I love helping people along to have a good time.

Copyright 2010, Northwest Herald, The (Crystal Lake, IL). All Rights Reserved.