Rocco’s Modern Life

Rocco DeLuca and the Burden May Be
the Best Band You’ve Never Heard

By Daniel Taylor | Photos by Pamela Littky

Rocco DeLuca and the Burden. The name may not ring a bell, but that’s okay. Unless you’ve done your homework, you probably have no idea that Rocco DeLuca, the band’s namesake and recent graduate from the esteemed Music Academy of Hard Knocks, has gotten a lot of very important people very excited about his future. Two of these, noted producer Jude Cole and actor Kiefer Sutherland—who together own Ironworks Music, a record label and sprawling Los Angeles recording studio—were thoroughly convinced that DeLuca had the proverbial “next big thing” potential, and thus signed him to their label, found him a band—drummer Ryan Carman, bassist Dave Beste and percussionist Greg Velasquez—and got to work constructing the group’s debut disc, I Trust You to Kill Me.

Anchored by DeLuca’s soulful vocals and distinctive use of the Dobro guitar—a style of instrument long-used in traditional blues and bluegrass but rarely seen in the popular realm—I Trust You to Kill Me is a drastic about-face from most everything currently making the rounds in popular music. Though DeLuca’s years as a singer/songwriter are clearly evident, the record is nevertheless musically cohesive, flowing from track to track with a taste of blues here, a taste of edgy guitar rock there, and no small amount of heartfelt balladry rounding it all out. But through it all, it’s Rocco DeLuca’s personality—his voice, his lyrics and his guitar playing—that shine through and give the band limitless potential. Synthesis spoke with DeLuca about his past, his present and his seemingly bright future.

What’s your background? Did you come from a musical family?
My dad played, and all of my uncles played. They would have jam sessions in the garage. My dad was in and out quite a bit, but when he was around he played a lot, and I would play with him or watch, as a really little kid. Each uncle had a different aspect. My uncle Robert was a real songwriter, a real beautiful craftsman. My dad was more of a gypsy, a soulful guitar player, and piano player. My uncle Joe was a drummer for a few different people and played with my dad as well. I just used to sit around and watch, and absorb.

Is that what made you decide to be a bluesman, to play the Dobro?
Well, the truth is, I don’t really consider myself a blues artist. I consider myself a singer/songwriter. I was around blues quite a bit, but I was also around punk rock and other singer/songwriters. I play Dobro, which is traditionally a blues instrument, but I play it in a way that’s considered kind of primitive folk—a songwriter way.

So does that distinctive sound of the Dobro shape the way you write music, or do you write music first and work the Dobro in later?
I’ll answer this in the long way. It’s my take on art that, in this day and age especially, that there are so many toys out there, and there are so many places you can start that it’s kind of overwhelming. Sometimes people have so many things at their disposal that they tend to lose something. I like my Dobro because it gives me a foundation, it gives me a place to start from. So it usually starts from that and then works its way outward. It’s like, for example, early Beatles recordings, where they only had eight tracks, they had to make it work with what they had. And nowadays you’ve got unlimited tracks, you got this, this and this; you can do anything. But there’s a quality and charm to having to make it work, and I like that, so that’s why I start with the Dobro.

When you got yourself out there, playing for people, what do think you did that separated you from the rest?
I think, mostly, I believed in what I was doing. I didn’t have to sell myself to anybody because I truly believed in what I was saying. I believed that I was searching and I was honest about my search in front of people, and I think that separates artists right off the bat, you know? There was nothing I really did consciously to separate myself, but I think your weight comes with your art. And I just kind of naturally gravitated towards things I thought were important to say, and maybe other people connected with that.

At what point did you start to notice yourself becoming more successful, getting fans and getting interest from people wanting to put out your records?
It was a really slow process. I’m one of those underachievers who’s very comfortable with being good enough to maybe turn some heads in a room, or maybe get people excited or turn people on to what I was doing. But I loved not taking it to the next level, because it kind of left this really cool mystery and it was fun to go play somewhere and quiet the room, and then not even tell them who I was or explain anything. I wanted to make that kind of weird impression on people. It was fun for me to shake it up. And I got kind of addicted to that.
But what I was really doing was selling myself short in a lot of ways. Because, the truth is I was just afraid to actually go ahead and make a record because then people could have pointed at it and said, “I like this” or “I don’t like this,” where if I’m playing an evening and I’m just playing, it’s over right at that moment. And it’s funny to me. It’s kind of my humor, that was something I thought was fun. But it actually became a little bit of a wall. But you can only do that for so long before you start realizing “this is ridiculous, what am I doing?” And nobody was really making any records that I thought were that relevant. I mean, there’s beautiful art being made by musicians all the time, but I never felt like anybody was really putting it together and putting a project out there that really mattered to me. Nobody seemed to be speaking to me and the things I care about. And I’d have to go back to people who are dead to really get that. And that troubles me. It troubles me now, actually.

That being said, now you’ve made this record, is there a certain amount of hope that people will get what you’re doing?
You know, I’m proud of the record and I’ve broken through some of those barriers of actually putting it out there. And I think that it’ll find the people who it needs to find. The people who are going to be drawn or who will gravitate towards this record will be the people that it was meant to find. And to me, once I realized that, it became a thing of excitement as opposed to a thing of fear.

What made you choose Ironworks as opposed to another label?
There was a little bit of interest from some other labels, and I had done some in-office meetings where I had to play. It was very awkward, and it’s kind of weird just to sit there with a guitar and play. I mean, they seemed to be nice, but for the most part no one was really passionate about…they were passionate about certain things, but I don’t think they were passionate about the important things. I think they missed the boat. And I’m not here to explain that to them. That’s not my job. If you don’t see it, then you’re not ready to see, or it’s just not your bag. But Kiefer and Jude Cole, they said, “Hey man, we’d like to make the record that you want to make. Bottom line.” And I was really excited about that, because other people were trying to get the Dobro out of my hands, some people thought it was a banjo [laughs]. And I don’t fault them at all, I’m not saying, “Oh, no one got me.” That wasn’t the case. It was just a matter of someone who really wanted to dig into this and was really passionate about it. And Ironworks was really passionate about it.

What are your hopes for the record?
Like I said before, I want it to reach the people who it’s supposed to reach, I really believe that this was recorded to fill the gap in some people’s artistic aesthetic. I think that I also wrote this record for people I haven’t met, you know, I really believe that. At the same time, I would like the record to do really well [laughs], because I want to be in a position where I dictate from now on, what’s being made in my world. And I think you have to do well in order to make those decisions for the future. I want the power to contribute. You have to have power to be able to make a contribution, otherwise people won’t let you do it.

Bookmark:

Record Label Ironworks Released March 2006

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