Rocco DeLuca

0:00It's the backstage pass talking with Rocketaluca King King, Los Angeles, California. Just played a nice little set. You played it before? Is this like the usual place you play when you're around here? No. I only played here tonight because they're friends of mine who are playing here and I wanted to come and support them. Nice. What are they called? Get people to download their music or something. Pawn South King's. They did a record and it's not released yet. They're just trying to figure out a way to put it out. It's just like a lot of other bands. Yeah, of course. Set the show off of the song. Song it opens up the record gift. Why does it open up the record? It opens up the record because lyrically it meant a lot to me. And I thought better to move forward with a personal statement than anything else. Definitely. Cool. Don't do your closet. It's greedy with lies.

1:27Accepting. Accepting. Accepting. Accepting. This is why life seems. It looks like time it rings. The truth is that this hour brings full face your time. Or take what is in mind. Don't fix me because I'm broken.

2:13Accepting. You're a certain gift talking with Rocket Aluca. Your father used to play with Bo Diddley.

4:31I was reading. Yeah, he played with the... A bunch of musicians. A few musicians was a torn guitar player for a few different guys. And it was a really great musician. Did he teach you how to play or do you pick it up on your own? How did that all come about? I learned by Osmosis really. Oh, nice. They upside down left handed. Which is such a weird way to see someone play guitar. So, with the high ease backwards or is it regular? Yeah, it's like just turned over. Oh, okay. So, yeah, everything's upside down. Interesting. And it was an amazing piano player as well. But so you couldn't really show me anything. I remember sitting around watching them have jam sessions and just kind of like absorbing it. When did you pick it up for the first time? I picked it up really. As a kid, I remember on the house.

5:19I was a kid and stuff. But I really started picking it up when I started to play side guitar as a kid because there usually wasn't one around. Someone playing it. So it actually gave me a chance to be involved in a unique way. And be necessary or needed to know. And what else was playing it around that group of people, friends. And you stuck with it. It's pretty cool. You're playing other guitars too? You know, I play, I try to play it. But I don't really consider myself like, I really know how to play anything. I just kind of like fumble with it and try to let the instrument just kind of like speak for itself and try to get out of the way of it.

6:11That's basically what I spend most of my time doing. Getting out of the way. That's cool. Any other guitar show up on the records? It's all slag guitar. It's pretty much all my dough broke. I plugged into different amplifiers and different pedals. And I plug it into like everything. You know anything to find, get some weird noises and try to just deconstruct the instrument. But you know, there was a little bit of a guitar and a little bit of banjo hit it. Are you playing those? You get other people playing. Anything with strings that's open, like all about like a huge finale that comes to make drones and Indian music, and play some music, anything that sounds like it has ghosts straight up off out of it. That's pretty cool. It's a play on another song. Really still guitar tuned dope.

6:59It's also second track on the record. So it kind of works out. It's a series of well. Rocket Luca, a song called Dope, what's the song about?

10:24Well obviously, drugs dope. It's kind of like, yeah it could be, you know, it's just whatever you're into at the time. It's really a song about obsession, you know, and it's like when you get obsessed with something, it's like a fix. You know, whether it be a girl, or whether it be actually narcotics, or whether it be, you know, even music, you know, just anything that you're like just completely obsessed about. And I'm completely obsessed about in the most freaky way. That's what that song is. I was trying to relate that feeling. It's really cool. What are you obsessed about? What's your thing right now? Right now it's music. Yeah, I'm completely high on music right now. As you should be. Being a musician at all.

11:10Totally. Totally. You know, at the time it was a few other things, but it's always been music, but right now I'm like a musical monk right now. I'm completely head first absorbing all these beautiful things that I've been seeing around me. Nice. You're still running? All right. Every day. All right. Yeah. New tune comes out every day, every two days. It may not even be a song. It's just, you know, it might be words, or it might be, and I think it's just a phrase from a melody, half of a melody. But something, I always keep that real journey, you know, because to me that's everything. All the other stuff, even pulling out, it all starts from that initial small moment of inspiration, you know, where everything starts from for me and works its way out.

12:07Nice. How does the song running across the world? How does it go across the world? Do you usually guitar first, or lyrics first, or just kind of goes all over the place? There's no routine I have. It's whatever. What I try to do is just be open for things when they come. Sometimes I'm into writing words, and I'm looking for the right words, and I get those and they come and they come. And then music is the same way. If I'm thinking about melody or thinking of something that hits me, I just try to stay open for when it comes. And on a very good day, they all come together. And that's like a really nice thing. All the colors blending together, if you. Boom. And it was all already put together somewhere else, and then it came.

12:54Nice. That's like what you know. Cool. It's my other song. Colorful. You just heard Colorful talking with Rocketaluca.

15:54Corritte and would you cool? Corritte, hold on to the song, produce the record as well. How did you hook up with him? How did that all come about? Jude was a producer for Ironworks, and he pretty much took all my projects. He wanted to put together a full record for me. Nice. I was kind of all over the place. You know, I get a little scatter rank as I write, write, write. And then it took a little like a duster and kind of like made a little pile of money. Oh, it's cool. Does he add instruments? What does he do on the record? With the record, he played bass almost to the record. You know, drums on a few things. Piano, Oregon. I love things. Between me and him, we did most of the work.

16:40Cool. Anyone else guessed on the record? Yeah, we had a few friends come in and play. Let's see. My band got on the record towards the end of it. Ryan Medromer. Dave Bestie came in at the end. And Greg played percussion almost to the record. He was in my band as well. We had Rick from, yeah, I'm not going to try to say his last name. From my house. He came in and played. He played a five and draw. Nice. So, and my friend, India, Dupre is a lovely singer out here, staying on the stuff I was in. He's a background with me. So, it was very cool. You grew up around here? From a lot?

17:25Long Beach, mostly. Nice. What's the music scene like out there? It's good. You know, it's undiscovered and as it should be undiscovered because the city doesn't really put much into venues, you know? Well, it's got the arena, but that's about it. You had to be big to play there. Yeah, right. You have an engine, but there's great talent in Long Beach. I find that it has to go somewhere else to be recognized though. It doesn't come. It's very rare when you get a direct connection from Long Beach to the world. Usually you get LA or somewhere else. But it's a very artistic kind of blue collar town. You have all kinds of people in Long Beach. It's very pedestrian.

18:10It's a Harvard town, really. It has a college too. Oh, I didn't know that. That's cool. Long Beach stay and then you throw in the people who live in the nice part of town. And then all the very suspect area around PCH. It's a wild community. Let's play another song. What's your favorite on the record? My favorite song on the record is Favour. Let's play that one. You should rock it a Lucas song called Favour.

23:26Why is it Favour? Favour is my favorite song because as I was describing earlier, it was one of those ones that just spit out together and lyrically meant a lot to me. And I remember it was recording. It was such a blast. I was sitting in a studio. I played on the song and we just laid down in an hour and it was gone. That's how the process worked. It was very simple. How come it closed up the record? Because everyone told me that I couldn't put it first. Yes, fair house. Yeah, my sensibilities allude towards that kind of a sound. That's in the future.

24:13Things will probably emanate from that kind of a bind for me. A lot of thought going to the whole track listing of the record and all that kind of stuff. You know, it did because as you've heard on the record, there's a little bit of diversity happening with energy on the track. Some are very aggressive. Some are very delicate. Some are kind of in the middle. Whatever you kind of lead with becomes you. You know, what the record is. And I remember everyone did a track listing and nobody could agree on anything. And finally, I thought about it. I thought about it like, okay, if I was going to give this to someone I really cared about,

24:59how would I sequence? That's a cool way to sequence. When I did that, all of a sudden I can sequence it and I do. Nice. Let's play another song. What do you want to hear? Let's hear. Do you have one? Bus ride. A little simple song. Like lyrically, a simple idea.

29:32Yeah, yeah. But a bus. Gee loves got a song with a bus too. It's pretty cool. Hey, awesome. Did you love that? Honestly, I've been asked that like at two other places as well. I don't have a Gee Love record. You should pick one up. You play Stilge Tarte too. That's what I was like awesome too. I mentioned the sequencing before. I want to talk about that just in the fact that we're losing the album concept with downloading and iPods and all this stuff. How do you feel about all that? The downloading your music, the illegal stuff at least. That's great. However you can access your music, it's fine. I'm a particular fan of having something physical in my hands. I love album art and picking up a record. It's almost like a ceremony.

30:18Just going to buy something like you do a book you like or a record you like. I don't mind throwing my money towards that kind of stuff. I like having the physical cover with me. But if downloading is the way to access the music, if that's a very convenient for you to get. Definitely. How does the iMARK shield? They seem to be like a cool label. You think they'd be okay with it? I think they're okay with anybody picking up the record. Any form or fashion. They're just really excited to get people to take notice. I don't think if they bought a physical or iTunes or whoever else I don't think they would mind.

31:10That's cool. A lot of people, well a lot of people probably do know Keeper Sutherland works in the record label. What did he do for the record? He was Canadian too. I know we were in Toronto. We had a blast. He was working on a movie, The Sensible. He's not as bad yet. He's just being released pretty soon. That's right when we came through and played at the government. I had never been to Toronto. Man, I had such a great time. I ended up hanging out all over that town. It was great. It was cool. Amy mentioned that he shot a documentary for you. Yeah, well actually he's in it. The actual person who shot the film is Manu Boye. He asked you for if it was okay if you followed him around being our tour manager through Europe.

32:00This is very funny. Thank you. You said okay. You can do it. It ended up being this really cool documentary about our lives during this time and everything we were going through. It was like wow, it was worth us making this film. We were proud of it when it was done. First I thought it was just going to be a whole movie. You know, but it turned out really well. It was good. One can people see it? I just saw it. Yeah. Do you like it? Yeah, it's good but it's a little revealing. Okay. It's very honest. There's no frills. It's like a... You can't run for political office? Yeah, I know. I won't be anytime soon for anybody. But no, I found it pretty powerful.

32:48So I was glad that he made it but I stopped to get over watching yourself and your friend. I can imagine that. It's kind of a weird thing when you're not an actor or you're not in film. You ever considered doing that? No. Fair enough. No. It's just not my dad. I know. I know the way I'm and what I'm going to be doing. You know, for sure. Cool. So when can people see it? Well, we go to Nashville next week to film premiere. Nice. It's going to be premiere in Nashville and then Sky Television in Europe is going to air it. English Channel. There you go. They're going to air it. I think after the Simpsons or something. That's convenient. Yeah. Yeah.

33:33So it's a good time slot. All the kiddies in the UK. We're all so good to hear it. And then it hits a few other festivals in Europe and in the United States and then eventually I think after that is when maybe some of the television in America will get to pick it up. Yeah. Do like a DVD thing as well. Yeah. I'm assuming so. Cool. What are you doing here? I'm picking a whole new name. No. How about draw? And some. You said rock or luke, a song called draw.

37:26Why draw? Because that was the first thing I came in with. Fair enough. There's a rabbit dude that walks around. It was here before. He was in a picture on your website as well. I don't even know a question. Why? What is it for? I'm kind of a few. There's no rhyme or reason sometimes. You just do think. Just something out to the show. Actually, you know, it's nothing that we've thought of. He's a mascot. He's an unofficial mascot. And he's been brooding for the wrong team for so long. And I think he stumbled on people that he could relate to. Cool. He can, you know, chain smoke. Yeah. And we're cool with him.

38:12We accept him for who he is. That's good. He's a good person for a VR. And everyone's one of them. We've got a piece of care. And that's really nice. Yeah. Helps out. He's out as often as you want to be. Cool. So, you're going to come up to the UK with you? He did. Already. He's already here with us. He's a director of traffic in Iceland. He's got arrested in London. He got kicked in the balls in Reykjavik. He's had an interesting trip. Nice. What's next for you over to the UK? Yeah. UK for a short stint back here. And then we'll go back again. I don't know. Summer. We're doing a velvet plant opening a frame. That's amazing.

38:57Yeah. Excited? You big zapplin' fan? Yeah, man. You know, Zapplin 3 is like, that's it for me. I love that. See, that's the whole thing. We're not going to have albums like that anymore soon. Yeah. Exactly. Cheers. And then we go out with the band called Super Troll for a while. Yeah, good. And hopefully we'll get to, you know, keep working for the summer and stay overseas as long as you're also. Why is that? Because you don't get to go off? Because if I've been telling too long, it gets a little... ...and then it starts to get in trouble. Okay, good answer. Nice, let's play another song. Rocker, like a swing low. That's amazing. Is that the coolest venue you've been to?

43:34No. Oh, it's alright. It's a dive man, but how's it should be? Yeah, exactly. And I played acoustic and the sound was horrible. It was fun, actually. It was really great for people to come out. I was happy to finally get to play some kimis for all this. Before it goes away. Is it moving? Do you know? Well, I heard they were sitting down and people came together and tried to preserve it. So I don't know when the status has happened in New York. It's pretty good soon. But when I'm there, I'm sure I'll swing by and check out seeing how it's done. But yeah, it was fun to play there. I can imagine. Let's go. Let's play another song. What do you want here? That's your soul.

44:19You need one skier or something? Rocker to Lucas, sound called soul. We do this thing five questions every week.

49:07Five quick questions, one word answers. Ipotter CDs. Go to Ipot. Landon and McCartney. Landon. Alcohol and marijuana. Song you've written your most proud of. No one's ready yet. No one's ready yet. It's what I called. I would say right now it's called Nightingale. Cool. You play a lot? I played it live in acoustic out of any of the ones. Nice. Good reaction. I was so excited about that. Cool. And one word, Rocker to Lucas. Skull. Thanks dude. Appreciate it. One song closed up. What do you want here? Could be one of yours, could be someone else's.

49:53Oh great. Perfect. Let's have River Man by Nick Drake. Nice. Okay. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you.