From harboring rock n roll dreams as an elementary school drummer to strumming an acoustic guitar at high school parties to serving as a mainstay of the Boston jamband scene in the ‘90s to working in Los Angeles with R&B hitmakers like Timbaland and Polow Da Don, singer/songwriter/guitarist/engineer/producer Dan Rockett has truly lived the musician’s life. His career is a prime example of just how diverse the “jamband” universe really is and illustrates the unpredictable directions to which a creatively open approach to life and music can lead.
In a recent conversation looking back on his life and times, Rockett proved an engaging, entertaining and thoughtful interview subject.
DB: When did you first realize you wanted to be a professional musician?
DR: When I was 7 years old, my parents asked me what I wanted to play in my elementary school band, which everyone had to participate in. My options were trumpet or drums and I remember thinking, “The trumpet is cool but I can’t be in a rock band playing trumpet.”
DB: When did you first start performing rock music for an audience?
DR: When I was in high school, playing guitar was a personal thing, something I’d do to mellow myself out, a safe haven for my teen angst. Growing up in East Greenwich, RI, there were keg parties on the beach every weekend, and sometimes I’d bring my acoustic guitar and play a few Neil Young songs, or whatever I was learning at the time, just for fun. Then I was asked to play a few school events, which is the first time I really got up and played in front of people.
DB: What did this lead to once you graduated high school?
DR: Applying to colleges, it never occurred to me to go to a music school like Berklee. To me college was for English, philosophy and all that stuff. When I went to Boston College (in 1990), I met guys who went to Berklee and realized, “Holy shit, I could’ve gone to music school.”
But I’m glad I didn’t. I had a great time and learned a lot that shaped my abilities as a songwriter and lyricist, which I take seriously.
DB: When did you really get serious about writing and playing music for a living?
DR: I had been playing acoustic guitar gigs while I was at BC, and when I got out I started playing more. There was band called The Daddies that was a bunch of guys from the New England Conservatory and I opened some shows for them. We hit it off as friends and one night I jumped on stage and we did a 20-minute version of “The End” by The Doors and we really clicked.
They then came to me and said they’d like to be my band, which blew my mind, because they are still some of the best musicians I’ve ever played with. Technically, they were at a different level than I was. I do what I do and do it well, but I work within my confines.
DB: This was the birth of The Rockett Band, who for several years was the Sunday night house band at the renowned and much-missed Boston blues bar Harper’s Ferry. How did you get that gig?
DR: I lived in a house in Allston (a neighborhood of Boston) with a bunch of musicians from different bands. Andrew Stahl, who ran (local music production company) Gamelan Productions, ran the whole Boston jamband scene and worked out of that house. Susan Tedeschi had been the Sunday night performer at Harper’s Ferry but left to do a tour. At Andrew’s suggestion, we auditioned to replace her. They tried out a few other bands, but we got the gig. It turned into something really cool we did from 1995 to ’99.
DB: In 1997, the Rockett Band released its first CD, Harmony’s Window. How did that come about?
DR: I had plenty of songs stockpiled so there was plenty of material. My brother lent me the money to pay for a studio and we self-produced the album. We mostly toured New England with it, but also New York, Colorado and Utah. For a while we had a weekly gig at the Lion’s Den in Greenwich Village, which was very cool.
DB: Did you ever open for anyone famous?
DR: Never on an entire leg of a tour, but we did some one-offs with performers like Ziggy Marley and Los Lobos.
DB: Why did you decide to end the Rockett Band in 1999 and move to Los Angeles?
DR: Nothing against the other guys, but I felt we had kind of done our thing and wanted to move on and try other stuff. My element in the Rockett Band was so in place as lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist that the other guys had time to improvise while I was engrossed in orchestrating the music. I wanted to be involved in jamming more and become more proficient at guitar. It was a natural thing, though I don’t think everyone else saw it that way at the time (laughs).
DB: How did you wind up leaving Boston to go to Los Angeles?
DR: My friend from college Ben Gordon got a job at Interscope Records after graduating and kept checking in on me. He had been interested in the Rockett Band while at Interscope and flew to Boston a few times to check us out. He and Ian Montone, the manager of the White Stripes, funded my solo album What I’ve Seen, which I recorded with different musicians around Boston after the Rockett Band. They believed in me quite a bit.
What really got me to move to L.A., though, was that I was sick of February and March on the East Coast (laughs). If I had to spend one more winter there I was worried I might commit mass homicide.
DB: What happened when you got to L.A.?
DR: I met Dorian 27, who had just left Powerman 5000 as bass player, and we hung out. I realized I’d need a band to play songs. I got Les Hall, who went on to play with the Trey Anastasio Band, on guitar. We went through a bunch of drummers and I got sick of looking for drummers, so Dorian switched. We wound up getting Wes Wehmiller, who played bass with Duran Duran and Missing Persons, to take his place, but unfortunately he passed away a few weeks before we were supposed to start recording an album.
I still had a demo of new songs and Ben asked me if I could have any producer in the world work on it, who would it be. I said Bob Ezrin (producer of The Wall ). Ben sent it to him and a few weeks later the phone rang and a voice said, “This is Bob Ezrin and I just listened to your demo and I loved it.”
The next week, he was sitting in my apartment across from me while I was playing him my tunes. I worked with Bob for three months, and he helped shape me as a songwriter by ripping my songs apart, but in an amazing way. He never told me what to do, but he’d point out things like a part of a song wasn’t working so great and maybe something else could go there instead. He was also working on the Jane’s Addiction Strays album and eventually had to devote more time to that project, but the time I spent with him was life-changing.
DB: What did you do once you stopped working with Bob Ezrin?
DR: A lot of things fell apart around that time and I said, “OK, I’m taking a break.” I realized I had to come at music in a different way and I spent a year not playing gigs, but going to the library six hours every day and writing lyrics. I went to the library so I’d have no instruments around me so I couldn’t noodle on my guitar, because lyrics are the most important and hardest thing. I churned out songs.
It was like a good workout, and eventually wanted to get back to playing live. I recorded a solo album, Songs from the Black Market, at the house of Chuck Reed, who’s in charge of Interscope Studios. I got a job at Interscope as a studio runner, and also started learning about engineering.
DB: Interscope is where you hooked up with Timbaland and Polow Da Don. How did that come about?
DR: Timbaland got signed to Interscope and one night he was in the studio while I was there and needed a guitar player, so I wound up playing on “Timothy Where Have You Been?” I hit it in one take and he was impressed. I got in with Timbaland and his crew and realized from hanging out with them that I understand what it takes to produce pop songs.
I wanted to give it a go so I wrote a song called “Dance With Me,” which I imagined as a David Bowie/Lady Gaga duet (laughs). It was an exercise in songwriting and I didn’t expect it to do anything, but one night at the studio Polow da Don came out at 4 AM to use the bathroom and I said, “Bro, I wrote a dance song.” He gave it a listen and said, “You wrote a classic people will sing in 50 years.”
DB: What did this lead to?
DR: This started my relationship with Polow da Don; he started seeing me on a different level. He asked for a bunch of songs. He took one of them, “Angel,” and put (R&B singer) Lloyd’s voice and some strings over the tracks I produced in my bedroom. I got coproducer and cowriter credit. It was my first major label song and the first single off the King of Hearts album.
DB: Was there a smooth progression from playing and recording with jambands to working in the pop/R&B world?
DR: Actually I had a night of wrestling in my head. Being a Pink Floyd/Neil Young/Led Zeppelin/Frank Zappa freak, I asked myself, “Am I selling out?” I was thinking I’d have to adapt my style to make it more urban, but Polow da Don came to me and said, “Whatever you do, don’t change anything that you’re doing. I don’t know what it is but I dig it. Make it psychedelic, make it crazy, I can make it commercial. This could be the next thing everyone else is trying to copy.” That was a liberating moment.
DB: You recently spent time in Nashville working on the upcoming Bubba Sparxx album. How did that come about and what was that experience like?
DR: Bubba and Polow are good friends from Atlanta. While Polow was at Interscope, Bubba came in and we hit it off as buds. Polow left Interscope and went to the Record Plant, and one night I went over and asked what Bubba was up to. Polow said Bubba was down in Nashville trying to forge a country/hip-hop scene. He looked at me and said,” Dude, you have to call Bubba right now. It would be ridiculous.”
And it has been ridiculous. It’s been magical. I worked as a producer and writer and we knocked it out of the park. I think the album will be something very special. Something that will be a monster.
