Photo: Taysha Fuller Photography

Photo: Sharon Harper

other projects

roblamothe.com 2024

Rob has played Godin guitars

since 2002

www.godinguitars.com

thoughts

To any musician lamenting that ‘the music industry isn’t what it used to be’ or that they ‘should be making a lot more money and playing for bigger, ​more appreciative audiences’ or that ‘young people listen to shitty music’ or that ‘there is no good new music being created anymore'...

I had a bit of a personal crisis throughout 2001/2002. At some point, I started having panic attacks while performing. I was working to get my alcohol ​intake ‘under control’ at that time and I soon saw that without my alcohol ‘base’ in me, I was terrified to be on stage. I was a year into 2 steady years of ​counseling (geared-to-income. Thank you, Catholic Family Services), told my counsellor what was happening and she asked, ‘Why do you perform in ​public?’ 2 decades into a busy music career… and I didn’t know the answer! I knew why I wrote songs, for sure. I knew why I sang my songs, for sure. ​But, I didn’t know exactly why I got up on stage to perform my songs in public. I realized that being impaired ‘allowed’ me to get up and perform in ​public. So, I cancelled a bunch of lovely gigs and took a break from performing, with no idea whether the break might last a month or forever. I had no ​clue what career I might venture off into, if my ‘break’ from performing music in public turned out to be permanent… and I also knew that if I was ​going to start performing in public at some point in the future, I needed a reason to do it. I was fortunate that I had just released 2 CD’s (studio and ​live), so there was some momentum there. I was fortunate for several behind-the-scenes studio projects that came along. A little income from ​publishing, a little income from CD sales, a little income from playing guitar and singing on other artists studio projects… we got by.

The break from performing lasted almost a year and then one of the bands I worked in the studio with asked me to do a little tour with them in The ​Netherlands. My youngest son was becoming a killer drummer in his early teens and I thought, ‘There’s a nice reason to perform in public! I’ll bring ​Zander to Europe to meet my beautiful friends over there. We’ll play some shows for loyal music fans and Zander will join us on stage for a few songs… ​perfect!’. And, damn, it was. People attending the shows brought their kids and every night felt like a celebration! Although I play in public less than in ​the ‘olden days’, I haven’t stopped altogether… very much due to that inspiring tour with my lovely friends and my younger son.

In 2009 I quit making music full-time. I was offered a position as ‘Assistant to the Program Manager’ at a youth centre I was volunteering at (music and ​martial arts). Soon after I started that job, though, the Program Manager needed to leave his position and I became ‘Acting Program Manager’. All of ​the sudden I had a full-time job that involved at-risk youth (they are all ‘at-risk’, by the way), parents, guardians, grandparents, school staff, mental ​health support workers, police, probation, etc. I was on-the-job at least 60 hours a week and I carried a cell phone for emergencies that could come up ​at any time. I had no clue what I was doing! I hung on for dear life, got trained in Non-Violent Crisis Intervention, First Aid, Suicide Intervention, ​Understanding and Managing Aggressive Behaviour, Mental Health First Aid and more. A million miles from anything I had ever done.. and I loved it. ​And I was really good at it. I didn’t even know I liked other peoples’ kids!! I loved ‘em! What the hell?

Very little time for music, of course. Almost none, in fact… but I kept teaching at music camp and I kept writing. 2 years in, a member of the youth ​centre’s board of directors suggested I apply to run the Emergency Housing Program for Haldimand and Norfolk Counties. The position required ​education I didn’t have, but I applied anyway… and I got the frickin' job. This is where things really got interesting. I learned in my first week that, in ​small rural communities, you are going to be supporting victims and perpetrators of the same crimes. You are going to hear intimate details of hard, ​dangerous, chaotic lives. I was witness to incredible acts of love and desperation, generosity and sadness. The people I worked with know the value of ​humour and they know price of pain. So, one moment you’re standing in a dingy motel room (there are no shelters for men in the 2 counties, so you ​make do) with 2 guys, one who has a knife, the other who has a machete, and these guys are slicing apples and gesturing wildly with the knife and the ​machete and are so high they could barely see… and 30 minutes later you are bringing diapers and formula to a family whose house burned to the ​ground the night before. I was a front line crisis worker and, again, I loved it. And I was really good at it. My 2 most valuable skills? Empathy and ​creativity. Songwriting and singing prepared me for this insane beautiful job! Not much room for music during this time-frame, though. A couple short ​trips to Europe and 2 weeks at music camp each Summer…

I ran the Emergency Housing Program for 5 years. Never had a serious ‘issue’ with a client. Not once, in those 5 years of front-line crisis situations, ​with people who were sometimes in the middle of the worst day of their lives. Now, lots of serious stuff happened. People went to jail, people lost every ​possession they had, people came out of prison after 10 years or were finally discharged after living in a hospital waiting room for weeks… with ​nowhere to go. Families split up or were reunited. Serious stuff. Sometimes, people died. But my clients, a couple hundred of ‘em over the 5 years, were ​mostly calm and kind… and trusting. We built relationships based on that trust… and friendships that have carried on until today. I knew what to do ​when ‘shit got real’, I knew how to de-escalate situations that were heading south. I knew what to do when someone grabbed a tire iron or when ​Buddy’s eyes rolled back in his head and he overdosed from a standing position right then and there. Boom. Uh, Houston? We’ve got a little bit of a ​crisis on our hands. I knew who to call to help out when a motel room needed to be cleaned up after someone died in it. I could get a truck and clear a ​mattress and bedding out within an hour or two. Jesus, those motel owners were forgiving. And they’d stopped by my office to sneak me a bottle of gin ​or wine at Christmas… and a note to say ‘Thank you for the business. Looking forward to serving you in the coming year!’ What? People are frickin' ​amazing.

Turned out I had a ‘feel’ for crisis work. I had seen so much on low-budget rock and roll tours through towns long-past their glory days… I had learned ​how to get paid by the coked-up, pissed-off rock club manager who doesn’t want to pay the band after a smelly, sweaty poorly-attended gig in a suburb ​way (way) outside of Detroit. The band’s gotta eat. Pay us, we’ll put some gas in our shitty van and we’ll head off to the next smelly, sweaty gig. I ​learned when to stand still and say nothing… and when to move very quickly. I learned how to bullshit my way into and out of all kinds of trouble. ​Rock and roll is good for that. Most of all, though, I learned to trust my instincts. When the beautiful, bruised ‘old lady’ of the president of, um, a ​‘motorcycle enthusiast club’ made up of guys who ‘don’t like to follow rules’ falls ‘in love’ with you and shows up at your hotel room door to give you ​jewelry? Nope! Hey, um, which crappy little road leads out to the airport from here? Uh, um… See ‘ya!

I lived and played in rock bands in Los Angeles in the 1980’s and if you don’t know what that means, man. I would need to write a bloody book to even ​begin to describe it. My band-mates and I were absolutely definitely going to make it in the music biz. No doubt. Big time. Every bloody band I was in!! ​And we mostly failed in spectacular fashion. What a blessing! We were hungry and we stole shit and we worked our asses off and we got so close… and ​we failed again. And then, one of my bands ‘made it’! Of course, it turned out that that we thought was ‘making it’ was literally just barely getting in ​the door and being close enough to see the real game being played. But sometimes we were in the right place to saunter up to the plate and take a turn ​at bat. We actually got there… on the crazy side of the door that hardly anyone ever gets through! Woo! How can I put a value on those experiences? ​People pay a lot of money to learn about how human life developed and evolved and about the processes that influence human behaviour… and I was ​the singer-songwriter in a rock band! I lived it and I wrote it all down. It’s in the songs and I can’t begin to calculate what those are worth. I could ​spend all day adding up what those songs have purchased for me. An incredible life! My kids know the songs and they love me… and if all I had to show ​for my life was that and the shiny partnership with my amazing wife?

I’m more-than-content with that.

Rob Lamothe