Former Riverdogs singer Rob Lamothe has become a dear friend of ours. I was a huge fan of him back in the Riverdogs days. And at one of his solo shows I gave him the CD of my band Bittermoon (back in 1999). When we planned to record a new album -a few months later- we contacted his manager to see if he would be willing to do a guest performance on our record. By coincidence he had already contacted his manager a little earlier that week to ask if he could perhaps "do something" together with these Dutch guys called Bittermoon. We were over the moon!
He flew over from Canada, sang on our album, produced one song, played a gig together with us and lived at our drummer's place during that week. We immediately made plans for a tour later that year.
We did lots of great gigs during several tours.
During the last tour Bittermoon did with him (the band Bittermoon had already split), we went into a studio and recorded four songs. Just one take, totally live. Those recordings were meant as a demo to try and get more club gigs as the Dutch Lamothe Band.
But after that tour Rob Lamothe took a time out from performing live. He wanted concentrate more on producing and writing songs for other people (he wrote smash-hit "single" for Kalan Porter).
So the recordings we made that afternoon in that studio just sat there un-mixed...
Until I mixed them myself almost five years later on my iMac with Garageband.
Here's one of those songs called
Circus Song (My first mix ever!) We never released it.
Last year when he came over to Europe again -for the first time in five years- we played together again. This time with my band Superfloor. During this period Superfloor was recording the new CD, so Rob joined us in the studio for two songs. He sang a beautiful duet with Floor in the song "You're So Cold" and he co-wrote "Miss You" and sang along in the last choruses.
It still is a very special feeling to make music with him. He's one of the best singers in the whole world as far as I'm concerned.
Plus he's a real warm and gentle person.
Another great musician I've worked with is Brian "Robbo" Robertson. For me -being a huge Thin Lizzy fan- it was huge thrill when I got an email from his manager; He asked if we'd be interested in doing some shows together (with Dutch Lamothe Band).
I did two tours with him. With two different bands. Plus we got together a few times just for good times sake.
I could tell a zillion cliché rock 'n' roll stories about life on the road with Robbo.
But I won't.
All I can say is Robbo is a very sweet guy. Plus he's definitely one of the funniest people I've met.
And of course his guitar work with Thin Lizzy is still classic. The first solo in "Still In Love With You" on "Live & Dangerlous" must be one of the most beautiful solos ever recorded.
