I was born in East
London, England the youngest of four children into a musical and artistic
family.
I was born at home next to the piano so it was kind of like a cab
driver being born in a car or a director in a cinema…
My big brother
George taught me how to play 12 bar blues on the piano and I taught myself
the rest. I would listen
to records and work out how they did it note by
note. I grew up musically with Frank Zappa and Jimi Hendrix and
through them
I discovered jazz and funk and Herbie Hancock. I started going to watch bands
at local pubs and
hanging around with them after. They told me about electric
pianos and with the help of my father and a summer
job I bought my first
electric piano, a Hohner Pianet. Sadly I didn’t have an amp and had
to play it through my
parents clock radio !
I didn’t really
enjoy school very much but the thought of getting a job was even worse so
I went to art school
and at about the same time started to get serious about
being in bands. My first professional performance
was with crazy English
pop legend Arthur Brown who rose to fame singing a song called ‘Fire’ and
setting
light to his head on stage, luckily when I played with him he had sobred
up a quite a bit. After this first taste
of the stage I decided that this was
the life for me. I was also sadly forced to choose between art and music
by
my tutors; I chose music.
During the early years we would do anything musical that earned us money. It
just seemed incredible
that anybody would pay us to play, we did quite a bit
of cabaret and backing band work in working mens’
clubs up and down England
and a couple of residencies in Europe. We would do the gig at night and
spend
all day rehearsing our own music for pub gigs when we had nights off but we
really weren’t going
anywhere. The band gradually fell apart and we went
our separate ways until a chance meeting with
Boris Williams who’d been
the drummer in those early bands. He had made the "big time" and
was
playing with the Thompson Twins, he told me they were looking for a new
keyboard player and a
few months later I was on tour with them. I worked with
them from 83-85 when both Boris and I left,
he went on to The Cure and I joined
the Psychedelic Furs. Looking back it was a pretty amazing time
the fact that
we were both in major bands but sadly not playing together.
In the spring of 87 Boris called me on tour in Denmark with the Furs and asked
me if I would be
into playing with The Cure for a tour of the states. The chance
of playing with Boris again was too
good to pass up so I said yes even though
I didn’t really know anything about the band. I was a
member of The Cure
form 1987 until 1990 when things got pretty bad within the group and I left
rejoining in 1995 for a further 10 years. I co wrote and performed on 4 albums,
Disintegration,
Wild Mood Swings, Bloodflowers and The Cure.
For the last couple of years I was a member I was increasingly unhappy, I felt
I’d lost sight of
where I started and the reasons why I got into music
in the first place. It seems the bigger the
band the more removed you are from
the actual music. I began to agree less and less with the
direction the band
was going in and the decisions being made. After our last major tour however
I started talking to a few young indie bands and about making music and goals
and expectations
and I realised I hadn’t lost my love of music I just
needed to start making it for myself. I found
out I was no longer in The Cure
through the internet but if I hadn’t been pushed I would have jumped….
During the last few months as a member of The Cure I started work on a solo
record inspired,
composed and recorded entirely on a Moog synthesizer. Definitely
not a concept album more of a
concept for an album concept, it was a re-visiting
of my early days of composing using limited.
Consciously un-compromised or
commercial, it's a mainly instrumental ( Erin Lang sings 3 songs )
journey
through my musical influences and where I am now. Finally, music that I am
satisifed with
and that satisfies me. "The Truth In Me" are the 10
songs that say what I have been trying to say
for a long time.
During the process of trying to release this album I was lucky enough to find
the one person who
believed in it and was prepared to take a chance. Luckily
that same person, Kevin Wortis, had just
started a record label, Great Society
Records with his partners at Worlds Fair in New York. After so
many years of
being in this business to be involved at the very beginning with a new company
who
are as excited about this music as I am is a real pleasure.
It has been a long story and I am not sure what the next chapter of the story
will be but I know it will
involve music. It’s been a part of my whole
life and although I have other interests I’m never as happy
as when I’m
making music.
EMAIL ME > ROGER@ROGERODONNELL.COM
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BOX 19, EX18 7WZ, UK
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