Tina Evans: If you were promoting yourself to me, what would you say Rob Mullins and his music was all about?

Rob Mullins: I am a diverse artist and composer who enjoys listening and writing many styles of music, and think other people like a variety just like I do.Music is an expression of life, soul, experience, and beliefs. Find and enhance your life through music. It is the soundtrack of your life. People should judge an artist by their body of work, not what they hear on the
radio, or on one CD.

TE:What is your background in music?

RM: My mom played piano in a baptist church and listened to big band swing when I was growing up. My influences are Big Band, Film Sountracks from the 60's, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Dave Brubeck, Coltrane, etc. Lots of diversity
in the music growing up. I think artists and listeners should be opened minded. Music is cultural expression, artists are mirrors to society. More often than not, its the media that catagorizes artists for the purpose of selling them, not the artists themselves.

TE: Did your parents force you to take lessons or was playing the piano something you desired and picked up early at a young age?

RM:I started out playing drums in elementary school, and added piano, sax,bass, guitar and whatever else I could get my hands on through the 12th grade. As I remember, my parents did not want to pay for my drums, and I had to make a deal with my dad that I would mow lawns for a year until I had enough money to buy them. He added some money to what I had saved after the year, and I got a set that looked just like the one Ringo played in the Beatles.

TE: Having heard your ability to play many different styles of music, which do you prefer  playing?

RM: I enjoy playing whatever seems fresh to me...Great new gatherings, get togethers at the NAMM show. This year I've played with Bunny Brunel, Frank Gambale, Robin Dimaggio for the Carvin Company. Very interesting players, everyone plays fusion, straight ahead, rock, the works. Lots of fun. My own band is a treat because I write the songs we do,its great to hear top notch musicians perform what is rattling around in your head all day.
 

TE: Any influences in your life?

RM: Um, sure........God, metaphysics, Women, food, the internet, my upbringing, you name it. We are walking products of the time we live in and that which has gone before us.
 

TE: While working on your Joyful Noyz CD with you, I had the opportunity to see how gifted you are with composing such great music in such limited time frames. Many people aren't aware that you had composed the 10 songs on this CD all in one week. Does it frustrate you how hard you can work at something and the general public doesn't even know half of what you go through in order to produce it?

RM: I think that most people have no idea what the amount of work is that musicians do and how difficult it is to keep everything afloat. A musician has many jobs...they have to wake up every day and hustle to get work. They have to do all the paperwork to legalize the work they've hustled. They have to contract band members, look good, arrange songs, rehearse, drive a 300 square mile area to gigs (here in LA). They have to DO the gigs and be in a good mood. Then they have to collect the money, which is a whole job in itself. Then they have to figure out how to keep the IRS from taking what's left after buying gear, paying for lessons, buying clothes, paying for promotion, supporting a family if they are lucky. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

TE: Whats the hardest part of being a jazz musician?

RM: I think its the public not being sympathetic to what musicians go through just to survive.

TE: Getting back to your composing, I know that you've been writing for Eric Marienthal in the past. Is it true your going on tour with him soon?

RM:Yes, I'm happy to say I'll be playing the east coast with Eric in March.Details are on my website and at ericmarienthal.com.

TE: If you could be on tour or in the studio recording which would you rather be doing?

RM: Every situation has something unique about it to enjoy. The studio environment is very controlled. Much of what I do, especially TV music has extreme time pressures. I enjoy having to create something very quickly and make it work to video. The real joy as a player though is to play live where you can improvise. That's what music is all about for me still. Playing well written songs with great players, and the interaction.

TE: You were doing some Moesha episodes too this last year. That must have been a lot of fun. What was it like working on the set?

RM: Moesha is a show I've had fun with. I got to be on the show and hang with the cast, and I've done a number of studio tracks for it. A fantastic team effort goes into keeping anything on TV.

TE: One of my favorite stories I love to hear you tell is about the time you went on tour in a foreign country and ran into a musician that was selling his CD's on the airplane. Please tell it again.

RM: OK....so I was on my way to do this solo concert in Hanoi Vietnam in 1994 at the Opera House. Cool gig, during US trade embargo, the government would not give me clearance or protection in or out of communist north vietnam, so I had to go to Thailand to get papers.I was booked on Thai Airlines. Everytime I got on Thai Air, I kept hearing this big band trombonish music on the planes. I got out the in flight mag to check the in flight entertainment schedule, and noticed that they had the big band stuff on every channel on the in flight radio. Turns out it was the King of Thailand, who was a pretty good trombone player..he was a fan of the Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey Bands, and had recorded himself playing trombone in a big band, then stuck his music on every channel on the national airline. Of course, you could get the CD's along with your oxygen mask from the flight attendants...LOL. Now talk about target marketing, sheesh.

TE: What foreign countries have you played in and with whom?

RM: In 1998, I had the good fortune to do some world tour's with Bruce Willis who was going around the world promoting the movie "Armegeddon" with his 14 piece blues band "The Accelerators."  We did short runs pretty much all over the globe that year including Europe and the Middle East. No tour I'd ever done was quite this much fun from a personal standpoint..the people hanging out at the gigs were the likes of Cindy Crawford, Brook Shields, Naomi Campbell, Stallone, Schwartzenegger, Janet Jackson, Wesley Snipes, et al. I did a feature about that tour on my website if anyone would like to
read the diary and see the pictures.I've also played in Vietnam, Japan, and will possibly be going to Hong Kong this summer with Eric Marienthal which should be quite nice.
 

TE: When I go to see you perform I love the way you are able toentertain the crowd not only with your music but with your sense of humor.Whats the funniest thing you can recall that has happened to you during a performance?

RM: This is hard to narrow down, because the things that happen on gigs are really funny a lot of the time, and there are a ton of stories that come to mind. Here's one of many:I'm at Kikuya, my regular friday gig one night when this guy comes into the club, and sits down at the table four feet away from me. He's already obviously very drunk, and I notice that most of his teeth are gone. He's talking gibberish like a LA homeless guy at a freeway ramp for about five minutes during the show, then his head drops down into his rice plate, and he falls asleep. It's a small club, and there are a lot of people around him, and everyone has noticed that he's passed out in his food, and they are laughing. I hate it when people fall asleep during my gig, so I got on the mike in between songs, and went the four feet over to his table, and started talking to him. No reaction. I got more crazy with what I was saying, still no reaction. I kicked off another number with the band, and at the end of it, the guy is still passed out in his food..and its really starting to make me mad by now. I get on the mike again, and walk over again, and get within two inches of his right ear and say in a thick german accent "I am Jeffrey Dahmler, and I am going to eat you up right now if you don't wake up and start paying attention." This didn't phase him one bit, he was sawing logs big time.We continue on with the show, and about 20 minutes later, he wakes up,looks around, wipes off his face, and trys to act like nothing had happened. A woman in her mid 30's walks in, and sits down at the bar, and spots him. I go back to the piano, and play another song. Next thing I know, the guy and the woman are kissing big time at the bar about ten feet away, and they decide they've had enough of the place and leave the club, her hand on his bottom, and his on hers. I could tell from the way they behaved at the beginning that they were just meeting for the first time that night, and had never met before.The audience is snickering and trying to contain themselves as the new couple walks out, and the band is laughing too hard to play, so we just stopped the song when the couple got out the side door and all had a good laugh for about five minutes.But the best part of the story is that about four months later, I'm doing the same gig, and during the show, I decided to tell the audience the story of what had happened that night. I came to the part where I said "and right over there at the bar there was this woman" and I pointed to that seat at the bar, and the same woman who had left with that guy that night happened to be sitting RIGHT THERE in the same seat unbeknownst to me. Talk about embarrassing! I didn't know what to say, so I just said, "um,and now for some more music" while the woman quietly covered her face, plopped down a 20 dollar bill, and left as fast as she could.
 

TE: What do we have to look forward to in the future with you? What are your plans?

RM: I'm going to Hawaii with the Laker cheerleaders and never coming back. ROFL.  Seriously, I recorded four CD's last year, so this year will be about hoping that enough of them sell that I can afford to record more music.

TE: Where can people find your music and info about what you're doing?

RM: Everything about what is going on with me is at my website, planetmullins.com. I put up 90 minutes of music there in real audio, and I do features on cool stuff I find out on the web, like this artist Thomas Haney who is fantastic! I also write an editorial commentary about what is happening in the world when I feel the urge. The lastest one of those is "thoughts on the new millennium" which is part of the newsletter for January 2000.

TE: Rob, thank you for chatting with us here at the JazzRoom.  I look forward to seeing what happens this year with your music. Good luck to your career and we hope you can visit us again sometime.

RM: You're welcome, it was my pleasure.