Rob Wheeler is two weeks off starting his first headline tour, Leave Tomorrow, to promote his next album. A tour that has, so far, sold out his hometown venue in just three days and has near sell-out venues up and down the UK. Rob spoke to me about the process behind writing this album, being part of the Nashville music scene and the charity, Help Musicians, that he holds very close to his heart.
It's 10am on a Monday morning – well, it was Tuesday, but it was post-Easter Bank Holiday, so it was basically a Monday – and Rob’s happy little face fills my screen as he joins our call. He’s sat, tea in hand, in front of an array of instruments; a keyboard, a clarinet and a selection of around eight guitars - which I later found out wasn’t nearly all of them. He sips from his mug that is decorated with pumpkins and skulls – much like my off-season Christmas mug, which I make a joke about. “You’re just assuming it’s a Halloween mug,” he jokes, “when actually, it’s just my personality.”
When researching for this call, I came across an old interview that Rob had done in which he mentioned he had 17 guitars. Seventeen! I’d made a note to touch on this during our interview, but when I was faced with the wall of instruments, I had to dive right in there. Rob is all too happy to show me his collection; he has his Beatles guitars, “I’ve got my Paul McCartney base and my John Lennon guitar – I’m a huge Beatles fan,” he says as he cranes his neck around to see what we could see from the desktop camera. “I’ve also got the John Lennon Rickenbacker.” Rob continues to list his most prized possessions including his studio base that he uses on his records, his vintage Gretsch Jazz guitar as well as a Crafter Twin Birds which is his go-to song writing guitar. “I also have…” Rob disappears off camera as he reaches for something further in the studio, “I’m really proud of this one,” he says as he brings back what looks like an old, battered guitar (obviously only to my untrained eye). “It’s a 90s American Fender Telecaster,” Rob rotates the guitar to show it in all its glory, “it’s all beaten up and it’s got this weird sort of matte blue finish”. He’s right, the guitar has got scratches and scuffs all over it, the paint is missing in places and the colour isn’t something I’ve seen before. I ask him if it still plays well. “It plays itself. It’s just one of those lovely, you know, fret boards.” I don’t know, but I nod in agreement all the same.
Another reason Rob likes his old and battered guitar is because it is easier to play since breaking his finger. Rob broke his finger around Christmas time in 2018 when on tour in the Channel Islands. “On my left hand – my fret hand – I broke my middle finger quite a few years ago and it’s got an eight-degree bend on it” Rob shows me his wonky finger in the camera. “You’d be amazed at how those eight degrees - which is like a couple of millimetres - can have such an adverse effect on your playing.” Rob demonstrates on his guitar and talks about how, especially with an electric guitar, the precision of finger placement is paramount. “I had to do a lot of physiotherapy work,” Rob says as he recounts the story of his break, “and in all truthfulness, I still don’t feel like I’m quite the guitar player I was.” He takes another look at his beloved old faithful – the same way I might look upon my favourite book or, more likely, an Aperol Spritz on a hot day, “but yeah, this guitar is perfect for me because I don’t have to work too hard to play her, she’s very accommodating”.
A broken finger doesn’t sound like a life changing injury to the average Joe, but for a musician, particularly a guitar playing musician, it can be the end of a lifelong passion and any career that was built around it. From putting on a show to putting food on the table, Rob’s life revolved around his music.
The injury occurred at the gym where he’d got it stuck under a weight and yanked it out. Rob was also fulfilling his busy Christmas schedule; he had work to do and performances and so he played through the pain and the show – for want of a better phrase – went on.
When he finally received medical attention, the prognosis was bleak. Rob had done permanent damage.
“I got really upset and really down and I thought, ‘oh what have I done’ because at the time, I’d just signed to Absolute, so it was all happening.” Noticing Rob’s shift in demeanour, his friend recommended he reach out to a charity called Help Musicians. “They are incredible people,” Rob tells me, his passion for the charity radiating from his desk to mine. “They’re a non-government funded charity organisation who are out there just to help musicians who are in times of crisis.”
Through the organisation, Rob was able to get specialist medical treatment down in London from a trumpet playing surgeon (no, not at the same time, silly) as well as physiotherapy and support on his mindset. “They bought me back round both playing and also up here,” he points to his head, “because I’d convinced myself that my career was over”.
Help Musicians is a charity that Rob holds close to his heart. They supported his best friend’s wife after he passed away from covid, providing a funeral relief package and financial support. “They’re kind of like Samaritans for musicians so yeah, heartily, heartily endorse them as a charitable organisation.”
Rob also talks about Help Musicians and their outreach work, supporting artists without socio-economic support around them. “They help up and coming artists as well as people who are perhaps in positions where they are not coming from a household income of any means.” Rob recognises the ‘leg-up’ he had coming from the ‘lovely town’ and background he does, “I’ve managed to turn my music into what I’ve got around me and don’t get me wrong I’ve worked incredibly hard, but I was offered the ability to work hard because of the opportunities and support network around me.”
The lovely town that Rob is from is called Alsager and sits in a leafy suburb of Cheshire. This is the first time he will have played a headline show back in his hometown and the venue sold out in just three days, “I think it was just my mum buying tickets for all her friends”. We laugh as he talks about the possibility that his mum might also be a ticket tout…
Rob played a sell-out show in Stoke on Trent, not too far from Alsager, back in 2021 after the success of his Christmas album ‘Midwinter Songs’ – Rob’s first number one hit that overshadowed even Joni Mitchell in the singer-songwriter charts. “You always want your hometown to sell out. You’d think your friends and local fans would come out to the show, but for it to sell out in three days was really – it blew my mind.”
Rob’s tour spans the entirety of the UK, from Scotland to London, and you can tell from the excitement in his voice and the softness to his expressions, he’s totally in awe of the response. “When you start realising you’re starting to have a little bit of a further reach in these further cities, you know, like Glasgow and Liverpool, you’ve got either fans there or people who are willing to travel there because it’s the nearest one to them. That’s kind of exciting…that’s the dream. You want to be able to go to a venue and someone come up to you that you’ve never met in your life and say, ‘I really like your new album’ or, ‘I really like your new single’.”
The tour centres around Rob’s new album, ‘Leave Tomorrow,’ and although the first single is set to be released during the string of shows, the album has unfortunately hit a bit of a delay. “The truth of it is the reason it’s being delayed is because something exciting is happening with the album.” I couldn’t get the exact exclusive, but Rob alluded to there being some form of feature or collaboration on the album that they’re just waiting to ‘lock-in’ and finalise.
Rob’s last two releases, ‘Midwinter Songs,’ and, ‘Once Upon a Hallow’s Eve,’ were EPs – we joke about how these themes match our mugs of tea – were local folk stories and legends turned into Rob’s interpretation of UK country folk songs. One song was about the Chained Oak at Alton Towers that the Earl of Shrewsbury had wrapped in chains after he was cursed by a gypsy and another about a local witch called Molly Leigh. But these were other people’s stories. With the latest album, Rob was ready to write his own story. “The thread that runs through the songs is this idea of breaking out of your comfort zone and being brave enough to try new things.”
‘Leave Tomorrow’ was written and recorded in Nashville – the dream for any country artist anywhere in the world. On his first trip out there, Rob was able to meet and work with people like Steve Dorff (songwriter Hall of Fame) and Jeff Trott (co-writer for Sheryl Crow) and Fred Eltringham (Sheryl Crow’s drummer). “I was determined it wouldn’t just be a one off, like a holiday into this world,” Rob says, “so I went back two more times, and the team grew…we ended up doing four months out there.” In those four months, Rob and the team started and finished the album – well, Rob’s parts anyway! We’re still waiting on what that final piece might be…“And what I’m proud of with this record – aside from all the Nashville connection to it – is that it has all that stuff and it has all the musicianship and it sounds great and it’s played great and I’m proud of my vocals - I think it’s the best I’ve sang - but also it does have this DNA, these strands that run through it and connect it all together.”
Robs peaks candidly about imposter syndrome and how that affected him while he was over in Nashville, “I think I had such doubts…should I even be going to Nashville, I’m not from Tennessee. You know, like, know your place. But of course, that’s stupid, everyone should be able to do it.” This feeds into the theme of the album; the journey, the adventure and being brave. Rob’s hope is that this translates to listeners, regardless of what their struggles might be, and that they find solitude in his lyrics. “You discover things that you didn’t even realise you were going to find out about yourself, and that’s been the case for me, but it’s also been the case for the album. I’ve discovered things in these songs that I didn’t even realise was going on and what I’m now hoping is of course when this album comes out, people who hear it find that too. And that will be the full journey – the full adventure.”
With the album being delayed and fans not being able to get their hands on it during the tour, Rob and his team have a little gesture of good will for his fans. “We’re giving everyone who comes on the tour a free CD…a behind the scenes acoustic album of the songwriter demos from Nashville.” Whenever Rob writes a song, he immediately records it into his phone so that he doesn’t lose track of a melody or lyrics to a verse, “I just get them down and they become what I call ‘working demos’ so I can refer back to them you know when it comes to recording”. Those working demos have been cleaned up and will be in the hands of everyone that comes to any of his Leave Tomorrow tour dates.
Rob has also been featured on the latest Café Covers Volume 3 in the company of artists like Jack Savoretti, Ben Haenow and Nell Bryden – an achievement he is enormously proud of. His cover of Waterfalls is a stripped back, ballad version of the original RnB hit by TLC. I asked him whether he was given this song or if he chose it himself. Rob had requested a list of pre-approved songs that his team thought would be good to do an interpretation of, and when he saw Waterfalls, he knew that was the one to do. “I didn’t even think about it I just took it away and then thought, ‘OK how am I going to do this?’” Rob talks about how he wanted to translate some of the brass parts into strings to give it more of a ‘sweeping ballad movement’ to it and bought in his friend Steve to re-interpret his arrangement on the piano. knowing that the song would be instantly recognisable to listeners all over. “I thought well, you know, it’s such an iconic song that if we just do it really simply and strip it right back, it’s going to be instantly recognisable.”
The message that Rob is sending out through his album and his tour is clear; take the risk, believe in yourself and if you’re going with a ‘full heart’ into your passion then you are right where you should be. His Leave Tomorrow tour kicks off on 19th April in Liverpool and you can get your tickets to all of the dates here. Catch up with Rob on his website, his Instagram and his Spotify.
"We love music and want a world where musicians thrive. Help Musicians is a charity for professional musicians of all genres, both in work and in retirement.
We help at times of crisis, but also at times of opportunity, giving people the support they need at the crucial stages that could make or break their career."
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