Meditation and the Saints: A Conversation With Rocky Votolato

As Rocky Votolato sings the words “I just wanna be free” in the song “Instrument” on his latest album True Devotion, you can hear in the underlying quiver of his voice some of the pain he’s been through. He’s just like most of us. He’s visited the darker places offered to us in the spectrum of human experience. And being one of the lucky ones, he’s lived to tell about it.

I sat down and gave Rocky a call the other night. His album’s been getting some heavy rotation in the ol’ iPod, and I was really looking forward to our conversation.

Wanna hear it?

Here it go.

Circle Six Magazine: So in your bio the new album is being billed as a return to music for you after you’ve been through some hard times. Could you tell us a little about you’re story?

Rocky Votolato: Yeah, um…where are you located?

C6M: I’m in New Orleans.

RV: Oh, cool! I don’t know that I’ve ever played there. Maybe one show.

C6M: You should come on down. I love this city. I may be a little partial, but whatever.

RV: I love Harry Connick Jr.

C6M: Yeah, of course.

RV: He’s awesome. I saw him recently on an interview talking about when the Saints won the Super Bowl…about him and his mom just lovin’ it.

C6M: Yeah. You gotta be careful here, ‘cause I can just talk about the Saints for the whole interview and we’ll never actually talk about you.

RV: Ha! Was that awesome or what?

C6M: It was amazing, dude. New Orleans, we don’t win anything…especially the Saints. They’ve been losers for 43 years…

RV: It was just so cool!

C6M: It was amazing. I was watching it with my wife and her family…blah blah blah a bunch of Saints talk and maybe some talk of me in a parade wearing a dress. Suffice to say we talked about the Saints for a while before I remembered I had an interview to conduct.

RV: I love that city and the history, especially the musical heritage. But anyway, what was your first question?

C6M: Well in your bio it talks about your depression, and the album is billed as your first work since you’ve come through a lot of tough things in your life. So tell us a bit of your story, and maybe where this album fits in to your life right now.

RV: Sure. The album as a whole when I look at it now, I have a certain sense of detachment from it. It was just something that I did to get through a pretty dark period when I was dealing with my own inner demons. The album is really a product of self-introspection and self-examination, which I think is a really important thing for people to do just seeing the benefits that I’ve seen from it for myself.

Before I made the record I was pretty sick with depression and kinda general anxiety and mental illness. I think I had been for most of my life without really being aware of it. Then as I was touring on my last album called Brag and Cuss, things kinda started to fall apart around me. I just wasn’t really able to continue working in the way that I had been. I was always known for doing quite a few shows each year. I just got to the point where I couldn’t really do that anymore, and I sorta dropped out. And the album is a product of that time period.

When I look at the album now, I feel detached from it. I see it now almost as a concept album or a story about a person who is really lost and trying to find their way, and then comes to an understanding about the ways of duality and an existential understanding of this life.

C6M: Ah yes. Existentialism.

RV: I think that’s how I see it now. It walks an autobiographical curve, but there’s fiction mixed into it.

C6M: It’s got to be hard, even if you’re going for a strictly fictional storyline, it’s gotta be hard not to write yourself into something.

RV: Oh yeah, and I think you should. I always want my writing to reflect what’s happening in my life.

C6M: Right on.

RV: I think when an artist does that there’s more of a communication, and there’s an honesty and a vulnerability there that can make it easy for other people to connect to or see themselves in it. You know, I’ve never been a fan of the songwriter who says, “All this is just made up. Fiction. I’m not a part of this.” I just think that’s lame personally. Maybe that’s just because I’ve never been able to do it effectively, but I think it’s good to be in the art. But then if you go too much the other way it just sounds like a journal entry. You don’t want that either. You need there to be some art to it and not be so heart-on-your-sleeve.

C6M: It would seem to me that anyone who’s an artist and has lived through their fair share of crap in life, it’s going to come out in their work.

RV: Totally. And the trick then I think as a songwriter is to be able to do that, but do it in a way that it’s not cheesy and it’s not cliché. To where it feels fresh, but it’s also communicating something honestly.

C6M: Yeah, cliché’s a hard line to walk sometimes. I mean, everything’s been said.

RV: It’s true, but I don’t even care anymore.

C6M: Yeah?

RV: Well for me it’s just not about pleasing anyone. It’s really got nothing to do with what other people think of me. For me – this album especially – it’s just about survival.

C6M: When do you reach that plateau as an artist where you don’t care about pleasing anybody? Because when you first start out, most artists are interested in fame, for lack of a better word. Were you ever at that point?

RV: Oh sure. I’ve had dealings with that a lot throughout my career. I think that’s maybe what led me in to a darker period in my life was worrying too much about that. Because when you have any success at all, you start worrying, “Oh I need to please him, please her, please these people…what should I do next?” But then you’re listening to too many conflicting voices, and you can’t find your own voice. The only thing that’s gonna make your voice stand out from all the thousands of voices is to present your experience truthfully. And the only way to do that is to realize the spiritual truth that it makes no difference what others think of you. It’s none of your business what others think of you. It’s up to you what you think, and to be in touch with something larger than yourself and then express that. For me I kinda got that through the making of this record and I hope to hold on to that. I know it’s an easy thing to say as an ideal, but it’s really hard to practice.

C6M: It is really hard to practice day-to-day.

RV: It’s a work in progress for me.

C6M: The whole album comes across very contemplative. I’ve read that you’re into meditation. Is that something that was written in to the music purposefully in coming out of this time in your life?

RV: I feel like it wasn’t really a conscious process. The music and writing the music was part of the meditation. I feel like that was part of the process of healing for me along with learning to meditate which is kinda new for me.

C6M: Is that an every day thing for you or more of just a mindset?

RV: Oh yeah. I can’t tell you how useful it’s been. I meditate every day for at least an hour.

C6M: Nice.

RV: And I would suggest that to anyone who wants to have a better, more fulfilling life. Some people find that in different ways like gardening or just playing music. But for me I see it as a constant contact with the Source. I can kinda just chill out. There’s a million different ways to do it. All cultures through history usually come up with some sort of way to meditate. The important part is just getting still and experiencing some silence. In that silence, the ways… In a lot of ways this album talks about the ways of the ego or of Maya, delusion. The delusions of life. I think that’s why we ended up with an anchor symbol on the cover. And if you look through the lyrics, that’s a pretty consistent image.

C6M: You use the word ‘center’ a few times, and I think you even actually say the word ‘anchor’. And all of that to me is the lingo of contemplation or meditation. I read a book a while back by Richard Rohr calld Everything Belongs. He’s a Franciscan Monk in Arizona I think.

RV: Franciscan as in St. Francis?

C6M: Yeah

RV: Oh cool.

C6M: He runs a place called the Center for Action and Contemplation in Arizona or New Mexico where you can go and just chill. But anyway, his book talks about meditation, and one of the things that stuck out to me was either him or someone he was quoting said in the book that they would sit in silence until they had one true thought. To me that seems like the most impossible thing to do in the world.

RV: It’s not as daunting as you would think. The way I started was just by noticing my breath. The thing is, if you focus on your in and out breathing, you can stop yourself from thinking…just having a little break from the voices in the head.

C6M: There’s so much crap in your head all the time.

RV: Yeah! The average person has 60,000 separate thoughts every single day. It’s racing out of control. It’s the over-developed portion of the cerebral cortex.

C6M: Whoa, big words.

RV: [ignoring my stupidity] I think that’s what’s driven humanity insane. Most of humanity I think is what we would call clinically insane. If you look at what we’ve done to the planet. What we do to each other. The violence. I think this is at the core of why there’s so much suffering on the planet. I think if we could just slow down a little bit. Just slow the 60k thoughts to 30k. Your quality of life will be much better. And that’s the problem. We’re measure quality of life in the Western world by acquisition. By material success. By fame. But that’s not what happiness comes from. People aren’t happy in this country. People in countries that have much less material wealth have a much happier life. I think by slowing down we could measure success by the quality of life of an individual, and not how much money they have or houses or cars or whatever. I think mediation starts someone down the path towards a life that is more successful in terms of the quality.

C6M: Right on.

RV: And these ideas are really esoteric and abstract and really hard to communicate, but we try our best. That’s kinda where I ended up after the year of introspection and the years on the path I was on.

C6M: It is nice to read a book or hear a song by someone who can put those thoughts into words though, yeah?

RV:Yeah it’s great!

C6M: I tripped on a guy named Soren Kierkegaard for a while.

RV: Oh yeah, I know him.

C6M: Reading him put in to words some things that you feel on a base level but you never could really express… It’s the same thing as when you hear a song and you think, “I wish I could have said that to her.”

RV: Right! Totally, man. I’ve had that experience so much over the years.

C6M: Some of my favorite writers are the ones where it feels like I could have written that song.

RV: Oh, totally. Because at the end of the day, we’re all connected. It’s all part of one thing. That’s one of the bigger things that I figured out through this process that gives me a lot of piece of mind.

C6M: Kinda like Avatar.

RV: …um…yeah sorta. [awkward chuckle] I didn’t see that one.

C6M: Yeah, that might have gone over better if you’d seen the movie. Then again, maybe not.

RV: Yeah, man. It sounds hippy-dippy, but it’s the truth. I’m tired of worrying about what people think of me or what I say or what I do. You know, actions speak louder than words.

C6M: Wow. That’s profound. Can I quote you on that?

RV: Sure.

C6M: You just make that up?

RV: [not hearing, or more likely, ignoring my attempt at humor] You know, there’s just too much talking going on. If you want to teach your children or teach somebody what to do, just do it. That’s gonna stick with people more than just telling them. That’s the problem with the churches and all that.

C6M: Yeah, I’ve lived through my fair share of church stuff.

RV: And I feel like that’s Bazan’s whole kick too. [referencing a David Bazan mention earlier in conversation that now lies on the cutting room floor…I have to edit these things out or I’ll get pegged as a fanboy]

C6M: Yeah definitely.

RV: He’s reacting to having grown up in an evangelistic type situation.

C6M: That’s part of why I connect so much with him. I lived in that household.

RV: Yeah, so you know that experience well. I don’t think it works. Someone shouldn’t push their thing – whatever religion or philosophy it is – you can’t push that on people. People only learn through personal revelation. So you’ll figure your life out for you, right Jacob?

C6M: I’m hoping.

RV: Ha ha! But you don’t want someone telling you what to do.

C6M: Right. So back to the music: you’re starting your tour tomorrow?

RV: Yeah it looks that way. I’m going to Portland tomorrow. That should be fun. I think we’re doing 9 or 10 cities before I’m back in Seattle. I just got home. We flew out to New York and Chicago and did a couple of shows. Now I’m going to Portland and wrapping up and down the West Coast and back up to Seattle.

C6M: Were you in all that weather in New York?

RV: Yeah, man my flight was cancelled. We were there for the worst storm in recorded history with all that snowfall.

C6M: I’ve got a couple friends up that way, and they were trippin.

RV: Yeah it was crazy. The airport was a nightmare. I had a sold out show in Chicago when all the snow hits. Our flight was cancelled. They bumped us three times. We bought plane tickets out of Hartford, Connecticut, and just rented a car and drove up there and took a different plane. It was crazy. I got off the plane, got to the club and started the show.

C6M: Nice.

RV: We made it happen. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t cheap, but it was just one of those things where you go into survival mode.

C6M: Yeah, it turns into Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

RV: Yeah, but it worked out.

C6M: Cool. Hey, the other thing I wanted to ask you about before you go is 10% of the album’s proceeds going to One Day’s Wages. Tell us a little about that.

RV: They’re an awesome organization here in Seattle that this guy Eugene Cho and his wife started to basically get people to give one day’s wages per year to helping to alleviate extreme poverty all over the world. Eugene is in Haiti now working with people. But they started out by donating everything they made for an entire year. His family was just an average, working class family, but they found a way to sell their belongings and kinda live a way that’s less materialistic. So that story was really inspiring to me. They reached out to me right around the time that I was finishing up the album, and asked if I could partner with them. I looked at it and thought it was really cool, and that I’d like to be a part of something that kinda puts the message out that a less materialistic focus is better for our planet and our children. It goes back to what I was saying about actions and teaching your children. If you want to teach them that selflessness is important, and that true fulfillment only comes from the fulfillment of others, then do it.

Check out rockyvotolato.com for a copy of the new album and tour details…and take a minute to look at One Day’s Wages while you’re at it.

by Jacob Taylor

If you wanna get in touch with me and tell me how cute I am since I shaved the beard, you can reach me at jacob[at]circlesixmagazine[dot]com.