Artist Spotlight:
Rob-E

Robert “Rob-E” Perkins composed songs such as “(For Children) Christmas Day Begins at Midnight”, “It’s Been a Long Time (Since I’ve Seen the Ocean)” and “Images of Light” over thirty years ago, while still in high school, and he has been singing them to himself and playing them on piano ever since. However, he never sought to actually release any music until social distancing required by the pandemic and advancements in home-studio technology made home-studio music production more widely acceptable.

“I started playing piano at age 5, then took up trumpet, and sang in the West Feliciana High School choir. I played bass guitar in my sister’s band, Curl, while at LSU, but avoided pursing a career in music because I didn’t want the stress of touring tearing apart my personal life.” – Robert “Rob-E” Perkins

Instead of pursuing a career in music at that time, Robert spent the next 30 years working as a Software Developer, something he finds rewarding and continues to this day. However, his personal programming projects are now being focused on DAW plug-ins and other tools for creating, enhancing and promoting music.

Thirty years later, with social distancing caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and improved home recording options available, he saw that the “playing field” had been leveled a bit, making studio recording more acceptable, so he decided to try his hand at music production from his home studio. He started by remixing other’s music, to hone his skills on digital audio workstations and entered several remix contests, proving to be a educational experience and resulting in two remixes being included on the original artist’s EP. These two tracks, “Shattered (Rob-E Remix)” and “Across the Sky (Rob-E Remix)” were both remixes of EDM songs by Marco Lang and became the first two songs on Rob-E’s Spotify Artist page.

Some of the abovementioned contests allowed for original songs and, while the competition was fierce and he didn’t win those, he received some favorable feedback on those songs and plans to refine them and release them in improved forms in the coming year or two. Additionally, Rob-E looks forward to arranging and recording some original takes on some of his favorite songs, planning to release covers of iconic songs such as Elton John’s “Rocketman” and Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called To Say I Love You”.