Rodello's Machine

Today we talk to another one of our talented clients! Get to know Kolby Knickerbocker, musician extraordinaire. He has dazzled our studio with his smile and musical stylings, and we thought it was about time we introduced him to all our friends out in the blogosphere. And we're just in time, too! Kolby and his group, Rodello's Machine, have a big concert coming up this week with one of our studio-stereo favorite, Blues Traveler, and he was happy to tell us all about it.


Hi Kolby! Thanks for taking the time to join us online. :) We've got lots of questions, but first things first, tell us about your group, Rodello's Machine. What are your influences?

Rodello's Machine is a project created between myself and Nate Donnis. We are both seasoned song-writers with different approaches to the whole process but we felt as though we could blend our styles into a very unique sound. It really is a blend of both mine and Nate's tastes in musical production. Nate brings the earthy tones in both his voice and song-writing skills and I feel as though I bring an outer-worldly, sometimes stochastic production value to the whole mix. The image I always think of when I think of our project is a big oak tree with brilliant swirls of light dancing around. I think that image best conveys what Rodello's Machine is.

We both like Fleet Foxes, Noah and the Whale, Bon Iver, Jonsi and Imogen Heap. You can see all of those artists coming through in our song-writing and production. Really, anything that has a new sound that makes me go "Huh, now how did they make that sound?".

How did you and Nate meet? Were you making your own music before you became a "machine"? :)

Haha, I like that. Yes, we were both making music before we became the Machine. I met Nate through his wife at a yoga studio we both attended. I told her I was a musician and she thought that I had a good energy that would blend well with Nate. Me and Nate met a few times and found that we worked well together.


Nate has an album out with his other group. They're called The Donnis Trio and the album is "All Directions". They're a pretty popular group in SD and the album has been featured on some international television series. I also had a previous project called Kitty's Musicbox and I released an album titled "The Science Project". You can find both of those albums on iTunes. That may actually give you a good sense of where we come from musically and how we blend our sounds.

Are you currently recording an album? Where can our readers find your music?

Yes, we are currently recording an album that will be ready for release sometime next year. You can best keep up with the tracks as they come out by going to our website at www.rodellosmachine.com and signing up for our email list. Once you do that you can download our tracks and be kept up-to-date about all of our releases.

We hear you have a concert coming up. What can you tell us about that?

Yeah, we're both super stoked. We're playing at the BellyUp Tavern in Solana Beach which is an amazing venue to begin with but to sweeten the pot, we will be opening up for Blues Traveler. Me and Nate are both really excited as we've got a nice, well packed set-list that we think is going to blow the roof off.


The show is on Wednesday, Sept 29th and we go on at 8:00pm. You can get tickets at: http://www.bellyup.com/show/detail/33017. You may want to hurry though as I heard it's selling out pretty quickly.

You're an actor as well, which probably means you've had a lot of headshots taken. :) Choosing the right photographer is a big decision. What brought you to Kelsey's door?

You're absolutely correct. You want to capture the feeling of a headshot more so than a pretty face. I came to Kelsey because she's known in the industry as being able to capture the energy/feeling of the moment. I think in the digital age of photography, anyone can capture light in a camera and make it look good. Kelsey knows how to capture that essence of the person or place she is capturing which is still a very delicate art.


And are you happy with your shots?

Very much so. She did some exquisite shots for me. I actually went back for a second shoot because my agent wanted a different look that we didn't capture. She was completely available for the second time around and was happy to re-shoot for me.

One last question! If our readers want to get tickets for the show, where should they go?

Ahh, yes, good question. Go to the BellyUp website at: http://www.bellyup.com/show/detail/33017 for ticket info and to get tickets online.