Rocco DeLuca Fan.com

September 28, 2007

Being discovered can happen in unlikely ways, writes Andrew Murfett.

WHEN you’re a young musician looking for a big break, it can pay to make some friends in high places. Finding a fan in actor Kiefer Sutherland has certainly paid dividends for Rocco Deluca. Four years ago, the blues-based singer-songwriter was playing his usual Tuesday night at an Orange County bar when Sutherland, best known for his role in 24, arrived.

When they chatted post-gig, Deluca learned that Sutherland was dismayed with the music business and wanted to help unsigned artists by setting up a label and recording studio. Deluca was the first sign up.

His debut album, I Trust You Not To Kill Me, was released in the US last year, where it has become a break-out hit. Eighteen months later, after wowing the world’s press at the South By Southwest music festival earlier this year, it arrives in Australian stores this week.

A life-long musician raised in Longbeach, California, Deluca says it wasn’t until that Tuesday night that his music became a serious career.

“At that time, I had lost pretty much everything that meant something to me,” he says.

His life was falling apart. Deluca’s relationship with the mother of his son (now eight) had ended. Relations with his other family members had also frayed. His 40 minutes on the Gypsy Lounge stage every Tuesday was therapeutic.

“I could do whatever I wanted,” he says. “Early on, there was nobody there, and I was playing to the bartenders. Sometimes I’d experiment and bring a sitar.”

The slot caught on. A few months in, the club was packed each week. Enter Sutherland. Deluca’s impressive live show had the actor keen to sign him and with funding finally behind him, Deluca quickly recorded his debut album.

“I was grateful that when I was making the record, there was a lot of things built up inside of me,” he says.

“I didn’t realise some of the things I was writing until later on. I really felt like I had something to say that was relevant. I’m proud of how it happened.”

Deluca had an outstanding, though somewhat unorthodox, musical education. The son of one of Bo Diddley’s backing guitarists, his childhood was full of music. Picking up a musical instrument for him was like “eating food or watching TV for anybody else”.

Still, even though he was eventually in Sutherland’s corner and finally making his musical dreams come true, self doubts continually surfaced.

“I didn’t grow up around a lot of successful people,” he says.

“I grew up around a lot of people who sabotaged themselves.”

Many of those doubts are captured in the engrossing documentary that shares the same name as his album.

The film follows the band on their first European tour, in which Sutherland incongruously served as tour manager. Directed by Frenchman Manu Boyer, the documentary records Sutherland’s firm belief in his protege and demonstrates the lengths he will go to for the band’s cause. (This includes handing out flyers in freezing weather and packing and unloading the band’s gear.)

The film, of course, was more interested in Sutherland than Deluca and his band, and ultimately chronicles the actor’s benders as much as the band’s exploits.

It’s no secret that by the film’s conclusion, Sutherland was dismissed from tour management duties. It was a strange situation for a musician who was essentially mired in obscurity and mounting his first overseas tour.

“For a whole month they followed me around with a camera. All I could think was that they were filming me learn and fail.

“Boyer is a very honest, guerilla-like filmmaker and he was brutally honest about our travels. We had no promotion and we had a tour manager who had never done anything like that in his life. It was really absurd, I love everybody for doing it, but at the same time, I’m hugely bewildered that it got on tape and shown at film festivals.”

With his album’s Australian release, Deluca arrives on our shores for a promotional tour as a virtual unknown. It’s a situation that frustrates and galvanises him.

“The hardest thing about being a new artist is that you’re new for such a long time,” he says.

“For me, it’s ultra frustrating, because I write everyday. In my head, I’m on my 20th album.

“One of the saving graces is that I grew up playing to the room. I never play the same set twice. Every room is different and we reinvent the songs live quite a lot. Every night, I try and see it through the new people’s eyes and it makes it new for me, too.”

Now based in Los Angeles, where he rents a room from an Australian landlord, Deluca says he is hoping to record a new album in December. In the meantime, he says Sutherland remains the band’s biggest fan. And, perhaps, its biggest impediment.

“I think Kiefer would overshadow anything. It’s just a given. He’s such a huge figure in pop culture, its hard not to be around that shadow. But he’s one of the coolest human beings I’ve ever met. I’m just proud to be his friend.”

Rocco Deluca’s debut album, I Trust You Not To Kill Me, is out this week through Universal Music. The documentary is available on DVD through amazon.com.