DUBLIN

2000 -

OVERVIEW What do you get if cross the sound of The Stone Roses and The Beatles with a little Irish solo twist? The answer is a young 22 year old Dublin musician called Rob Smith. Rob jacked in his drums many moons ago for a more spotlight position of guitarist/vocalist. Only he really is doing it alone. Rob started off his musical career as the drummer for Beatles influenced band The Gears in 1997 who played the usual circuit before calling it a day in 2000. Over the next year or so Rob would spend the next while writing songs that would feature on his demo CD called "The Soul Shaker L.P." in which all instruments Rob would play entirely himself. This CD, merely a demo, has won praise from some highly established musicians such as Tony McGuinness (Aslan), Mark Coyle (producer of Oasis' Definitely Maybe), Aidan Lonergan (thesoupmusic.com on 103.2fm), Brendan Hickey (On The Verge), Christy Dignam (Aslan), Peter Lacey (Liquid Sunshine), Peter Deary (a.k.a. Digsy - he of Oasis song "Digsy's Dinner" fame) and many more. Rob played many really small pubs around Dublin for quite a while. But he didn't get a taste of big crowds until he was asked to perform with his good friends The Complete Stone Roses (now The Stone Roses Experience) at places such as The Olympia Theatre, Witnness Festival 2003 and the Glasgow Garage, where Rob would perform percussion on tracks with the band. Rob has gone on to go on tour with the band as a support act at many venues, including the very prestigious Olympia Theatre on a couple of nights. Rob has also played support to Irish rock veterans Aslan, and to this day still occasionally supports them at various venues (big and small) around the country. He spent nearly all of the summer of 2004 touring with Aslan all over Ireland from Westport to Arklow and Tullamore to Dundalk and so on. The highlight so far with Aslan was playing support to them for one night, the night before new year's eve 2004, to a packed, sell out crowd at Dublin's Vicar Street where his 30 minute set was recieved extremely well by the huge crowd. Christy Dignam, singer with Aslan, has commented on how well Rob performs and spoke highly on his music and guitar work. Biography taken from the Official Rob Smith Website 2008 - Release of 'Throwing It All Away' album