Patrick Rock

Tonight I am starting a new section of my blog: “People I Admire”

Lets start with this:

Patrick Rock

What can I say about this guy? Actually a lot.

I’ll start with this. I bought his original EP on the way to Chapel Hill, NC to celebrate the 4th of July with a former college roommate — I believe this was in 2000. I listened to it twice on the way from Greensboro as the trip is about an hour. I was suitably impressed by the quality of the writing in music.

I was in a band way back in like 2000-2002. We weren’t very good to be honest but Patrick would give us slots in between his sets to play acoustically and was incredibly generous. Needless to say the band didn’t go much of anywhere but it sure as hell gave me a lot of memories, most of them positive. Patrick made a huge impression on me as a person and it stuck. In 2002 he released ‘Recovering from Silence”, his first full album under the Patrick Rock Band band name. The band enjoyed regional success and traveled beyond the North Carolina boundaries over the next few years promoting it.

Patrick continued to play with different lineups as the ‘Patrick Rock Band’ until 2007 when he took a long break. In the break he played for cover bands while working on his own new material in private.

In 2009 he released his long awaited for new album under his own name titled ‘When All Else Fails’, produced and released by Nascent Republic Records. The album brings together all the best of Patrick under one umbrella of great music. It is still the album I have played the most on my personal computer according to iTunes.

So after everything I have said previously, I am not writing this post to promote Patrick as an artist but rather as a great person. Patrick is simply one of the best people I know. He is generous to a fault, as you might have gathered from my previous text. As an example he used to invite me to back him up when he played solo acoustic gigs regularly — and quite frankly I am not the best vocalist. But he knew and knows that I love to sing and would indulge me regardless.

This is a guy who meets the basketball definition of a player who makes everyone else better through his own presence. He is supremely talented, whether it’s through his vocal talents, guitar skills, or personal endeavors. I believe everyone who knows him would say something similar. I am proud to call him a friend - if just on a small-time level. - Clifton Thomas

In the valley separating rookie guitar slingers from seasoned rock stars stands Greensboro musician Patrick Rock, working in the studio on his first album in six years.

Aside from the rigors of writing and recording a rock album, he must also pacify Ireland, his seven-month-old baby girl, at the same time.

Co-producer and engineer Josh Seawell tinkers on the alt-country song "All I Want," while Rock says, "We need to move that 'beeb, boo, beeng!' sound up and over one-half measure."

Suddenly, Ireland starts to sound a little restless, so Rock whips around to scoop her up, make a goofy face and coo, "Daddy, daddy, bah, bah, bah!"

It works. Ireland relaxes again while her father pats her back to the beat of his song.

Seawell says Ireland is the first baby to ever visit his recording studio."But she's not the first person to act like a baby in this studio," Rock says. "She does really well in here, and if we've worked on a particular song for too long, she'll let us know."

Before the baby and the solo album, Rock was the lead member of Patrick Rock Band. The Triad-based group toured the Southeast for seven years, performing on the same stages as groups Uncle Cracker, Sister Hazel and Cowboy Mouth until they broke up in 2006.

Now that Rock is used to playing without a regular group of musicians, he's adjusting to family life, writing fresh material and learning that the best way to continue an artist's journey might very well be to strike a new beginning.

The singer-songwriter plans to give his debut solo album, "When All Else Fails," a soft release sometime in March.

Born to Rock

With a name like Rock, he says there are many people who joke that he was born to do just that. His mother, Jeanne Farrell, would have disagreed. As a nondenomination pastor, she and Rock's stepfather attempted to curb her son's worldly influences outside the church.

"I'm not trying to say she was mean or anything, but church came first before school, before sports, before anything," Rock says. "She used to say, 'If you could watch TV for three hours, you can go to church for three hours, too."

Rock's mother didn't ban all music from her household, only the kind that didn't exemplify her religious world view. Still, she encouraged Rock's interest in music by buying him his first electric guitar in his early teens. But the only way he could practice songs by secular artists such as Boston, Pink Floyd or the Beatles was to say they were written by some Christian rock band from Denmark.

"It was anything you could do in order to get away with it, because she didn't know," Rock says.

He adds that his mother started to lighten up towards his love of rock before she passed away in 1994 as the result of heart trouble. She was 44. Rock was 17.

"I was devastated. It was a shocker, a complete shocker," Rock says. "There's certain things that bug you, and some of it's for selfish reasons, like she never met my wife, she never met my daughter, she never heard me perform live and progress to where I am today."

Rock's parents divorced when he was two, and when he moved in with his biological father in Greensboro in 1991, the aspiring musician was granted free range in terms of his listening material. It was during this time that Rock also befriended Seawell, who attended the same high school as Rock.

"My dad introduced me to everything from the Stones, Chet Atkins, Robert Cray and different kinds of things," Rock says. "I learned normalcy. With him, it was just normal."

The making of a band

Rock had his Greensboro debut playing a solo acoustic gig at Corner Bar on Spring Garden Street. In 1999, he along with Joshua Reynolds on drums and Chris Carroll on bass formed Patrick Rock Band.

The band roster changed members throughout its existence -- including Joey Barnes of Daughtry fame on bass -- and together they released three albums, including a four-song EP and two full-length discs, "Hits from the Side" and "Recovering from Silence." All of this happened within seven years during which Patrick Rock Band developed a strong following, especially among audiences in Greensboro and Winston-Salem.

Then the band called it quits.

A slight tone of regret is present in Rock's voice when he recalls the event, but he's cautious not to single out or blame any of his former bandmates for the demise of the group.

"I think the best thing to say is that we were tired and overworked, and it was just time to take a break," Rock says.

Going solo

Adjusting to playing without his band of seven years put Rock's creative life in a tailspin. He took a break from performing his own music to play guitar for other local groups and cover bands such as Walrus. He also started to write new music.

The fresh material started to collect, so Rock collaborated with Seawell (he also recorded Patrick Rock Band's final album) on a solo effort, "When All Else Fails."

"It turned into a 'when all else fails' si - Greensboro News & Record