Who is Rob Chiavelli?

I would like to think that if you listen to the songs you would get the picture, but I suppose it goes deeper than that...

Where the Music Came From

I was born in New York and raised in Ossining and Croton. I got my first guitar at around 12. Had about 3 lessons from a friend of my mother and just started doing my own thing.

 It was nothing but noise for a few years until a friend who was already a seasoned songwriter became my jam partner. I was amazed that he would want to play with me and this was a major encouragement. We spent countless all nighters making music in my parents basement for years. Always creating, never refining what we had. We captured many sessions with a cassette boom box and some of the tapes are under my bed in a maxed shoe box. Some of the classic 45 minute (one side of a tape) stoner excursions include, "Ginger Meets the Skunk", "Music For Insects", "Kenny's Haircut" and others. Incidentally, I have no idea who Kenny is...or was.

So, around 84 or 85 I had started keeping a journal and that morphed into poetry. At the same time my doodles on guitar were starting to have some structure. Another friend suggested that the two should be merged and thus begins the song writing.

I then went through various derailments that kept the music on the way back burner for about three years.

On the other side of the derailments, Matt and I began playing again, now getting slightly more musical and calling ourselves "Acoustic and Fuzz" and "All That Wanders". This season lasted till 91 when I moved to California. In the year before I left NY I wrote some keepers that I was proud of.

In California I continued to write and decided I didn't like being confined to standard tuning. I hated the sound of barre chords and I couldn't play them so down I went into the depths of the first experimental alternate tunings. I had been listening to people like Michael Hedges but honestly, I tuned down just to find my own sound. I never once to this day have tried to figure out someone else's tuning although I have cranked into tunings that others have recognized.

From 91-94 I wrote a few songs that I may resurrect at some point. "Empty Faces" came from that time. There were some really interesting early alternate tuning 4 track recordings from that period that I hope I can someday find again. 

A New Road

In November of 94, in the midst of my yearning for something real, Jesus Christ revealed Himself to me. No, that doesn't mean I saw Him, but I was given a new life and I began to grow and change. He removed, as if by surgery, my desire for drugs. Completely. Absolutely miraculous.

The next several years were a mix of beginning to grow on the surface in my new faith, while still not dealing with underlying issues that remained.

During the first few years on this new road, I wrote a handful of songs from my new perspective. "Spotlight" and "The Gift" are from this time period. I was recruited to "lead worship" in a church when I had no business being in that position. Never-the-less, I am thankful for the experience.

These years were a great burden as I now see that I was caught up in trying to look like a Christian while deeply burdened by my underlying problems. I experienced a failed marriage of 12 years during this time. 

Needless to say, the music found it's way once again to the way back burner during this season.

On the heels of the divorce I experienced another relationship that absolutely destroyed me. This is not the place for any more detail than that but suffice it to say, I was emptied, undone and I knew not who I was. I was lost all over again.

As the dust cleared from that season, in November 2008, after living in my car for 6 months, I found myself settled in to a rented room right down the street from an open mic night. I created this website and committed myself to the full pursuit of my music asking God to lead me through it. I began writing for my own healing and restoration. I began playing open mics regularly and started getting my own gigs.

Since November 2008 I have written a plethora of material both instrumental and lyrical in various tunings. All of this material, be it completed songs or just ideas, has been captured in raw form with a digital recorder and filed chronologically. I have a lot to get back to if my writing dries up. At this time I have 4 albums penciled out that I need to record.

So....

Is This Christian Music?

Well, I am not one for categories, clichés or status quo. I despise such attempts to quarantine nuance and individuality into nice neat packages. And yes, I have an attitude about it. Capiche?

What is "Christian music"? I would ask rather, does this music glorify God? I believe it does because it is an authentic and honest depiction of the ups and downs of my journey with Him. Some songs may simply be poetic observations or reflections but should be interpreted in context with all of my work.

I write what has to come out of me as I wander along this strategically guided path. I believe most of what I write is for a specific handful of people. I don't try to write this or that kind of song or music. I do see music as a tool for my own therapy and artistic expression and I do pray as I write...most of the time.

So, for the sake of clearing up any ambiguity that will surface in my music from time to time as I pursue artistic freedom and poetic licence, I am exclusively, unapologetically a Christian, but I am  also a flawed human being that has much common ground with the dirty and the broken.

In fact, we are all dirty and broken to varying degrees and I am much more comfortable with people who are honest about this as they work out the bugs than people who run around spewing clichés and living in a bubble world. 

I hope you can find an amen in your heart to some of the lyrics

and a stirring peace in the instrumentals.

Welcome to my

Acoustic Mood Groove.

~ Rob Chiavelli 

4:19 AM, Feb. 8, 2011