Robert DeLong is more than your average singer/songwriter. This one-man band has a way of weaving electronic beats with indie rock that drives his audience to initiate a full-blown rave. His sound is catchy enough to be classified as “pop,” but still manages to be interesting, unexpected and entirely his own.
The young musician got his start early on. His father played drums, and he began drumming when he was just 10 years old. By high school, he knew he wanted to do something with music.
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DeLong says that music is a form of mind control. “As a performer, you have this power over people, and in fact you have the ability to guide people emotionally through an experience,” he says. “If you attach any sort of lyrical or thematic message there, you have a means of delivering a message to people without them necessarily being cognizant of it.”
With a background in audio engineering, DeLong’s approach to songwriting is far from typical. He says he is more “clinical and analytical about music than a lot of people. Because of that, I really spend a lot of time thinking about how to compose songs and what their function would be—what they do to people.”
Behind his hypnotic beats, DeLong’s powerful vocals echo, his lyrics packed with his philosophies on life and living through music. He truly tries to share a message with his audience through every unpredictable song. “But then on the other side,” he adds, “I’m also just this dude messing around with stuff, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.”
During his performances, DeLong can be caught doing anything from singing into multiple microphones, sitting at his drums, jumping around the stage, or controlling his beats with a Wii remote. He wanted to be different, and he has definitely accomplished that.
“You want to create things that stick out. And I think because of that, it allows people to kind of get into it more and experience the music a little bit more,” he says.
He has a “rave troop” that helps him with this goal—his girlfriend and friends have greatly contributed towards his image. His girlfriend once painted a simple, orange “X” on each side of his headphones. It became his symbol. Now he sports the image on his T-shirts, and it is often painted on his face and the faces’ of audience members as well.
DeLong has released two albums, his EP, Global Concepts (2012) and Just Movement (2013). The latter was assembled over the course of four years and began as a collection of songs the artist had been writing. He had been searching for a way to fuse his favorite genres (indie, rock, folk, electronic), but it wasn’t until he began to perform these songs that their direction changed and he found this sound.
He says he is happy as long as “wasted kids in the audience” are enjoying the music, but he still wants to be remembered. How does this fascinating, talented man want to be remembered? Well, how all of us want to be remembered, of course: “As taller than Daniel Radcliffe and shorter than Conan ‘O Brien.”
Robert DeLong is more than your average singer/songwriter. This one-man band has a way of weaving electronic beats with indie rock that drives his audience to initiate a full-blown rave. His sound is catchy enough to be classified as “pop,” but still manages to be interesting, unexpected and entirely his own.
The young musician got his start early on. His father played drums, and he began drumming when he was just 10 years old. By high school, he knew he wanted to do something with music.
DeLong says that music is a form of mind control. “As a performer, you have this power over people, and in fact you have the ability to guide people emotionally through an experience,” he says. “If you attach any sort of lyrical or thematic message there, you have a means of delivering a message to people without them necessarily being cognizant of it.”
With a background in audio engineering, DeLong’s approach to songwriting is far from typical. He says he is more “clinical and analytical about music than a lot of people. Because of that, I really spend a lot of time thinking about how to compose songs and what their function would be—what they do to people.”
Behind his hypnotic beats, DeLong’s powerful vocals echo, his lyrics packed with his philosophies on life and living through music. He truly tries to share a message with his audience through every unpredictable song. “But then on the other side,” he adds, “I’m also just this dude messing around with stuff, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.”
During his performances, DeLong can be caught doing anything from singing into multiple microphones, sitting at his drums, jumping around the stage, or controlling his beats with a Wii remote. He wanted to be different, and he has definitely accomplished that.
“You want to create things that stick out. And I think because of that, it allows people to kind of get into it more and experience the music a little bit more,” he says.
He has a “rave troop” that helps him with this goal—his girlfriend and friends have greatly contributed towards his image. His girlfriend once painted a simple, orange “X” on each side of his headphones. It became his symbol. Now he sports the image on his T-shirts, and it is often painted on his face and the faces’ of audience members as well.
DeLong has released two albums, his EP, Global Concepts (2012) and Just Movement (2013). The latter was assembled over the course of four years and began as a collection of songs the artist had been writing. He had been searching for a way to fuse his favorite genres (indie, rock, folk, electronic), but it wasn’t until he began to perform these songs that their direction changed and he found this sound.
He says he is happy as long as “wasted kids in the audience” are enjoying the music, but he still wants to be remembered. How does this fascinating, talented man want to be remembered? Well, how all of us want to be remembered, of course: “As taller than Daniel Radcliffe and shorter than Conan ‘O Brien.”
Robert DeLong performs at 1:45 p.m., Saturday, September 7 on the Forest Park Stage. For more info, visit our LouFest Guide, or go to loufest.com.
