Nine months after a zany jazz sax player from Seattle found himself in bed again with the same tragically enchanting folk singer who mothered his first love child, love child number two was born. Three months after that, the drugs wore off, and she named him Rock Solomon.
For the first part of his life, which is mostly a blur, Rock Solomon traveled around living in old panel vans, trucks and busses from the 1940’s and 50’s with his mother. They often had religious or anti-communist propaganda written on the sides in giant block letters you could read from a hundred feet away. His mothers life was locked in a chaotic spiral since her own childhood, and her answer was to live her life constantly on the run, blaming society for just about everything. As a result, Rock Solomon spent most of his early years living in conditions only slightly better then 3rd world standards. Often without power, pluming, running water, or even a building to live in. Of course, as a kid, he thought this was simply the norm and didn’t see much else until his musician father won custody of him when he was 10. Then Rock Solomon discovered things like TV, public school, power windows, and the strangest thing of all, stability.
A few short years later though, this stability turned into isolation, as his father’s paying gigs were almost entirely in the city. When the commute proved too much, a few days alone gradually turned into a few weeks alone, and then finally Rock Solomon found himself alone for months at a time, barely a teenager, with no supervision, no rules, his own cabin on the beach, and little more then a TV, radio and a half-dozen instruments for company. He learned to grocery shop for himself, clean the house, and get to school each day all on his own. He also found that playing around with the piano, drums, guitar and other instruments was a good way to pass the time.
Eventually, Rock Solomon grew so free thinking, and independent, that when his father would come home to parent, he found Rock impossible to control. He became locally known as the ‘wild child’ who always fought with the rich summer kids. At 16 he bought a beat-up car for 50 bucks and all hell broke loose. The uncontrollable wild-child had been released, to run amuck, now at the wheel of a mostly destroyed ’79 Datson hatchback.
When it was time to leave home and enter society, Rock Solomon had no life-skills of any kind. He dropped out of high school, got in trouble with the law, and was on the run shortly after his 18th birthday. After a couple years, he found his life echoing that of his mothers. In a desperate attempt to change his life’s direction, he abandoned everything and fled to Key West to start over. He arrived with no money, no friends, and slept on the beaches at first. In the few short years that he spent there, he managed to change everything about his story. He went to college, studied art, music, photography and acting, as well as getting certified in SCUBA, won several art grants, performed leading roles in plays, performed in bands, won a music contest on MTV, was featured in New York Times, Traveled to Cuba, wrote a play and a movie, built a recording studio, recorded three albums, made several short films and a feature, discovered romance and new friends, and changed the entire course of his life through his passion & determination.
All these elements of his history are in his music. The sounds and lyrics speak of the stories, the conflict, travel, romance, the optimism of his life, and what he sees with the focused, free thinking mind of a harnessed wild child.
