Rob Upton - Guitar & Piano

Rob’s start in music was a rather sceptical one to say the least. “My father bought himself a small keyboard when I was very young – three or four,” he tells us. “Even at that age I was determined that anything he could do, I would do a lot better.” Having fallen so head over heels for the art in subsequent childhood years, you may have thought his passion would have come more from the heart than sheer single-mindedness. “My dad tells me that’s how it happened,” he continues. “I’m not sure how true it is; I think it’s some kind of pep-talk reminder of how determined I should be. To not be beaten by things.”

Before he could even read confidently and having lost his father at such piano classics as Handel’s Largo and Holst’s Jupiter, he was shipped off to a Piano Teacher and spent the following years studying up to his Grade 8 piano that he achieved at the young age of 15. “Luckily, I hadn’t really discovered girls by then. I hardly practiced and took a bit of natural ability all the way to Grade 8. On top of that I had GCSEs to study for. I know full well if girls had come onto the scene before I’d done my grades, the piano would have fallen to the wayside all too quickly.”

Having picked up various instruments along the way (namely Guitar, Violin, Bass Guitar, Saxophone and drums) and constantly been involved in bands since the age of 11, it founded in Rob a sense of musical awareness that has stuck with him to this day. “I’m lucky in the sense that I can listen to others whilst I’m playing. Be it as the soloist in a Piano Concerto with an orchestra of 50 people behind you or being the member of a closely-knit 3-piece brass section in a jazz band. It comes with playing music with other people of every style, ability and personality. You learn a lot from being in a room with two or three other people for a couple of hours at a time.”

His first love was that of the classics; not just the Chopin, Rachmaninov and Beethoven he was learning for his Piano grades but taking an avid interest in the cassettes he found lying around the house; namely landmark albums by Dire Straits, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen and Jethro Tull to name a few. “That was my dad’s taste. I think it’s healthy to be inquisitive and not dismissive about any music. Students are forever surprising me with odd guilty pleasures that their friends would spend a week trying to stop laughing over”.

But did this obsession with 70s and 80s rock stick? “Thankfully not! A friend at primary school bought in his elder sister’s Guns ‘n Roses’ Use Your Illusion II album and we spent many happy lunchtimes giggling like little girls over the quite obscene lyrics. Rightly or wrongly, they were my first music obsession and I love their albums to this day!”

Just one look at his CD collection will give you an idea of what musical bases Rob has touched over the years. From Amy Winehouse to Avenged Sevenfold and Ben Folds Five to Black Sabbath in just a couple of spaces. “It is pretty eclectic; Drum ‘n Bass, Jazz Fusion, Blues, Hardcore Punk, Math-Rock and a lot of metal – it’s in all there. It’s a good selection but there’s always days when I stand in front of these bookcases just filled to the brim with CDs and I can’t find anything to play. That’s when I know it’s time to get out my credit card and get onto Amazon and start filling up some gaps.”