All about Rob (Drums)

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Rob ~ Drums & Percussion

The Musical History of Rob Wooley

I first picked up a pair of sticks at the age of 14, at school in a music class. I was a classical pianist at the time, (up to grade 5) but managed to forget all I had learnt as soon as I started to bang the drums. Within a year I was in my first band.

Vicious circle 1989 – 1991. This was a rock covers band made up mainly of bikers playing local pubs and clubs in the York area.

Mr Bruckman 1992 – 1995. Now this was an original rock band, which was a 5 piece. We made quite a stir in our local area but as so often happens the band disbanded just as we were making headway, (shame).

Chaplin 1995 – 1999. Original rock band from Scarborough. We wrote some fantastic material, which allowed us to enter the LIVE AND LOUD national unsigned bands competition. We managed to win the regional heat at Nottingham rock city, and finished up in 4^th place in the final, which was held at the hackney ocean; great feet as there were 2500 bands that entered. As it turns out this was the kiss of death as the band soon after split due to far too many egos.

Snatch 1999 – 2001. This was a 3-piece alternative Punk/Rock covers band, playing such songs as karma chameleon and I will survive in a punk rock style (raised a few eyebrows). I joined the band to try and have a bit of fun after thinking I needed a break from the original side of music (far too serious), I had allot of fun with this band and was saddened I had to leave due to a house re-location to hull.

The Senses 2002 – 2005. Again I tried the original side of the music scene with this 3-piece garage rock band. Finally I found this band had no ego trips to contend with (a rare thing). Had great success with this band, we played with the Paddingtons, Ten thousand things, The Cribbs and was offered numerous gigs in New York USA with The Stokes. A feat again which didn’t materialise due to our bassist moving away, and so that saw the demise of that band.

Zhain July 06 – Oct 06. Now this was the biggest mistake of my life, it was a 3-piece original rock 70s band reformed to give things another go. They needed a drummer for a world tour which had been booked and was ready to go, Yer right, this band had the worst organisation skills I had ever seen. As you can see I lasted an awful 4 months before I lost my sanity and went mad, so I left, thank god.

U2opia March 07 – present. I must admit up to this point I’d seriously thought of giving up on music and drumming for good, but I guess it’s in the blood. I knew I needed to find another that I could stick with which had all the right factors and ethics in place to really have a good go at it again and have some great fun play with great musicians and hopefully earn a bit of money along the way. Well I found this and more when I agreed to join U2opia. The songs are challenging to play but with the guys on board it all seems so easy (maybe too easy sometimes). I’ve never been in or even heard of a band that could and does create such a quality sound with what seems like hardly any effort at all.

Equipment:

Ludwig drums.

Live Use....

Ludwig drums!  and sticks of some description... hmmm.