Roderick August

Roderick grew up playing piano, self taught by learning whatever MTV was playing in the early 2000’s. With no musicians in his family and no formal training, he took an “anything goes” approach to art. He discovered his voice by chance after being coerced into singing Ray Charles at a Filipino karaoke party. By high school, he adopted the guitar and songwriting above a GPA while spending time in various indie bands around Ventura County. Shortly after high school he was discovered by a small Nashville publishing company and was soon off to Tennessee to live the air conditioned and often, isolated life of a songwriter. All there was to do in Nashville for him was write, record, write, record and he began to wonder when things would shift back to a stage, an audience, an experience involving more people than himself. He began traveling back to his home state of California more often, initially as a release but all the back and forth began to have a strong pull on his sound. The carefree, let it flow sound he originally harnessed while in California was now being married to the roots and bluesy aura that grew on him in Tennessee. From Elton John to Dylan, Ryan Adams to Alabama Shakes, and in the spirit of honest songwriting everywhere, Roderick August is about something real. The underlying emotion of whats happening on stage is this, “boom!”.