The musical misfit finds his way

Despite a dysfunctional upbringing and an odd choice of instruments, Rocco DeLuca is on the verge of success, writes Tony Clayton-Lea

It's unlikely you'll have heard the name, but we can virtually guarantee that before the end of 2006 you'll be hearing plenty of chit-chat about Rocco DeLuca. For starters, Long Beach resident DeLuca has the kind of dysfunctional background that the media love to hear about: a child of hippie parents - a mother who dropped out of his life when he was a baby, and whom he met for the first time only a couple of years ago ("she was a casualty of the 1960s" is all Rocco will say, which is pretty much all he needs to say), and a travelling musician father who would sporadically venture back into Rocco's young life, take him out of school and on the road. Such visits, says Rocco, would begin in high adventure and end in drama and abandonment.

"Actually, the press release version of my early life is pretty much the mild one," says DeLuca. "Growing up the way I grew up was kinda normal to me. When you're in it, you don't really notice it. It's only recently that I've reflected on things, visited some ghosts. When you're a kid and you're growing up in a particular environment, you don't know anything else, you think it's the norm.

"For the most part, I was looked after by my grandparents. I'd be pulled out from the house every now and then for this or that reason - my dad would try to come back into my life again, and then I'd leave school for a while. But my grandmother would always send someone to retrieve me. If it hadn't been for her I wouldn't have finished school at all - she was my saving grace, 100 per cent. Every time I was in a jam she would send someone to go get me. People ask me is it fair to say that I'm from a dysfunctional family? Absolutely - there really couldn't be a better description."

Cause and effect; the kind of environment DeLuca was forced into at such a young age influenced his own lifestyle. He recalls from the age of eight picking up one of his father's guitars and playing in a bar. "Between my father and his two brothers I was surrounded constantly by musical instruments - there were always very late jam sessions, people moving in and out of the house at random. I'd fall asleep to music or wake up to it, and every now and then I'd be asked to join in. Then when I was slightly older, I'd sneak into the room of one of my uncles and play his guitar while he was away somewhere at work."

High school and college years were the periods when DeLuca's life settled down somewhat. Aware that there was more to life than being a hereditary hippie, DeLuca majored in literature at Long Beach State university; it was here that the music he loved - primitive blues and Americana of the kind delivered by Mississippi John Hurt, Fred McDowell, Doc Watson, the Carter Family - matched his love and respect of authors such as John Fante and Charles Bukowski.

Studies were interspersed with listening and performing. Now in his late 20s, DeLuca says that he's still trying to make a life for himself.

"Basically, I've always led my own life. Since I was young I was left to figure things out for myself, and I found music very early. I didn't find commerce very early - I stumbled along the way, and still struggle to bridge the two so I can sustain myself. But I certainly feel that I've got some things worked out and have started to visualise a bigger picture."

The bigger picture is this: DeLuca was discovered a couple of years ago through what he terms a "random" event - following a club gig in Long Beach, he was invited to an all-night party. At the party were people from Ironworks Records (owned by actor Kiefer Sutherland) who tried to persuade him to come to their studio for a meeting. He says he didn't believe them, but through an attritional series of phone calls, he relented. When he sat down with them, he says he was pleasantly surprised to talk about music with people who actually liked it.

"They pretty much said that I could do what I wanted, and they would stay in the background - otherwise I wouldn't have signed. At that point, I was getting a little bit of attention from some of the major labels, stemming from a demo I had done. I had been doing office gigs for about two weeks - walking into corporate rooms and playing to men in suits. They would say things like, 'Yes, you're great but maybe you should lose the dobro?' They weren't listening, in other words; they thought they got it, but they really weren't getting it at all. Ironworks, on the other hand, got it immediately."

Playing to the suits, says DeLuca, was dispiriting at worst, disappointing at least.

"You've got people staring at you as you're playing a slide guitar - they're looking at you as if you're crazy. In fact, one corporate guy said he couldn't believe I had brought along a banjo - he hadn't seen one in such a long time. That's when I knew it was all downhill from there. And besides, these people play a really funny game - they do this thing where they tell you they really like you, but that they'll have to wait and see how things work out before they sign you.

"Ultimately, it's a commitment thing - no one has the balls to step in and try something new. Basically, those gigs were about figuring out how they could market someone like me."

And Ironworks had no such problem? "No way, man - they were, like, what the hell, even if we can't market you we're still going to put out your record."

DeLuca's debut, I Trust You to Kill Me, is scheduled for release around February. In the meantime, he wants to get his name out and about, hence his forthcoming visit to Europe, the UK, and Ireland.

"It's been my personal dream to get to Ireland - I'm fascinated by the history, the poetry, the music, and how the music came over from there to here. I like going to the source." And being an unknown quantity - how does he cope with that? "I'm totally happy to be unknown until I play in front of an audience. To me, it's quite exciting that people have no concept of what I do."

• Rocco DeLuca plays Whelan's, Dublin, on Tuesday, Dec 27