An Exclusive first look at Rob Wheelers Brand New Single 'Changes'

2020 has been a strange year for most, Rob Wheeler has been making the most of it by locking himself in his private studio and producing a brand new single and album.

We are super excited to show you an exclusive premiere of his brand new video for single 'Changes'. We caught up with Rob to find out the process that went into creating his new album and how 2020 has turned out to be a very productive year. 

"Aston Microphones are without doubt the only microphone I will use in my studio. The perfect blend of performance and style, clarity and quality. I believe that nothing showcases these attributes better than the classic Aston Spirit, which I use to record all my vocals and acoustic guitars. Changes - my brand new single was recorded entirely with the Spirit, along with its companions the Halo Shadow and Swiftshield.”

How it all started

I was writing and producing behind the scenes for a company called Bucks Music Group, they are very well respected in the publishing industry as being one of the leading independent publishing houses. They have artists such as T Rex and David Bowie in their catalogue. And they've worked with Troy Miller and Amy Wadge. So some genuine icons and some really great new talents as well.

I'd always wanted to record my own album, it was just a bucket list thing. So I decided to go for it. That’s when I purchased my first Aston Spirit. I used that to record all the guitars and vocals with for the first album. It was really supposed to be just an independent release. But I sent it across to the publishers, and they were really, really pleased with it. They thought it was great and had potential, and, obviously, I was proud of it, but you’re always proud of your own work. It's just nice to get that thumbs up from external sources.

We put it out and it sold really well.

We sold a few thousand copies just independently, and then it got picked up by a record label. It then got reviewed by Neil McCormick from the Daily Telegraph. That was the thing that sort of launched it into the next level and gave it some impetus because then people started to take it a little bit more seriously than it just being an independent thing.  It kind of just snowballed from there. Paul Sexton (BBC Radio 2) reviewed it. I landed some supports with Newton Faulkner and The Shires which was fantastic. And then BBMAK a band I admired from the early noughties. They were doing their first UK tour for 19 years and they invited me to join them as their official support. Which was amazing because I got to play some of the bigger venues like Manchester Academy.

We started to record the second album and two massive things happened. Firstly, I broke my finger on my left hand, totally my own fault. My finger nearly ended my career because I couldn’t actually play at one point and it was looking really bad. But very fortunately, Help Musicians got me to a really good surgeon. He's the best hand surgeon in the country who is himself a trumpet player. He took a look at it. And he gave me some advice and I got some physiotherapy. It was all thanks to the Help Musicians Charity, they saved me. 

We were getting close to release and then Coronavirus hit.

I had used all the money from my first album to build my own recording studio. That has been my salvation during this time. I have been basically living in it. What we decided to do was really develop and go deep into the studio side of things with the album.

We reached out to some musicians, some of them were friends and some were just guys we admired. We wanted to try and see if we could reach out to them. Fred Eltringham who is Sheryl Crow’s Drummer, is the drummer for the album, which is brilliant. I think he is such a melodic drummer, the way he plays is so effective for my style of songwriting. And he's such a lovely guy. He's in Nashville, and we've been doing remote recordings, then I've been putting them on the album.

I'm a huge, huge Beatles fan. I got in touch with a guy called Robbie McIntosh, who is a genius virtuoso guitarist and dobro player. Known for his work with John Mayer. He agreed to play on the album as well.

What is really cool is that we’ve got Fred who played with Ringo Starr and Robbie who played with Paul McCartney. That was just incredible for me. I was there in my studio producing and mixing these two fantastic musicians who have played with two icons of popular music.

We felt like we just needed something to bridge the gap between releasing the album and where we are now. It's been 12 months since I've released any music because obviously, a lot has been going on. The Record we have chosen is called ‘Changes’ which is a song by Black Sabbath. I think it's such a beautiful and sad song. It's kind of got the vibe of things that are going on now. We're all in lockdown, and missing the people we love, but at the same time trying to capture the feeling of the moment which I feel this song does so well. I kinda wish I had written it, but its a song I have loved all my life and it was a joy to recreate in my own style.

We were talking about the video for the single and then Mr Johnson said that we had one week before we were back in lockdown and we ended up recording the video for 'Changes' in a single day. It was one very long day! I owe my director Andy Critchlow one hell of a big hug after all of this. I miss hugs!