Southwest Sounds: Allesandro Rotondi finds inspiration in everyday things

Afternoon Drive's local music segment Southwest Sounds is back, featuring local musicians and their stories.

In this edition of Southwest Sounds, we hear from Allesandro Rotondi, a University of Windsor graduate who creates "sunny-sounding" tunes that span from pop to lo-fi.

Rotondi joined CBC's Afternoon Drive host Josiah Sinanan for this conversation about highlights of his musical career and the inspiration behind his music.

LISTEN: SW Sounds - Allesandro


What can you tell us about your new album Gentle Giant?

Well, Gentle Giant, it was quite an interesting project.

It started in my parents basement, then my wife and I, we got married and we moved into an apartment together. It started with more of an acoustic setting with real drums and stuff, and then by the time we got to the apartment I was using a beat pack as I had less space to work with ... and I had a couple of friends, Colin Button and Eric Vanier, helping me out with certain instruments.

But it was a labour of love between myself and my wife did all the artwork, Ashley, she's fantastic. It was a really fun project to put together over the course of about a year, yeah.

What kind of music inspires you when you go about writing a song or creating music?

I listen to everything, honestly. I mostly love indie pop and indie rock, but I listen to anything from Chet Baker to Alvvays from Toronto.

I just love indie pop production. I love getting behind the board and dialling in the tones.

Interesting. I like that. So what keeps you driven to make music? What's that driving force that spurs you on?

It's kind of an everyday thing. Sometimes if the weather is a certain way or somebody says a certain thing, it just makes me feel like I want to create a tune around it. It could be anything, it could be a person, it could be a picture, anything.

The cover art for Gentle Giant, Allesandro Rotondi's most recent album. (Ashley Spina-Rotondi/Submitted by Allesandro Rotondi)

How would you describe the sound of your own music?

Well, I consider it to be a fairly sunny sounding type of music.

I think it's for feeling happy. It's upbeat, it has a lot of guitar, a lot of harmonies. You could listen to it at the beach or in your bedroom late at night ... So just music for good living I think.

A little bit of your song, Momo's Ears and you know, if people are familiar with Avatar, they might recognize that name. It's from your 2021 album Tunes of Ba Sing Se. Can you tell us more about the Avatar-inspired album?

Yeah, honestly, that was just a little pandemic project. I was making an instrumental album and my, my wife and I were obsessively watching that show and I  kind of felt like the sound was starting to tend toward my love for that show.

The sounds were all made by me and written by me, even though they sound a little bit like the show. But it was honestly a pretty fun project to put together. Once again, myself and my wife did all the artwork and stuff.

That's so cool, and there's such a cult following of that show, too. Did you get a good response from fans across the world? What was the impact?

I honestly had no idea what was going to happen, but a lot of lo-fi playlists on Spotify and whatnot started to pick it up and people started listening to it like crazy, which was quite a surprise for me. It wasn't my intention. I was just doing something that I wanted to do because it made me happy.

I'm really glad that people seem to enjoy it.

Yeah, it sounds so lovely. Like I can definitely see that on a low-fi playlist just doing my homework or chilling in my house with the window open. Allesandro, what's been a highlight of your music career so far?

Oh, geez. You know, I had a really lovely experience with one of my professors from university, Shahida Nurullah. She invited me to perform with her at the Detroit Jazz Festival. I played guitar there with her on stage and that was a wonderful experience.

Another experience is I was actually invited backstage by The Beach Boys ... to give them a demo CD of a tune. They had an unfinished tune from the 70s, and I kind of finished it up and did a lot of overdubbing, added some harmonies.

And I gave them a kind of, here's what it might have sounded like if you had actually finished this one back in the 70s. And they kind of liked the idea. So they invited me backstage at Caesars Windsor, and I got to listen to them rehearse and then after that, I gave them copies of the CD.

So that was a huge highlight for me because they're my favourite band, The Beach Boys. Yeah.

Allesandro Rotondi is a Windsor musician. (Ashley Spina-Rotondi/Submitted by Allesandro Rotondi)

Wow, what did that experience feel like? It must have been surreal.

It was very surreal, especially because I got to stay for their rehearsal. I got to listen to my idols create music in front of my eyes and ears. It was a life changing experience, yes.

Tell us where we people can catch you performing next if we want to see you live.

Absolutely. So you can catch me live at Stroll the Street Festival in Belle River on Friday, Sept. 20, as well as the Walkerville Distillery District Night Market, the Walkerville Brewery which is Friday, Sept. 27, and I'm also back at Stroll the Street Oct. 18 and Walkerville Brewery Nov. 8, both Fridays.

We're going to play a little bit of your song Constellations to end off our show today. What can you tell us about that song?

That's a really lovely tune. My buddy Eric is on drums. I honestly wrote that one about just wanting to feel free again after a couple couple tough years. So it's just about feeling free and wanting to be happy.