Pop Culturalist Chats with Rob Kolar

Rob Kolar is a man of many talents: composer, singer, songwriter, and producer. His current projects keep him very busy. He is the man behind the music on the hilarious tv show, The Detour, which begins its second season February 21, and he is also touring the country with his band, KOLARS. We were able to catch him to talk about his music, the tv show, and why going on tour can be so rewarding.

PC: When did you know you wanted to be a musician?
Rob: Around 12, I think, is sort of when it went from, “Maybe I don’t want to be a professional ice hockey player,” to, “I want to play guitar and write songs and create music,” mostly out of heartache and heartbreak and the changes you go through in your life. It was a way to express myself and fill the void of that young teenage age.

PC: You’ve been in a bunch of bands. How did you get involved with working on The Detour?
Rob: That was an interesting thing. It was actually through the band. I was in this band called He’s My Brother, She’s My Sister, and we were touring a lot. Steve Pink directed the first couple of episodes of The Detour, and he’s done some great work with High Fidelity, Hot Tub Time Machine, and some other things. He reached out through a random email. I was going though kind of a crazy time. I had had this horrible hand accident. I’d cut my tendons in my fingers, and I was going through all this physical therapy. I’d had these health issues, financial issues…my life was in a crazy whirlwind. I got this email from Steve Pink, who I was already a fan of and my wife was already a fan of, saying, “I’m a big fan of yours. I hope this email gets to you. I’m doing this pilot; would you like to get involved and do the music? I love your band.” I showed it to my wife and her first reaction was, “Do you think it’s spam? Do you think it’s real?” She couldn’t believe it. So, we met shortly after. He just saw something in the music or the band that would work on the show and wanted to take a chance on me as a composer which is really exciting to have that and it was completely unexpected. He’s still a friend and a good guy, but he doesn’t work on the show anymore. He’s working on a new Drew Barrymore sitcom on Netflix, I believe. He’s a good guy. He gave me the break.

PC: What are the challenges of writing a score for a television show rather than writing music for your band?
Rob: The great thing about The Detour is that [Jason Jones] will throw me lyrics, and we’ll create original songs throughout the show. For example, we have in the first season a musical theater piece about conquistadors We have a Euro-trash disco pop song about annexing countries. We have a Jesus rock song like a Christian rock song called “My BFF” so it’s all these comedy songs in different genres. One is rock; one is pop. We’re bouncing around which is a challenge, but it’s also exciting to explore all these different genres. This season it’s great because we have kind of a spin on Hamilton. We do a Benjamin Franklin musical piece which is all about his love for the mail and establishing the USPIS [United States Postal Investigation Service]. So, the music surrounds that. We get to play around a lot. Jason is great with the lyrics. The challenging stuff is when I get into orchestral stuff. The second season, it’s been a lot more orchestra scores and dramatic stuff which plays as comedy, but it’s so serious. That’s been really challenging. They’ll show me references from the movie The Rock—with a really dramatic score. So I have to recreate this big dramatic score with drums and strings and horns and all of it. It’s been challenging to make it sound real and authentic. Jason likes to throw all kinds of stuff at me. We do everything from country to orchestral to dramatic to folk to rock ‘n roll. It’s really fun—I get to wear a lot of different hats.

PC: Is there any genre of music that you haven’t gotten to play around with that you’d like to try out?
Rob: I love that question. I’m hoping to score a film that is in pre-production which is, like, sci-fi. I really would love to get into this synth world, or like a blend of strings and synth. I love the score on Stranger Things and Mr. Robot. I like that kind of 80s retro meets futuristic sci-fi kind of thing. We don’t explore that in The Detour at all, but I would love to. Who knows, maybe The Detour would want to embrace that.

PC: What were some of your favorite moments in Season 1 that you had to score?
Rob: “We Won” is the song in the restaurant episode and that is a musical theater dinner scene. They go into this restaurant that is really politically incorrect, celebrating conquistadors who we all know like came over and basically pillaged and took advantage of natives. The idea was to comment socially on that and how American culture sometimes embraces some of those contradictions. So, the idea was like well they’re in this restaurant; it’s a musical theater song celebrating conquistadors and the idea that we won and that we helped these people. I brought friends in for it and we did this whole chorus. So, you’re in this local restaurant…the idea was to make the production reflect all the realities in the episode. You had to make it sound a little bit hokey and low-fi but still try to be earnest. All this tightrope walk of making the production sound right, almost like a theme park. Make it feel authentic but not overly produced because it’s a restaurant. There are all these elements and you have to try and place it perfectly in that reality. That was probably the most fun one, and I got to have friends sing on it. Some of my best friends are singing the harmonies and singing the vocal parts which is really fun to be able to involve them.

PC: Do you have someone that you dream of collaborating with someday?
Rob: I’ve had this question asked a few times. For some reason the first name that pops into my head is Snoop Dog. I just love the way he raps, I love his easy vibe. I think it would be really interesting to collaborate with a hip hop artist or a rapper.

PC: In addition to the tv show, you’re also on tour with your newest band, KOLARS. What is your favorite part about going on tour?
Rob: Definitely NOT all the time we have to spend time in the van driving. Although now with all this technology you can get lost in books and books on tape and videos and stuff. Probably meeting all these different people and going to all these places that you wouldn’t normally go to. We’ve been really fortunate to tour in the South and the Midwest. You meet and connect with really interesting people. We live in a day and age where the country, America, is so divided culturally in a lot of ways. We come from a pretty liberal and progressive place and mindset so like to tap into some of these other cities and zones and share some of our views and hear what other people have to say is enlightening. I feel like in a lot of ways there are some bubbles happening in the country so it’s nice to get out of that bubble.

PC: Is there one of those places that really surprised you? Or that you would go back to?
Rob: I feel like every state has one of those cities that is a little more like artistic, a kind of strange cousin to the rest of the cities. Obviously Texas has Austin; North Carolina has Asheville. Asheville stands out as a really interesting city because it’s cool liberal, has tons of great food, and an artistic community. Or we were in Montana and there was a city we drove through…Missoula, I think. It was really an interesting surprise. Really wonderful people. They were protesting the DAPL in the streets when we were there. It’s just really cool to kind of discover these little spots around America that you don’t always think about.

PC: What were the musical influences that inspired you?
Rob: It’s been pretty varied. As a kid, my mom grew up in Jamaica, strangely enough, and my grandmother is from Jamaica so there was a lot of Bob Marley and dance hall music as a kid- matched with my dad’s love for Dire Straits and Leonard Cohen. So it’s very different worlds in a way. I got into punk music as a kid and that evolved into indie rock and alternative underground stuff. All along I was always interested in classic rock and roll, soul; Motown was a huge influence. It’s kind of run the gamut and now with the scoring, I’m getting more into Chopin and orchestral stuff as well as pulling influence from indie rock bands like Spoon and Wilco. I’m kind of all over the place and pulling from different influences depending on the piece of music and what I want to accomplish.

PC: What do you hope your fans get out of the music you make?
Rob: That’s a good question. Maybe it sounds cliché, but whatever they want to take from it. We have songs that are very sexual, so if someone listens to them and feels sexually empowered- wonderful. We have songs that are more sweet and endearing or ponderous. We have songs that are upbeat and energized so if someone wants to throw one of those on before they go out and if they want to use that to get them excited for their Saturday night, then great. Or a song might change someone’s perspective on what they want to do with their life. Who knows. Ultimately we create music so that we feel and that other people can feel something from it. I don’t want to put too many borders on what they should or shouldn’t feel from it—I just hope they feel something.

PC: What is the one piece of advice you would give a young musician starting out?
Rob: That’s a good one. I feel like when I was younger, I was—I still am—a little bit impatient. I think for young musicians aspiring bands or composers there is a lot of time. It’s a long road. The longer and more gradual the road is, the more you learn. A lot of times people want a quick success or things to happen right away. But it’s about the journey. What makes you a great artist is the obstacles, the struggles; try and embrace that and not be too worried about any particular goal or expectation. I think that’s what I would tell my younger self.

PC: Who would you have dinner with, dead or alive?
Rob: Nelson Mandela would be there. John Lennon would be there. Stanley Kubrick would be there. Ghandi would be there. Just for fun, let’s put Janis Joplin in the mix. She would add some entertainment to the party.

Pop Culturalist Speed Round

Guilty Pleasure TV Show
Friends. We’ve been watching Friends so much, and it’s been like medicine. It’s stood up so well as a show.

Guilty Pleasure Movie
Hot Tub Time Machine. I really liked the first one, it was fun.

Favorite Book
I did love Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, which was also a great tv show. Susanna Clarke is a great writer.

Hidden Talent
I’m a good hockey player. I’m pretty decent on the skates and with a stick.

Go-to karaoke song
“Back in the USSR”, the Beatles

Photo Credit:Shelby Duncan