ifitbeyourwill Podcast
“ifitbeyourwill" Podcasts is on a mission to talk to amazing indie artists from around the world! Join us for cozy, conversational episodes where you'll hear from talented and charismatic singer-songwriters, bands from all walks of life talk about their musical journey. Let's celebrate being music lovers!
Season Four runs from September 2024 to December 2024
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ifitbeyourwill Podcast
ifitbeyourwill S04E18 • Robin Koob of Run Remedy
What happens when life throws a curveball at your classical music dreams? Discover the inspiring journey of Robin Koob, the creative mind behind Run Remedy, as she transitions from a classically trained violinist to an indie folk rock artist. Faced with carpal tunnel syndrome, Robin redirected her path, embracing new musical styles and international teaching roles that fueled her artistic evolution. With resilience and adaptability, she now balances her passion for music with her role as an international corporate trainer, crafting a unique blend of sound that defies traditional boundaries.
Manchester becomes a muse for musicians seeking to immerse themselves fully in their craft. Listen as we unravel the story of a musician moving from a day job to creating dramatic black metal string compositions with Pine. Using innovative techniques like altering pitches and effects pedals, they craft orchestral pieces on the spot. Personal motivations, such as a poignant conversation with a late mother, inspire this creative leap, while the challenge of self-production turns into an empowering journey of self-expression and storytelling.
Music as a tool for exploring identity and healing takes center stage in our exploration of songwriting and queer narratives. From high school songwriting competitions to the release of "Disciple" our guest shares how music helps process past traumas and religious experiences. Unravel the complex tapestry of spirituality, struggle, and the search for meaning as we weave through themes of self-discovery and redemption. These powerful narratives reveal the profound connection between music and authenticity, offering solace and understanding amidst life's chaos.
here we are, another episode, episode of Be Will Podcast, season four. It chugs, oh, it chugs along. Today I have Robin Coop from Run Remedy Great. I mean it's her moniker, I mean she's the band and it is really lovely stuff. It's got some cool indie folk rock influences and, robin, it's been really fun kind of doing a deep dive on you because I've learned a lot about you. It's interesting when somebody knows a lot about you and you have no idea about them.
Robin:A little safer.
Chris:I do know a lot about your music that I've been doing a lot of research on and, from what I could tell, the violin was your first love. Yeah, yeah, what like, and it's in the interview I read. It said that you had played the violin right up into into university, and was there a hope there of of seeking a career as a, as a what would you call it? A view?
Robin:you'll know as a concert violinist.
Chris:Yeah, yeah, I was develop that story for it uh, I started.
Robin:I saw a violin in sixth grade and immediately fell in love with it At first sight. Someone brought it into a classroom and had to beg my parents for two years to let me take lessons you know they like to test and then I never they never had to ask me to practice. I was obsessed. So from age seven until 21, I went all the way through the classical world up to university and was doing conservatory, went to Bristol Conservatory for a year in the UK and then unfortunately got a really bad case of carpal tunnel, which is a bit of the kiss of death in a for someone that needs to spend, you know, five or six hours every day in a practice room.
Chris:so, yeah, I had about eight yeah, was that slow to come on or was it pretty like dropping back?
Robin:I was in denial about it. It started to notice symptoms of it. But I had seen a pianist in the class the year under me at uni and it had sort of undone all of the work and all of the concerts and all of the tours that he was planning to do. So I put blinds on. But yeah, I did end up having to have a few surgeries on my wrist so I can still play, but being a full-time concert violinist wasn't an option anymore at that stage.
Chris:That must've been a dramatic turn in one's life, like when you're anticipating here's what I will be. Yeah, the body says no, thanks, can't do it. How did you deal with that? What did you turn to?
Robin:I was heartbroken.
Robin:I was completely gutted. You know, as the Brits and I put the violin down for a couple of years and focused on changing gears into education. So I was doing a lot of, yeah, working in education, international education. And then I heard an interview it's like a documentary with Stefan Grappelli. Stefan Grappelli who was the sort of a jazz violinist that played with Antonio Carlos Jobim and talked about not having good form and just playing by ear and playing by your heart. And I picked the violin up again and I thought, well, I can't, I can't play Paganini anymore, but I can play something. So I turned the radio on and anything that came on I had to add something. So I just I've become a session violinist, or as all my friends in Manchester call me, I'm like the local string slut of Manchester. I'm okay with that. I'm like self-proclaimed string slut of Manchester strings and sings.
Chris:But that. So you went from very classical training where you're reading notes and like every part is thought out like and you gotta stay exactly along those lines, to kind of freestyle and yeah from what your?
Chris:body could do. Yeah, interesting, wow, that's so cool and you mentioned that you you traveled a lot teaching like was it teaching that you were doing as you were traveling like? I read that you went to like asia, south korea, china yeah and then ended up in the uk what was all? The traveling, for was it like? Were you teaching second language?
Robin:I was um teaching a mixture like international schools and music, some ESL, and I ended up in the corporate world, which I still do now. I work with like I'm an international corporate trainer in the day. Yeah, I do this. I sit very respectable from the waist up and then and talk to people all around the world and help them with presentations or if they're struggling with a merger or if they need to like have an international meeting and they're nervous about it. Uh, that's the day job, but I've always done music as well.
Chris:Music is like your superpower. You know you do on the outside. I mean we all have to make a living right.
Robin:Well, thankfully the training work is so flexible that when I have a tour that comes up, or if I have a few days where I want to be in the studio composing or arranging strings for an artist or for myself, I can go do that and move the other work around me. So I'm in a very blessed position for a musician and I acknowledge that now I've had quite a journey, but I'm really happy where it is.
Chris:That's cool, well, you, well, you know, surprisingly enough, a lot of artists um are educators. You know you do get those like nice time off, um, and it's a little bit more of a flexible schedule, uh, that allows you to kind of keep that passion in your real self-aligned things you love to do in the art you like to do. What was the biggest mind shift from going from the classical training to indie and folk? I heard too that you were big into post-metal. Tell me that transition that happened from a classical upbringing to busting the barn doors open and just like noise and sound and unstructured fun, unstructured fun.
Robin:Yeah, I think it was when I was in China.
Robin:Think it was when I was in china, um, I was doing a lot of session work out there and, um, there was a great promotion company that was only in beijing for a few years, called I think they were called split works, I can't remember but um, they brought over some amazing acts that I got to see.
Robin:You know, I got to look up mac demarco's nose on his first tour when I was there. Everyone he's filling out stadiums somewhere else but in Beijing I'm, like you know, shaking his hand after the show and one of the works that came out, like Wild Beast came out and Godspeed you, black Emperor, came out, and I saw all these string players doing like long form building post-rock. And I think when I moved to Manchester I really wanted to, like, throw myself more into music and do less of the day job and risk it and do more. And I fell into playing and touring with this project called Pine P-I-J-N jn and, uh, my number got passed around in the metal scene and I just started going into studios and going on tours to to be a dramatic black metal string player wow that's a note for what does that mean?
Chris:well, bring this down to an example like what would you concretely do so you'd get these requests come in? We won't have this part for you like what's that process like? Or what are those processes?
Robin:it's the same. Now there's so many genres and so many artists that they're like I want strings, but they don't have the history and you know composing on sibelius or printing out sheet music for people. So I'm able to go in as one person, especially if they can't afford a full string quartet for a day in a studio, and I can go in there and be like, okay, I'll not only record strings for you, I'll compose it on the spot to fit what I think will be a nice addition to your piece. And I'll do. I'll do, you know, 10 tracks of them. Decrease the white noise as much as possible. I'll do some atmospherics and I just give them a lot of options. And then I'm like pay me please.
Chris:How many tracks might you lay down in one given session of string? How many different tracks did you put down?
Robin:I mean, once I was like 63 tracks, but it's because I was being like a full orchestra, but I was composing it on the spot in the studio with them and just adding layer after layer after layer to make it sound really massive and then telling them okay, pitch this down a third. That's going to be the cello line pitches down an octave. That will be the baseline. If you guys get a cellist or a bassist to come in, they can take that as a suggestion. Or you can just keep them pitched down and add some weird effects on them If you'd like, mess with the EQ a little bit. Anything's better than MIDI strings, unless it's a conscious choice. You know, have that sound, um, and then I started becoming a pedal pusher and now my board is unbelievable you got lots of pedals now.
Robin:Oh, I really fell down the rabbit hole and I've gone full circle. I've got a melatron, mel 9 pedal, so I love performing with it, where a real violin is being sent through a pedal board and then comes out the other side a melatron violin.
Chris:Oh, oh, that's tricky I know love it like robin. Could you like with a violin, create an orchestra-sounding composition with a violin only and then muck around with the pitch and stuff?
Robin:Is that the approach to it? It takes a lot of time. I'm not one to lean into loop pedals too much, because then you get caught in 20 minutes of soloing over two chords, and I'm sorry, that's just too post-rock for me, it's too boring for me. You can only build so much.
Chris:There's a line in the sand right.
Robin:I need harmonic movement, man, yeah, but in the studio you can really play with that man. Yeah, but um, in the studio you can really play with that, and especially if you have different spaces to pick the strings up, because one of the magic of recreating an orchestra is different distances from room, microphones and how close you are how dry you are, how how much, how large the room is.
Robin:You can play with so much of it, but you do have a lot of white noise to cut down on because, foreseeably, if you have 10 violins in a studio, you can record them all with one element of room sound on them. Where you've got me 50 times, that's also 50 rooms, so it can become a real racket. It's a real racket.
Chris:Where it just becomes a white noise like a wall of sound.
Robin:So I often ask studios I'm like what plugins you got for white noise If you don't? Want to play for more string players. You better have a good plugin for that.
Chris:So, robin, you ended up in the UK. Yeah, so you did your traveling, and what brought you to the UK? If you don't mind me asking, that's fine.
Robin:Yeah, I met my partner in South Korea and we traveled around together and they wanted to retrain, so they're originally from the UK and it was a wonderful opportunity for me. I was like I'd like to do music in the UK.
Chris:That kind of sparked your personal musical journey and remedy for out of that time.
Robin:Kind of. It kind of came out of oh gosh, everyone's going to hate this out of like lockdowns and COVID, but only only coincidentally, my sadly my mom. I lost my mom in 2021. And I, kind of looking back on it now, I kind of needed her permission in a way I didn't, but like in my brain, I think I sort of did to write the run remedy music. I went and looked after her as she was passing away for the last six months or so and yeah, she was kind of like hey, kiddo, quit, quit playing everybody else's stuff all the time and do your own.
Robin:And I was like but my stuff is going to cut into a lot about the hard stuff of us growing up and you know the struggle of my coming out and the religious community and you know, and she was like, ah, I'll be gone anyway, go for it was that?
Chris:was that a bit of a when, when you opened up and said yeah mom give me the blessing, I'm going for it.
Robin:And, yeah, the metal app once that had been established yeah, basically, and I didn't know much about my own production. So I put out my first little baby ep, like right away and look back on it and cringe a bit. And I have now learned a lot more about self-production and have moved forward and have started.
Chris:I've started telling the story of this body of work now, which is the disciples, the first uh chapter in that body of work, and it's about my evangelical escapee past right and with some of that, like that distance, that physical distance you have to put between your past and then taking off and going overseas and figuring stuff out, that physicalness, separation, did that help?
Robin:I don't think I could have processed everything that happened to me between age 13 and 17 until now. Uh enough to write about it with. Well, pardon the pun, but in good faith, you know right and good humor yeah, for sure.
Chris:I think it's fun to laugh at our past sometimes to be able to deal with it a little bit easier oh, absolutely.
Robin:I think when people ask me about run remedy, I'm like it's equal parts goof and grief, which those two should always go hand in hand, like we should all laugh at ourselves.
Chris:Life is ridiculous so absolutely, I totally agree with you. And what? What's your writing process? Like robin, like how do you go about? When did you first start writing songs and seeing them as something that you would put out into the world, that you felt that there was enough there that people would find something?
Chris:that would help them or they would relate to or whatever it might be, because putting stuff out there, particularly when you're going back into those harder times or harder memories, you're really back into those harder times or harder memories. You're really wearing your heart on the sleeve there. And how did that process work for you so that to do?
Robin:that, um, I mean, I always wrote songs. I think when I was still in high school I won a local like a regional competition, like the John Lennon songwriting competition, for some dinky little song about snow. My picture got put above booth number six at the local Applebee's Whoa.
Chris:I know big stuff. Not a lot of people get that Pretty cringy now, but like it's cool that you still remember that it's as an important moment um I can do a recognition, particularly when you're younger.
Robin:It's amazing recognition, right, I mean yeah yeah, the tour bus came and I got to watch a video from yoko ono saying congratulations. That definitely wasn't a carbon copy of everybody else, that's cool, that's cool.
Chris:And then what was your first real song that you penned where you felt again I'm on to something here. I really like how these songs are coming together and I you know that they might have some legs to them. What was that like while you were still traveling or once you settled down in?
Robin:I think it was once I really settled down. Um, I was just maybe garnering my taste for that whole time and playing tons of music, tons of different genres, saying yes to everything musically that I could get my hands on. But I was always privately journaling and I'm called Remedy because it's my own music therapy. And it's a joke with my mom as well, because she'd be like, oh, you always have to run away from stuff and then write a song about it and that's what heals you, uh, and it's just true, yeah. So she would always tease me and be like it's go do your runaway remedy thing, you know. And it used to be playing violin alone in my room when we'd have a fight or when I needed to be alone, and that slowly changed to, yeah, like journaling and writing down thoughts, and then I finally taught myself guitar.
Chris:So I had a tool to write on something more like structured and have you found that your sound has evolved over time, like like the first thing you put out and again correct me once, like it wasn't that long, like this is still a relatively new exploration.
Robin:This is all pretty new. Yeah, it's a new world for me. A 2021 was my first little mini release and it was all you know scrappy strings and maybe one electric guitar and yeah, it was. It started still very earnestly, like songs about labels that I struggled with or relationships that I struggled with one with my sister, uh, jenny and uh, where that relationship was at that time. So, yeah, every song, I only write a song if I'm chewing on something and I've got to work it out.
Chris:You know right it's just my own great, it's a great way, right.
Chris:I love the way your mom described your name too, like your moniker, like wow, go away, go to bed. That's right, go to bed. Like many artists feel that as well. I don't think they've expressed it as well as you just did, but your mom was a wise woman. It sounds to me. Um, just these few little stories you're telling me, but that it is tapping into the things that maybe never got dealt with. And they don't go away. Funny enough, they sit there somewhere inside.
Robin:Yeah my humanity music project is unsurprisingly processing my past trauma gather around.
Chris:Let me share.
Robin:Well, but then the overarching goal is that by sharing that and sharing our journeys and our process of healing and maybe a bit of laughter alongside it and lots of biblical punnery, you know we can get other people who've had the same experiences laughing along crying and laughing along with us, right.
Chris:So well, there's so much um biblical imagery that we're inundated with all the time that it's really hard to escape um, even if you are proclaimed atheist or non-believer, it's just there everywhere you look. Uh, it's hard to escape um. I'm glad that you're taking it and taking control of it, um, and making it yours. Uh, I've really enjoyed the the records in the song, this last one we were talking about before we hopped on here your latest single Disciple, Disciple, Disciple. What. What drew you to get that song out Like what?
Chris:were what were the things you were working with or on for that song?
Robin:I was, um, I was reached out to by a girl in my past and she was one of a long list of girls I mean not that long a list of girls but you know, uh, from my past in the Christian community community I grew up in, um who I had had a dalliance with, shall we say, and who was still in the closet and was she was reaching out to me, but again secretly and in a sort of help me, help me out.
Robin:I having trouble with this, how are you trying to connect with me again? But I'm far past that stage now of hiding, you know, and exactly. And so when I got that call from her, a lot of the that old frustration and memory came back to me about like, ah, just like, how frustrating that was. Uh, constantly having to hide or be ashamed or, um, making really wonderful connections with other girls and then being told to sort of pray the gay way the next day or going to church with them and them not making eye contact with me, like being somebody's dirty little secret, um, and feeling, feeling very dirty for it, uh, in terms of like I should be ashamed of myself or under the eyes of god and we're here, but then of course it's extra hot when you're like at the same time.
Chris:So the story. It's a serious struggle to battle with, typically at a younger age, when you're just not experienced and your confidence level is already wavering like let's add other difficulties on top and pile them on.
Robin:In my case, my parents are both preachers. They were the church leaders in two separate churches so I felt so much pressure to be this like perfect kid playing the violin, teaching uh sunday school, babysitting everybody's kids in the parish, going all the youth group retreats and organizations and yeah, the front that you can put on and still have all this stuff locked behind it, that is there, you know it, you feel it Every day, every second.
Chris:Yet everybody sees the outside. Oh, wonderful Robin. Oh, what a great VNW. Oh, she teaches the kids all about the trees and life. Yeah, sure yeah.
Robin:But, then, when I did leave home and come out like I felt so much guilt on my parents Well, my mom's, you know parish going to her and saying things like well, your daughter's going to hell, how are you supposed to lead us?
Chris:You couldn't save her, so that kind of even like professional risk to their jobs was on my mind. Yeah, but that's a lot for it. Anyway, yeah, I went for it anyway.
Robin:But uh, that disciples about the. Yeah, it's full of religious puns that are also quite sexual, because the, the language we use around religion, is pretty erotic it surely is, it totally, is like absolutely, absolutely and it can be denied, or like no, it really means this?
Chris:well, I don't think so. You know, insinuations can mean more than one thing for sure. Um, well, well, I mean, it's gonna make my next listen to your record all the more. Um, well your singles and your ep all the more um ear popping, because I'm gonna really listen to it in more depth.
Robin:This is the first one in a series of reflective queer girl. Evangelical escapee bangers.
Chris:So get ready, I am.
Robin:A very specific audience Right.
Chris:So, Robin, kind of bringing this to a bit of a close here what, what, what does the future hold Like? So this single came out in September, as you mentioned. What is the next rest of this year look like for you? What else could you tell us about, about your music?
Robin:Yeah, I've. I've been playing a lot this summer all around the UK Festival season's mad I'm. I'm gonna quiet down now and focus on releasing the rest of this body of work. Um, it's basically an album, but, uh, I haven't announced it yet. I have to, you know, announce it at the right shush, but I'm doing an untraditional records going here on right now, but there's an amazing single out there you go.
Robin:There's an amazing thing um where to come like that the whole, the whole body of work, shall we say, is, uh, it's about chapters from age 13 to 17, which is when I realized that I was queer, until I left home, until I ran away from home, and so each song is part of the story, part of the chapter of the story, and so I'm doing an untraditional release of them, where I'm waiting a few months and then putting out the next chapter, and I'll have varying levels of like promotion for each one, and by the end of the year, um, or by the end of like like, maybe by spring, I'll have enough chapters out there and, to be honest, I've got a whole ep that I'm mixing after that. Already I'm pretty prolific Once I got stuck with it.
Chris:I had a lot to say. There you go. I mean, once the remedy begins, it runs Right. I'm really.
Robin:I'm going to get some more trouble if I'm going to keep writing.
Chris:Well, I will post every single that you put out on the blog. We're going to play Disciple at the end of this podcast so you can have an idea of Remedy and what Robin does. It's really amazing stuff. I hope that you all go and support. There are artists that give everything in their music and it deserves that appreciation. So, robin, thanks so much for carving a bit of time and really talking with you and getting to know you a little bit, and I'd love to have you back on anytime you know, next EP or single or record, whatever you want to call it comes out, it'd be awesome to see you the body of Christ.
Speaker 1:There we go there we go.
Chris:I love it well, I wish you a bunch of rest and uh do find some inner peace over this hectic time in life and keep writing. I know you're gonna have to keep it up and I look forward to uh thank you so much, Chris.
Speaker 1:Is this your handout, your most self-righteous one, something grander and so devoid of fun, cause I'm in a dark place, like the bottom of a well, with a small piece of head space when I can see you very well and you have the hours and you have the mindset. You have the power. You have the power and the truth. Winter to your world, to your world. This is a potluck, and did I take more than one? Help me get unstuck, cause it's deeper than I thought. I wanna touch you. You wanna touch the sacred host. Place him under your tongue and think of your missionary post.
Speaker 1:I'm in the pulpit, shepherding love. In addition, you set the scene up. Now you gotta watch it all play out. Tell me about him and how he's gonna save my soul, can he, can he? My soul can't eat, can't eat. Now. Now To work. Was it always a vicious cycle Draped across your chest? I am still your beloved disciple. Place the pall across the altar and roses. We'll do the rest. I'm lost. You have, you have. You have you have in my soul the power of love you have in my soul. You have the only one. You have the one who said you have the one who said Thank you, you.
