Roger O'Donnell - Solo Work

Solo Work

O’Donnell’s current solo career commenced when he was asked to submit a song for a documentary being made about Bob Moog, “Moog”. This was in early 2004 whilst he was still a member of The Cure. Later that year whilst helping to promote the film with its producer Ryan Page at the Sheffield Documentary Festival, conversation led to the suggestion that O’Donnell should write an entire album of music composed and recorded in the same way as the song “Another Year Away”. The song was composed entirely and performed solely on a Minimoog Voyager.

Later that year and into early 2005 when work with The Cure had ended O’Donnell completed the project which was to become “The Truth In Me” the album released in 2006.

In the Summer of 2005 O’Donnell and his longtime partner and collabrator Erin Lang formed their own label with the idea of supporting and encouraging otherwise unsignable artists, mainly in the electronic genre, and releasing their own music. The first release was in September 2005, a sampler “Nothing Concrete” featuring songs from 10 unsigned artists. The label is called 99 Times Out of 10 or 99X/10.

In discussions to find a distributor in the U.S. Roger was offered a record deal with independent label group Worlds Fair on their new Warner Brothers distributed label Great Society.

O’Donnell released two albums with Great Society, “The Truth In Me” in 2006 and “Songs Form The Silver Box” in 2009. Both featuring Erin Lang on vocals with a special guest appearance from Australian singer Lenka on the latter. An EP of remixes was also released from “The Truth In Me” featuring versions by Dntel, Fourtet and Console all very highly regarded artists in the electronic field.

Roger’s association with World's Fair and Great Society came to an end in 2009 when the label folded. All of his and Erin Lang’s future releases will be handled by 99X/10.

Future projects nearing completion as of Spring 2010 are a collection of songs for piano, cello and voice entitled Two/Three - Before. The trio features O'Donnell on piano, Erin Lang, vocals and longtime friend Paul van Dongen on Cello. A preview concert performance in Toronto in February 2010 with the Corktown Chamber Orchestra led to another project which O’Donnell has composed for the orchestra, Quieter Trees.

Quieter Trees is a group of six songs inspired by a painting by British artist David Hockney “Bigger Trees Near Warter”. It was peformed in London Morley College by the Centre for Young Musicians on July 2nd 2011 and it will be performed in November in Toronto this time with O'Donnell playing piano.

Also in a nod to his tenure with The Cure O’Donnell has formed a group with Bassist and vocalist Norelle French from the Toronto group Machetes. The project entitled Unterbrucke is a dark and intense collection of songs which will be released on an album entitled Detach in October 2010.