{"id":547646,"date":"2026-07-28T09:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T09:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/547646\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T09:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T09:50:09","slug":"des-rocs-to-hell-and-back-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/547646\/","title":{"rendered":"Des Rocs: To Hell And Back interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

While making his new record, Danny Rocco blew out two discs in his spine and lost the use of his right leg. A showman with Freddie Mercury<\/a> in his heart and Bruce Springsteen<\/a> in his work ethic, he wasn\u2019t deterred.<\/p>\n

\u201cI almost died several times, proverbially and physically,\u201d the New Yorker says. \u201cThere\u2019s a fine line between that initial burst of creativity and magic, and then putting in the hours to refine stuff over a long period of time and just being like: \u2018Not good enough, not good enough\u2026\u2019 I wrote about fifty songs for this record.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s Rocco all over: a guy who knew in the second grade that he wanted to be a rocker and never stopped grinding for it. It all comes out in To Hell And Back\u2019s hard-edged guitar crunch, commanding melodies and Queen-via-Jack White<\/a> vocals, all of it recorded live to raw, emphatic effect. There are pop, industrial, alt. and blues flavours, but it\u2019s all rock.<\/p>\n

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Born in Long Island, NY, Rocco discovered rock\u2019n\u2019roll alone. \u201cWhen I wasn\u2019t getting my ass kicked by my older brothers, I was off on my own adventures,\u201d he explains, \u201ctaking the train to the city, going to music stores, going to shows. I was left alone in a way that ended up being very positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

During this time he ingested Muse<\/a>, Elvis Presley,<\/a> Alanis Morissette, Nine Inch Nails<\/a>, Britney Spears \u2013 voices that all left a mark. By 12, he was playing guitar in bands, doing shows in rec centres, churches, synagogues, backyards and dive bars in Queens and Long Island.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019ve seen scenes come and go in the New York area, and man, have I not been a part of them!\u201d he laughs. \u201cEspecially on these emo bills in, like, 2007, 2008, and I\u2019m playing like I\u2019m Bruce Springsteen or Freddie Mercury in front of eighty thousand people \u2013 and it\u2019s just crickets, night after night.\u201d<\/p>\n

In time he drove across the country in vans, playing to \u201ceight or nine people\u201d. Meanwhile he worked as a cabana boy, guitar teacher, golf caddy and more to pay the bills. He was even an attorney for three years. \u201cI hate the idea that artists should be ignorant, or that rock\u2019n\u2019roll needs to be some drug-driven death cult. I just think it\u2019s all about being, without shame, who you really are.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Everything changed when the singer in his previous band fell ill with Lyme disease, and they had to call time in 2018. Overnight, Rocco was dropped by his label, manager and agent. It gave him a clean slate to make music on his terms, becoming a frontman out of necessity.<\/p>\n

Since then, he\u2019s played tiny basements in Alabama, clubs across Europe and packed stadiums with the Rolling Stones<\/a>. None of which he takes for granted. \u201cThe excitement about playing bigger shows will never go. I will be eighty years old on a stage, and the only emotion I will have is gratitude.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Hell And Back is out now via Sumerian. Des Rocs’ European tour kicks off in Manchester in October. For dates and ticket links, visit the Des Rocs website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Des Rocs: To Hell And Back – Today’s Best Prices<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While making his new record, Danny Rocco blew out two discs in his spine and lost the use…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-547646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}