Every Instrument, Every Van, Every Opportunity

After Short Wave Radio ended, Rob played guitar and sang in Pull the Pin alongside friends including Corey DeVincenzo, who would later join Patent Pending, and Anthony Mingoia, who would become part of Rob’s brother Ted’s band, Don’t Panic.

From there, Rob began building one of the more complicated résumés in punk rock.

He filled in on guitar for Freshman 15. He played with Don’t Panic while the band toured with the Ataris. When the Ataris lost a guitarist during that tour, Rob stepped in and eventually joined the band.

Later, after the Ataris relocated to Arizona, Rob stayed in Pennsylvania. When the band suddenly needed a drummer, they called him again.

He flew to the first show without a rehearsal, listening to the set on his iPod and tapping the drum parts on his airplane tray table.

Depending on whom you ask, Rob either quit the Ataris or was fired in 2012 after an onstage incident that briefly became internet-famous. Time eventually softened the story. Rob and singer Kris Roe later repaired their relationship and can now look back at the chaos with considerably more humor than either of them had at the time.

Rob returned his focus to Patent Pending, the band that proved to him that enormous things really could happen to musicians willing to work for them.

As Patent Pending’s guitarist and vocalist, he toured extensively, performed at the 2012 Billboard Music Awards, and experienced the kind of career moments that had once seemed impossible from a basement in the Poconos.

Patent Pending also taught him that success was rarely about luck or strategically “knowing the right people.” It came from working hard, showing up, and forming genuine relationships with other artists, crews, and people throughout the music business.

Those relationships mattered even when they did not immediately lead anywhere.

Eventually, one of them changed his life.