Biography
On November 7th 1971, Mrs Cathy Finck gave birth to a son. The baby was called Robert. Robert spent his youth in New Jersey with his parents and his sister Jamie. He became interested in music and soon started to learn how to play the guitar. When he was in his early teens, the family moved to Marietta, a city located near Atlanta, Georgia. The teenager studied at George Walton High and his skills led him into putting up a band called Prowess with his schoolmates "Holiday Childress" and Michael Allen. At 15 years old, Robert would impress his schoolmates with his guitar playing on Iron Maiden covers. Some time in 1987, the teenager managed to get a ticket for a Motley Crüe show. This enabled him to watch the performance by an opening act called Guns N'Roses (!). As its members were evolving and were developping a bigger interest in glam music, Prowess soon became Bat Your Lashes and later, at the beginning of the 90ies, the band became known as Sik Dik. Robert would put on make up and would wear skirts. The young man graduated in 1990. He intended to join the university (seemingly Oglethorpe in Atlanta) but his commitment to his band had become so big he never went further in his studies. The band quickly splitted up and Robert managed to join The Impotent Sea Snakes, a drag queen act from Atlanta. Instead of playing the guitar he would perform in drag (apparently wearing skirts and "witchypoo" stockings), painting stuff, ripping up bean bags and "playing " the chainsaw. He went on tour with the Sea Snakes , performing with them during about eight months. It's maybe during this period that he altered his name and became known as "Robin". When the tour was over, the guitarist managed to find a position as well as a home at the Masquerade, a huge three levels club in Atlanta. He was reportedly employed at security there. According to some people, he had a room in the basement of this club, but other versions state that he actually lived in a flat located near the level called "Hell"... Anyway, fun was had all the time as Robin had an "open door policy" and kept on partying. He also performed with bands like The Hookers and Heroin. One day, the owner of the Masquerade told him of a frontman called Trent Reznor, who was in search of a touring guitarist for his band, Nine Inch Nails. The owner insisted so that Robin would audition... It is said that Finck did really impress Reznor. Robin joined NIN in 1993, 'towards the end of (the year)' , according his own sayings but his first appearance on stage with this band was for a show in a club of Los Angeles, in March 1994. NIN gave four "confidential" shows in California before hitting off the road for real. Trent and his band (with Robin who looked pretty weird without eyebrows and with his dreadlocked hair tied on the top of his head) gave an interview to Kennedy and Reznor told about those shows. In the course of the interview, Kennedy talked with each band member and said something about them. When it came to Robin, Kennedy said that when NIN had been in search of a guitarist they had decided to settle on the white guy who looked the most like Whoopi Goldberg and all the bandmembers burst into laughter. The Self Destruct began on March 14th,shortly after the release of the eponymous album, and soon the band began to get attention. In May, NIN went on tour in Europe. Back in the USA, NIN gave a few shows in Georgia and North America before going to Saugherties, on August 12th, in order to prepare the Woodstock '94 show. The following day, the bandmembers woke up to discover that a pole had fallen on their tourbus and that electricity was surrounding them while reporters were filming the whole scene. somehow, the band was rescued and everyone spent the day watching performances and getting prepared. On the way to the stage , Reznor pushed bassist Danny Lohner in the mud and soon the bandmembers were wrestling, just to release the pressure. As it was too late to take a shower and get clean clothes, NIN went on stage covered in mud and delivered an angry performance which was watched on a special channel by millions of people. David Letterman got impressed by the band and contributed to their fame by keeping on talking about them. After the Woodstock performance, NIN took a short break and went on back on tour to support the release of a remix album, Further Down The Spiral, to which each band member, including Robin, had contributed. Robin, who had become famous for his tied back dreadlocks, sported a weird new hair cut : he appeared with his hair totally shaven apart from some locks left near each of his ears. At times he would wear a black wig. The tour went on with its common excess (broken instruments, alcohol, backstage devastation... ). In November, Robin joined his former bandmates from Sik Dik,Holiday Childress and Michael Allen, on stage : they briefly performed together, playing an old Sik Dik song called "Cosmic Fuk". Robin was soon back among NIN members and the band started to head towards North America. On December 7th, on the way to New York, the band had a minor accident but Robin received two broken fingers. The upcoming show was cancelled. Nevertheless the following date at the Madison Square Gardens was maintained and Robin performed on a couple of songs while Twiggy Ramirez was filling in for him during the rest of the show. Twiggy and Robin had befriended during the tour , partly because of their common taste for drag and Twisted Sister. Both guys had been rehearsing together, playing Dee Snider songs and their idea had been to ask TS' s frontman over for a gig. In spite of his broken fingers, Robin didn't want to drop an occasion to perform with Dee and on December 10th , he was on stage with Snider, Twiggy and his former bandmate Michael Allen. The foursome, called The Sick Muthaf**kers, played Twisted Sister hits like The Price, The Kids Are Back during about an hour. The small club where they performed was overcrowded with NIN, Marilyn Manson, Anthrax memebers as well as fans. Right after this show, NIN went back on the road and completed the "Further Down The Spiral Tour" on February 17th 1995. The band settled down in New Orleans and intended to rest before starting working together on the next NIN album. Unexpected things happened though. NIN was asked to participate at the Alternative Nation Festival in Australia and in April the band gave performances in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. The collaboration between Trent Reznor and David Bowie led to NIN hitting the road in September, as Bowie's opening act : the tour ended on October 31st. Instead of resting, Trent decided to tour with Helmet and eventually, on November 27th, 1995, Reznor decided he was over with the tour. The band went back to New Orleans. Trent started to work with Marilyn Manson on Antichrist Superstar while Lohner, Finck and Clouser were starting some work on a project called Tapeworm. Towards the end of 1995, Robin decided to leave NIN and told some fans about his decision. The news of his departure began to spread in magazines issues in early 1996 and soon it was said he had joined Le Cirque du Soleil, a high profile Canadian circus. Marilyn Manson and other people gave some details and it was discovered that Robin was to be part of a new show called Quidam which was due to tour North America and California during three years. Quidam was launched a few months later , in Montreal, Canada. Little is known about Robin and his involvement with Le Cirque. He appeared as a "guitarist" on the staff list but some people suggest that he was more than that and that in fact he directed the orchestra. What one can make out is that working for Le Cirque brought a lot of things to Robin. First of all it allowed him to improve his guitar work. Le Cirque has this policy of employing high profile artists who can perform three times a day. Each performance is filmed so that one can make out what is left to improve. This experience also allowed Robin to get a stable love life, since he met Bianca Sapetto, a beautiful American acrobat with Argentinian origins, who was working in Quidam. One day, Matt Sorum [GNR drummer] was in the audience watching Quidam. His attention focused on Robin. he reportedly called Axl to tell him about this guitarist who could as well play along Slash. In other versions it is said that Axl himself was attending the show and noticed Robin... Whatever the truth is, Axl soon called Robin and invited him. Both guys started to work together in Axl's studio. Apparently the collaboration went on during eight weeks and Robin took the decision to leave Le Cirque and join GNR. Around March /Aperil 1997, the news that Robin Finck was GNR 's new guitarist began to spread. Little is known about this period. Robin is said to have signed a two years contract linking him with Axl and Guns N'Roses. He worked on lots of new songs with Axl, Josh Freese and Tommy Stinson during months. Rumours said that the new line up would work at night, between midnight and eight am. In 1999, Trent Reznor completed his third full length album, The Fragile, and was confrontated with the necessity to find a guitarist : he called Robin. After two years, and still no scheduled release date for the new album, Robin decided to quit GNR and go back to Nine Inch Nails. Trent and his cohorts started rehearsing in New Orleans and went to Europe in November to start the Fragility V1.0 Tour. The band went to Japan and Australia as well. Some tension between Trent and his bandmates began to merge by the time the band had reached Japan, but the tour went on anyway. In early February 2000, NIN were back to the USA and rehearsals started in Los Angeles in order to prepare the American tour, the Fragility V2.0 Tour. The latter started on April 12th 2000 and was followed by some summer festivals in Europe. When the tour was compleed, Reznor started to work on a live project which consisted in a CD and a DVD. Robin went back to Los Angeles and no one heard from him during a few months. Later in the year, it was announced that GNR would give a gig in Las Vegas to celebrate the new year and that they would be headlining Rock In Rio III on January 14th 2001. The line up was unveiled and people could see that Robin was back with Axl. On January 1st 2001, at about 3:00 am, Axl and his new band, including Robin, started to play old GNR numbers as well as a few songs. As scheduled, the band appeared in Rock In Rio III and Robin received love from the audience with a solo version of a Brazilian song called "Sossego". A few months later, around May, Robin married his long time girlfriend Bianca. During this year, Robin worked with guitarist Buckethead, who was a GNR member at the time : both men recorded material for the soundtrack of John Carpenter's latest work, a movie called "Ghosts Of Mars". The soundtrack was eventually released in August. Robin also worked with former band mate Danny Lohner on the soundtrack for the movie "rain", which was due to be released by the end of the year. On September 3rd, Rick Rubin organized a beneficial event in order to help an association called "School On Wheels" , which helps homeless children get an education : Robin, Tommy Stinson , Rob Zombie and many others performed for the occasion. Months later, GNR celebrated 2002's arrival the same way than the year before : they gave two performances in Las Vegas. For the first time in years, Axl decided to organize a tour and GNR was scheduled in Europe as well as in America. The band performed in Osaka, Chiba, and Belgium, among other places, in August 2002. On August 29th, Axl and his band appeared unexpectedly at the VMA and performed a GNR medley. The US tour, which was officially launched on November 7th, was marked with riots and cancellations. Out of 35 scheduled dates, GNR only performed on 16 occasions. On December 6th, GNR was due to be on stage in Philadelphia... Only the two opening acts performed and a riot started. A few hours later, the rest of the tour was cancelled. The year ended with no news from the GNR camp. In 2003, Robin started to do other things though he was still committed to Axl: he wrote some texts for a show called "My Birthday Party" and he read them in front of an audience in a show room based in Santa Monica. He also became involved in a Led Zeppelin tribute show called LedZaerial. He would play the guitar while his wife Bianca and other acrobats would dance and perform aerial figures. This show premiered on April 2nd 2003 , at the Key Club in Los Angeles. A tour followed. A few months later, on June 8th, Robin opened his official website, www.robinfinck.com. The site allowed fans from across the world to post their artwork as well as pictures and letters. Robin himself posted some of his artwork. 2004 came and fans were sad when they heard that GNR would not perform at the Rock In Rio festival in Lisbonne. Nothing was heard about Robin during 2004. In 2005, Trent Reznor released With Teeth, his fourth studio album... NIN fans held their breath : maybe Robin would come back to NIN as he had done before... Their hope was soon crushed when the line up was revealed. Worse, in his messages and interviews, Reznor suggested that him and Finck had become estranged. The year went to its end without any noticeable event. In early 2006, though, some news began to spread : it was announced that Guns N'Roses would release their long awaited "Chinese Democracy" and that the band would tour Europe. While those incredible news were spreading, Robin was very busy... On February 28th 2006, a new version of the LedZaerial show was performed at the Key Club and Robin was credited as "Robin Fincke- guitarist Guns N'Roses, NIN". Bianca performed with him. A few weeks later, Robin and Bianca went to the Quidam's tenth anniversary celebration. Original performers from the show attended the party. Robin reportedly said that he could hardly believe that ten years had passed since he had joined Le Cirque du Soleil. He went on to work with Axl and the band to prepare the forthcoming tour. On May 14th, Guns N' Roses performed at the Hammerstein Ballroom. This event was due to be followed by another show in the very same place but due to the massive ticket sale, the management added two extra dates. Less than ten days later, GNR were in Spain and gave their first European gig. The tour went on well and everyone could see that the band was more efficient and that the links between all the members were stronger than ever. During the tour, Axl mentioned that Robin had created one of the most praised new songs by GNR, "Better". This European tour finished on July 2nd at Wembley, London and fans started to wait for the album. A few months later, Guns N' Roses went back on the road and toured America. They received the same demonstrations of affection from their fans... but the release date of the album remained unknown. Eventually it was said that it would be released in the first week of March 2007 but soon it became obvious that there was still some work to be done. The band went back on the road anyway and performed in Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and Japan between June and July 2007. Before hitting the road, Robin did participate at some charity events and he took pictures with a disposable camera which was later put on auction on ebay and went for over $ 2,000. © 2007 Finckedelic - You are not free to use this text without my authorizationSmash everyone on every
pedestal you hold above
yourself and make a sound
from the beginning. listen
with total disregard of how
you think any may judge you.
know to your core that it
will not be the last noise
you make. listen. keep on
do it over and again.
love it. Web friends :Where are you ?
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