Trevor Rabin
Trevor Rabin
Trevor Charles Rabinis a South African American musician, singer-songwriter, producer, and film composer. Born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, Rabin was born into a family of musicians. After taking up the piano and guitar, Rabin became a session musician with a variety of artists prior to forming his first major rock band Rabbitt who enjoyed considerable success in South Africa. In 1978, Rabin moved to London to further his career, working as a solo artist and a producer for...
NationalitySouth African
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth13 January 1954
All of the directors I've worked with I've gotten along with very well.
You know, usually with movies there are periods, dark areas, where I might not be getting what I wanted out of a theme. I'll have to go over and over it again.
I love being in a band. I love that collaborative spirit, although some would suggest that I don't get involved in the collaborative spirit, but it's not true.
Yes was a band where we could explore some of those ideas, but I knew that if I wanted to get into orchestral music and make a living at it, movies seemed to be a perfect spot.
The process of composing the film score for each movie is completely different. They all have their own personality and their own completely different life, but there's never been a formula. Each time, it's a new thing.
You can't judge an album by a single song; it's like judging a book by only reading a single chapter.
When you do a record like 'Talk,' and you're happy with it, and it reaches your ambitions and then doesn't sell as well as you wanted, it kind of takes the wind out of your sails a little.
I grew up in such a musical family, and my dad was the first chair in the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra, and my mom was a piano teacher and a painter, so it was kind of a creative environment, and it was kind of in my DNA.
I hate how things must be classified. How this is applied to musicians implies that they somehow contrive their products and have studied the demographics of the audience.
You're a white South African, and right away you have to explain yourself. Occasionally, I get hassled until I explain my point of view. I have to make it clear that I don't live there anymore, and I don't approve of the brutal racial policies.
I just loved classical music, but I also loved playing rock guitar, and I loved playing piano, so it was a natural thing that those things would merge at some point.
I never actually had a guitar lesson. I taught myself the guitar from piano exercise books, which led me to have a pretty good technique on the guitar and allowed me to find different ways to do things.
I was in Hiroshima with my assistant, and I said to him, 'You know, I've done close to a thousand shows with Yes. I think I'm done. I don't think I can do another one.' I went back to L.A. and left the band and got into film.
We were a very politically active family. My father was one of the first lawyers in South Africa to have a black partner, so I grew up very aware of the struggle going on. Coming from that background, it really gave me chills to have my music be a part of the election of the first black American president.