Provided by Tobin Dale with permission
Earnestness. Authenticity. These are the things Nashville-based guitarist Tobin Dale relates to when he considers his chosen craft as a guitarist and playing the music he loves.
A true student of rock‘n’roll guitar, Dale has been at it since discovering the Beatles and subsequently picking up the guitar around age 12, growing up in Orlando. In music circles, he’s become known as a go-to sideman for touring and sessions when artists are seeking the much-admired weave sound of guitars made popular by the likes of Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones and heard in the sounds of bands like The Faces, Humble Pie, the Black Crowes, Dan Baird projects and more.
“To me, it’s integral to rock and roll,” Dale said on the latest episode of The Load Out Music Podcast. “Rock music is a different thing. But rock’n’roll—that push-pull—you kind of just want a little bit of, he’s fast and I’m slow, but it never comes off the rails.”
Dale’s career, admittedly, has at times come off the rails.
He first began life as a working musician in Los Angeles after following the cross-country voyage taken by one of his heroes, Tom Petty, who went from central Florida to LA. In California, he first joined the band the Nasty Souls, playing his first live show at the famed Roxy on Sunset at age 21. It was there that the likes of Bob Marley, Aretha Franklin, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Linda Ronstadt, Patti Smith, Prince and more had played prior. Alcohol and drugs, of course, were ever-present in the LA music scene. In particular, booze became a particular vice when playing with Caldwell Jack & the Six Pack during a residency at the Kibitz Room.
“There wasn’t anything I would say no to but drinking was my drug of choice,” Dale told me. “LA encourages bad behavior…It really became a problem. I’m doing everything I want to do. You’re really playing music but it’s secondary.”
Dale had a wakeup call during an East Coast tour that helped Dale find sobriety. He ultimately moved to Nashville with the love of his life and began finding bigger opportunities through encounters with the likes of Alejandro Escovedo, through producer Julian Raymond at Big Machine Records, touring with Brock Ganyea and ultimately hooking up with the legendary Ray Wylie Hubbard.
Provided by Tobin Dale, with permission
Dale’s relationship with Hubbard started during his time playing on tour with Ganyea, who was opening shows for Hubbard. The iconic Texas songwriter approached Dale after a few performances and asked him to come up on stage to join him on the song “You Got to Move.” Dale asked Hubbard if he wanted, “the Fred McDowell or the Rolling Stones version.” A kinship was formed and the bond has only solidified since. It didn’t hurt, of course, that Dale quickly found chemistry with Hubbard’s son and bandmate Lucas—the two weaving their guitars seamlessly—and Dale continues playing with Hubbard’s band today, such as his recent gigs on the Sirius XM Outlaw Country Cruise (where Dale also played with Andrew Leahey and the Homestead) and at Red Rocks in Colorado.
It would seem, at just age 34, Dale is only getting started. He has a big summer ahead, touring with Tuk Smith & the Restless Hearts, picking up gigs here and there in Nashville and across the U.S. But with every consideration, Dale seemingly comes back to his fundamental tenants—particularly, authenticity.
“Authenticity is a hard word to define but you can hear it,” Dale told me of the music he enjoys and endeavors to play. “That’s really what makes something good to me—if I believe you mean it.”
via Tobin Dale with permission
It’s an essential component why Dale today finds himself sober, happily married and doing what he loves.
“It’s a cool place to be at,” he noted. “Where I’m doing all sorts of music that I really love. That’s the thing I use as my metric. Do I enjoy this? I have to play music that I enjoy.”