East Coast Music Awards “Entertainer of the Year” nominee Robert Thomas is a natural storyteller with a wicked sense of humor. In an energetic and welcoming voice, he highlights the stories of our lives with empathy, energy and a wry sense of fun. Based in Moncton, New Brunswick, Thomas has written for artists across many genres including Bonnie Raitt, The Chicks, Kenny Rogers and Mister Mister.
Thomas’ creativity is ably matched by his acoustic duo, the sessionmen. Ray Legere (fiddle, mandolin, vocals) may be the most renowned and prolific acoustic musician in Atlantic Canada. He has performed with Alison Krauss, Tony Rice, Natalie MacMaster, The Chieftains and a host of others. Jon Arsenault (guitar, keyboard, percussion, vocals) is a superb multi-instrumentalist and captivating performer.
Together, Robert Thomas and the sessionmen weave all-original songs into a highly entertaining musical biography of Robert’s long career as a staff songwriter for Music Publishing.
His forthcoming album is produced by JUNO Award-winner Catherine MacLellan.
Following on the heels of his poignant release, the very well received, “A River Runs Through,” Thomas is now sharing the fun uptempo story song, “The Way We Roll.” As a boy, his Marine Corps aviator father would often tell him “son, there are two kinds of people in this world – Marines and crazies.” Thomas wrote this song about two of the crazies. Picture Bo and Luke Duke from the “Dukes of Hazzard” and you’ll get the idea. The track’s protagonist is a hell raisin’, good time lovin’, pedal-to-the-metal fella and his girlfriend (picture Daisy Duke) is all in with him. They hit the road in a stolen, mint ‘69 Mustang, hell bent for leather with no plan other than to have a wild time. When a state trooper lights ‘em up, there’s no way they’re slowing down – naturally, they just floor it and head for Mexico. When they run out of gas just short of the border and get taken in, there’s no regret or second thought – it’s just “The Way We Roll.”
I got the idea for the song when my co-writer Jon Arsenault pitched me a cool, uptempo guitar lick that suggested something really fun with an edge to it. Being a huge fan of Ray Wylie Hubbard and Chris Knight, I thought to myself, “what would those boys do with this?” As usual, the first line of the song dropped from the sky. “We was tearin’ along down the interstate in a hot Mustang with outta state plates.” I have no idea why that lyric came to me other than Ray Wiley and Chris often write about outlaws and ne’er-do-wells, so I suppose that was in the back of my mind. From there, it became a matter of getting inside the head of a guy who would steal a Mustang with his Dukes of Hazzard style girlfriend and take off down the interstate to get in a high speed chase with a State Trooper only to run out of gas 20 miles short of the Mexico boarder . – Robert Thomas
