1993 - 1994
After the disbanding of the Outlaws, Rob decided to head back to Queensland where he played
acoustic guitar in restaurants for the following years to scratch out a living.
"I was living in Queensland playing in restaurants to make a living after spending years performing around Australia trying to secure a long term record deal from a label that truly believed in what I was about. I received a phone call from an old buddy of mine, Mark McCormack in Melbourne (approx. 2000km south) who had a recording studio. He asked me to come to Melbourne to record a couple of songs for free. He even paid for the bus ticket.
I needed two new songs, so in a period of a
week, I wrote 
The Good Die Young
(a song about my
deceased father) and a fun,
meaningless kind of a song called
Itty Bitty Mama.
I organized by phone a few other buddies from Melbourne to play
with me at Marks studio.
We recorded the songs over two days and I headed back to Queensland with a cassette copy. I always had a strong belief in what I was doing but hope was beginning to fade as I was becoming increasingly jaded...
Two years previous to this, I had seen on TV, an Australian guitarist by the name of Dave Hole get a record deal from Alligator Records in the US. I was so thrilled to see someone from Australia get the break they deserve - and he deserved it. I wrote him a letter c/o the TV station to congratulate him. Dave received the letter and wrote back to me. Two years later and out of pure frustration, I sent the cassette of "The Good Die Young" & "Itty Bitty Mama" to Dave along with the letter he had sent back to me two years previous...he remembered...and phoned me. He said he was heading to Europe for a tour and was going to present the two songs to his record company there.
Two months later..I received a phone call from the label, offering me a deal. I have since released 4 albums with them and have toured Europe annually...
I invited Mark (McCormack) to engineer my first album and co-produce my second...and paid him back for the bus fare!"