Rob Roth is a multi-platform artist, director and collaborator based in New York City. Having developed a close relationship to rock band, Blondie, Roth worked with Debbie Stein on the design of Debbie Harry’s memoir: Face It. Roth is currently moderating ‘An Evening with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein’, touring the U.S. and U.K, coming in April, and to Birmingham on the 24th at Symphony Hall.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Rob Roth, reflecting on his career with Blondie, the punk scene and the ‘In Conversations’.

How did you meet Blondie?

Roth: I met Debbie first in the mid 90’s through the scene at a club called Jackie 60 in NYC’s Meatpacking District. I met the rest of the band when I started working with them.

How did your relationship and collaborations start?

Roth: I had done one of my ‘moving portraits’ videos for a night called Click + Drag that I co-produced at the nightclub space called Mother. Chris and Debbie saw the video and they decided to asked me to start working with the band on their No Exit reunion album in 1999. I shot and designed the cover as well other visuals for that tour. Since then I’ve worked sporadically with Debbie and Blondie. I’ve done the most visual work with their Pollinator album in the form of music video and tour visuals as well as Debbie’s memoir.

What is Blondie like to work with?

Roth: Crazy and creative. Funny and ferocious. I feel a real aesthetic and almost mystic connection to Debbie and Chris at this point. The band is true rock and roll with a spontaneous nature that is exciting and challenging sometimes.

How has the punk scene changed and are there rising stars we should we watch out for?

Roth: I don’t known that there is a ‘punk’ scene’ anymore per se. Is there? I think everything has fused so much in music and other parts of culture. I think ‘punk’ now might be in the political realm, with creativity in activism. I think there are many female rappers coming up that have that punk spirit. I was recently listening to a Bhad Bhabie track “Bhad Bhabie Story (Outro)” and was kinda mesmerized listening to it.

How did you combine both yours and Debbie’s aesthetic into the design of Face It: A Memoir? What influenced the design work?

Roth: My basic approach was to create a fusion of memoir and art book. The other concept that we both decided was to design a beautiful book but make it look like someone pulled it off the shelf of a bookstore and drew on random pages then put it back on the shelf, which to me is quintessentially ‘punk’. I tried to balance Debbie’s ‘glamour and grit” aesthetic that I love so much, but also add a bit of metaphor and metaphysics within all the symbols and illustrations throughout the book.

What inspired the ‘in conservations’ and how has it been touring with Debbie and Chris?

Roth: The ‘In Conversations’ started small and kept growing. We did a few in New York when Chris’s book ‘Point of View’ came out and then after Debbie’s book came out it was just a natural build to keep these presentations going. I wanted them to be very natural and off the cuff. My goal was to make it feel like you were on the tour bus with them after a show (which is when the best stories come out). Debbie recently described the talks as like being in a play, which I find interesting. Touring with Debbie and Chris is a fun as you would imagine. They both have such a great sense of humour and both keep everything very real.

How have people responded to the ‘in conversations’, has it opened up new and interesting dialogues?

Roth: I’ve gotten some really great feedback, (except maybe The Daily Mail, Ha!). Some audience members have written thanking me and saying ‘its like being in the living room’ with Chris and Debbie, which was the basic idea. It keeps evolving and changing, each one is different from the last. We show lots of visuals and media to bring the subject matter in a different direction or to start on a different theme. I add new visuals every so often to keep it expanding and changing. Blondie was such a visual band and had been a part of such visual art scene that it’s a really great ‘way in’ to the conversations and amazing sometimes mythic stories they have.