Hello, my name is Rolando Pardo. I’ve been writing and recording songs for the better part of 20 years now. I’ve composed and assembled 2 full length albums and this would be my 3rd. I don’t perform live all to often because I never really fancied myself to ever be the lead singer. Although to my dismay, I was just never able to find a vocalist that was willing to share my vision and help me get these arrangements out of my head. So here I am doing it again all on my own with my 3rd attempt at a self recorded album.
In the middle of 2013, I received word that my father had been diagnosed with preleukemia. At that time I was fumbling around recording my 2nd album, Through the Looking Glass. At the start of 2014 my fathers cancer had progressed and he had to start aggressive treatment. It was like a light switch turning on and my family’s world got flipped upside down. The reality of losing the foundation of our family was a question lingering on the back of our minds. This lit a fire under me to finish the record and release it. For 22 months my father, the strongest man I know, fought the fight of his life. An unwarranted, unexpected, and undeserving battle put upon a selfless, loving, and otherwise completely healthy man. He lost that battle in April of 2015. I have never been the same since. The following year I survived only by the company and good will of a few good friends.
When the reality set in that we were going to lose him, I, at his bedside, promised that I would give up playing music. I told him that there were no more songs to sing. He had lost the ability to speak by this time and he was in and out of consciousness. It makes me wonder if I had said that earlier would he turn and say to me to continue writing. I still wonder about that. Growing up poor was the only reason I set out to do anything with music. My plan was to make enough money with my songs that I’d be able to buy my parents a nice house and a nice car. That dreamed died when he did.
During the remainder of that year through 2016, I had already written a handful of new songs, mainly pertaining to the insurmountable grief I was dealing with. But I sold off my entire studio piece by piece, and during that whole time, I felt nothing.
The next couple years were difficult navigating through and I honestly didn’t want to be around anymore. But then in 2019, I lost a dear friend of whom I adored so very much. Too young, too soon. It was a gut check and I very reluctantly began to feel something. A prying in my stomach. I heard a voice, my fathers, telling me to not forget my mother. The realization that we are not here for long and tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. I picked up the guitar after 4 years of not touching it and wrote a song about my friend.
One year later, 2020, and I find myself not any further in life, only a little older, with a couple of health scares. Smack dab in the middle of a global pandemic with a pathogen that enjoys taking the lives of the elderly and people with underlying conditions, which included myself due to the unhealthy lifestyle I was living. Everything shut down. So I picked up my guitar, gathered some gear, and started recording.
6 previously released songs and 4 new ones, all acoustic. If there was a snapshot of my life condensed to 45 minutes, this would be it. Still plowing through the shit, just a little more conscious, a lot less numb, and with a halo forming.