James Rotondi

Musician (guitarist, keyboards...), composer, writer, and actor. Rotondi began performing at age 16 in Boston clubs as a member of bands—including Teacher’s Pet and Dogs in Traffic—with players twice his age. Later, after receiving a degree in Literature and Music from Bennington College, he returned to Boston and began performing in bands and playing coffehouses alongside future stars like Mary Lou Lord, The Lemonheads, Ellis Paul, and Dar Williams. He also began contributing regular music reviews to The Boston Phoenix. He relocated to San Francisco in 1992, working for Guitar Player magazine. He received a Music Journalism award in 1994. He also began composing and playing on TV commercials. Since then Rotondi has written, played and sung on close to a hundred spots for television and internet play, producing music at his own ZenEasy Studios. A former member of avant-jazz group The Grassy Knoll, Rotondi toured the US in 1997 and 1998, joined Northwestern chanteuse McKinley on a tour opening for David Crosby, and was asked to play guitar and keyboards for Mr. Bungle, touring internationally for the next two years in Europe, Japan, Australia and the US. In 2001, he joined French superstars Air in concert as a keyboard player and singer. Moving to New York in 2003, he became the Editor in Chief of Future Music US and Guitar World’s Bass Guitar, and he launched the band Jettatura with drummer Dave Hill, Jr. In 2010, Rotondi was accepted into the acting program at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and returned to New York to appear in productions of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and Much Ado About Nothing, at Manhattan’s American Globe Theatre. Combining those dramatic skills and his musical chops, he has also presented large-scale songwriting workshops for companies including American Express and Microsoft. Under his nom de guerre “Roto”, he has performed original songs across the country over the last decade, releasing the album “Summer Home” album in 2009. He is also the founder of the Bad Eliots, one half of 80s-inspired duo Spy Empire, and is a regular member of the songwriting workshop founded by Austin tunesmith Bob Schneider. His next album, “Into the Unknown,” features contributions from Roto’s Magic Act, a collective of top-tier players from New York, LA, San Francisco and Austin, including drummers Shawn Pelton and Matt Chamberlain, and others.