Some kids drive their parents to distraction. Rob Slosberg”™s son Justin, 11, has driven the Old Man to dust off his guitar and plug in his amp at venues in Westport.
Slosberg is the co-owner and creative director of Turbine, an advertising agency in Westport.?“I am one of the few people in the Westport business community that grew up here as a little kid,” said Slosberg. “I went to high school here and still live here.”
Slosberg”™s father built a direct marketing company in New York City that became Bronner Slosberg Humphrey and is currently known as Digitas.
“My mother was a guitar teacher,” said Slosberg. “When your parents want you to do something, you don”™t do it. The second she stopped asking, I started playing guitar, which was around college.”
Slosberg attended University of Massachusetts, Amherst, majoring in journalism.
“We got some small bands going in college,” said Slosberg. “Nothing too serious, but it was fun. We were playing straight up rock: The Who, Led Zeppelin and The Doors.”
After a brief stint as a journalist, Slosberg entered the New York City advertising world as a copywriter armed with his writing and sense of humor. He worked for Chiat-Day on the MTV and Reebok accounts and also ran the Burger King account for Ammirati & Puris, plus accounts for Ogilvy and Mather. He then joined Devito Verdi where he worked on large retail accounts including Office Depot, Canon, Daffy”™s and Circuit City.
On a serendipitous trip to Westport, Slosberg bumped into an advertising peer.
“While cutting through the lobby of 125 Main St., I bumped into Jeff Vogt,” said Slosberg. “He was thinking about moving out of the city and he needed a partner. He”™s on the art direction side and I”™m on the writing side. We thought that this was a great coincidence and I talked to my wife and things just started moving into place.”
Vogt, who began the business in 1993 as Vogt and Goldstein, brought Slosberg in as an equal partner in 2003 and changed the name to VGS. The name of the business was changed again in 2008 to Turbine.
“Things started doing really well for the business,” said Slosberg. “We”™re 15 employees. We”™ve worked for years on the Oxford account and currently we have some great projects from Nokia, Rosetta Stone and we do some work with Chase.”
Slosberg is one of the few creative directors sitting on the Ad Council, the biggest national producer of public service ads.
Though Slosberg”™s professional career was on the rise, the combination of marriage and children left little time for his musical exploits.
“I literally dropped it for seven years straight,” said Slosberg. “I actually forgot I played it myself until Justin started playing the drums when he was about 6.”
Slosberg”™s wife Dawn bought Justin his first drum set.
“Justin went down there, put on his iPod and memorized the drum parts,” said Slosberg. “He blew me away when he would ask me to listen to the toms here and the snare here. He could hear the separate drum parts at 6 and 7.”
As Justin got better, Slosberg remembered his own musical ability. To a skeptical Justin”™s surprise, his father could play guitar.
“He had never seen me play the guitar,” said Slosberg. “I literally blew the dust off of my Gibson, pulled it out of the closet and got my old amp and we just cranked it up. The first song we played together was ”˜Brand New Cadillac”™ by The Clash. We played it pretty well.”
Slosberg jokingly invited an audio engineer friend from New York City, James Toomey, to play bass and Toomey came aboard. The band was started.
“We weren”™t great because we didn”™t have a singer yet; I was the singer by default,” said Slosberg. “Not a great one, but it was a lot of fun.”
Slosberg felt he couldn”™t realistically be the front man for the group so a Westport talent, Steve Black, stepped in to be the group”™s singer.
“We played the first time live at Bobby Q”™s,” said Slosberg. “It went over really well we had a crowd of about 50 to 75 people. Everyone wanted to see a 7-year-old drummer. We”™ve got a few more gigs coming up as ”˜Justin and the Mid-Life Crisis.”™ We”™re sometimes known as ”˜Three and a Half Men,”™ but not as much. We only play occasionally, but it is definitely the highlight of my life when we get to do it.”
Justin is a fan of the older rock. Led Zeppelin is his favorite band. Slosberg is a Foo Fighters kind of guy.
“We also do older things like ”˜Day Tripper”™ and a great song by the Subways called ”˜Oh Yea,”™” said Slosberg. “What”™s perfect for us is straight up rock ”™n”™ roll: hard guitar, hard drums and a guy just trying to scream it out.”
Slosberg has another son, 8-year-old Derek, who”™s begun to pluck at the bass leaving Toomey with some up-and-coming competition.
