Early life

Born and raised in Windsor, Ontario

Windsor, Ontario

Windsor is the southernmost city in Canada and is located in Southwestern Ontario at the western end of the heavily populated Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. It is within Essex County, Ontario, although administratively separated from the county government. Separated by the Detroit River, Windsor...

, Canada, the 24 year old was raised on the musical energy that still thrives in bordering Motown Detroit, Michigan

Detroit, Michigan

Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...

's music scene.

"I grew up with so much music. The good kind though; no stereos…there was live music in my house every night. My sisters were always singing, rehearsing and playing piano. My dad would get out the home camera and film our all-night fake concerts."

After years of singing James Taylor

James Taylor

James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....

 songs on a ‘Toys "R" Us’ plastic "Key-Tar", 10 year old Pat finally got a real acoustic guitar from a local music shop.

"I started playing guitar and writing songs right away. I remember watching MuchMusic as a kid and studying the guitar players’ hands. That's how I learned the chords; I knew them before I even played my first guitar."

At age 15 Pat was recording songs on a digital eight track machine in his bedroom. These records made their way out of his home and into the hands of music industry professionals around North America, and eventually into the hands of a critically acclaimed music producer in Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

.

By age 16, with just months to go to graduate, Pat dropped out of high school to pursue music full time. Between heading to Los Angeles to record and meeting with record companies, Pat was playing nightly in Windsor and Detroit. After spiking interest in nearly every major U.S. label, Pat had a career changing revelation.

"I quickly realized that having a real music career in this day and age isn’t about who you know, or what someone else can do for you. Rather, a real music career is about artistic integrity. To live with myself I just had to retain control over my work product...so my only option was to pursue my career as an unsigned, independent artist."

"I did what I had to do. I bought a van and started touring North America on my own."

Playing in venues across the continent, Pat spent his time booking shows, writing and recording music and selling demo CDs out of his van.

Career

"CHANGE is a well conceived...collection of songs, featuring a man with a golden voice."
-Exclaim! Magazine Canada

At 24, Patrick has independently released four full-length albums and countless EPs, held the #1 spot on MuchMoreMusic's Daily Top 10 countdown, played hundreds of shows with world-class acts including support spots for The Beach Boys, Gordon Lightfoot, The Tragically Hip, Peter Frampton & Matthew Good. He's also performed at the Mariposa Folk Festival & Hillside, two legendary Canadian music festivals. Quite an accomplishment for someone who bas been mostly self-managed up to this point. Then again, Patrick's always had the ability to make things happen in his own, unique way...

His journey into the world of music started at age four with his plastic Fisher-Price guitar, strumming and singing along to James Taylor cassette tapes. As a child, he was diagnosed with a form of Epilepsy that was potentially life threatening & would require major surgery. At age 11, he was given his first guitar and it would prove to be his saving grace. From that day on, the seizures have never returned.

"Even to this day, my music is my therapy. I think, in turn, it becomes the therapy my fans need in their lives too. That's how music connects us all."

His early home demos, made at age 15, would prove worthy enough to compete in the major US music market. On the strength of these recordings he was quickly snatched up by Ben Grosse (Ben Folds, Vertical Horizon, Filter, Marilyn Manson) in a production deal that landed him in Los Angeles, California. At age 18, he was recording tracks in legendary recording studios and sitting down with countless major labels. This quick glimpse of the music industry was a little too much for a kid who just wanted to make his own music. So, after an inspirational stint in Nashville, TN, he made the crucial decision to do things on his own. The result? A burgeoning independent career, as real and honest as the lyrics in his songs.

His most recent effort, a full-length album entitled CHANGE, was released in Sept. 2010. It's an obvious sonic departure for the acoustic guitar slinging, Windsor, Ontario native. On CHANGE, Patrick turns up the electric guitars and vintage keyboards. He called on friend and musical mentor Adam Rideout-Arkell to help him craft an album with a vintage-meets-modern sound.

"It's an album about love lost. Lyrically, it reflects on some major relationships that have failed in my life. Musically, it reflects on the song-writing and instrumentation I was exposed to during my time in Nashville. I was hanging around with a crew of insanely talented and successful people, and I soaked it all up like a sponge."

CHANGE features Robitaille's most honest and mature work to date.

Albums

• Acoustic EP (Pat Robitaille album)
  Acoustic EP (Pat Robitaille album)
  Pat Robitaille EP is an acoustic EP by Folk rock musician Pat Robitaille, released in 2006.-Track listing:#"Found Blue Skies"#"Come Back"#"Broad River Run"#"Can You Feel Me?"#"I Don't Mind"#"You're a Blessed Soul"#"A Good Day Waits"...
  
  (March 21, 2006)
• Summer of Love (Pat Robitaille Album)
  Summer of Love (Pat Robitaille Album)
  Summer of Love is the debut album by Folk rock musician Pat Robitaille, released in 2007.-Track listing:#The Real Thing#I Can Do Better#Leonard Cohen #No Superman#Jail in September#Summer of Love#I Don't Know Why#Rockin' Me...
  
  (June 5, 2007)
• Two Forty Eight (Pat Robitaille Album)
  Two Forty Eight (Pat Robitaille Album)
  Two Forty Eight is the third release by Folk rock musician Pat Robitaille, released in September 2008.-Track listing:#Was There Born A Man#In My House#God's Walking Not Far Behind Me#Why Don't You Try#Then I Woke Up#Woman#The Moon Hung low...
  
  (September 2008)
• Change (Pat Robitaille Album) (September 2010)

External links

• Pat Robitaille live review Fazermagazine.com March 2009