Photos courtesy of Jeffrey S. Hall Photography
Growing up as a student within Columbus City Schools offers ample opportunities within the arts. As fourth grade approached, Upper Arlington resident Rob Maccabee wanted to take full advantage and took up the violin.
Within a year, after a conversation with the band director at West High School, Maccabee switched to play the trumpet. This may have felt insignificant at the time, but the choice would prove to be fortuitous in his future endeavors.
“I went home to my mom and told her, ‘I think I want to play trumpet’,” Maccabee says. “We went down to Uncle Sam’s Pawn Shop downtown and I remember my mom saying, ‘I’ll rent this for you, but you can’t just quit.’”
Dan Mitchell
Maccabee, as his mother suggested, fully embraced the trumpet and never looked back. He was a member of both the All-State Orchestra and jazz band at West.
As college approached, he auditioned for a few different schools and decided to continue his music education at Capital University.
Starting the New Basics Brass Band
The summer before his first semester at Capital, Maccabee and a friend decided to drive to Rhode Island for the Newport Jazz Festival in 1995.
“We packed up the Subaru, drove out there, slept in his car, took a shower at the beach,” Maccabee says. “We saw a tribute to Louis Armstrong the night before with guys like Wynton Marsalis and Jon Faddis and members of The Dirty Dozen Brass Band.”
The Dirty Dozen’s set would inspire Maccabee to form his own group. Shortly after the trip, he formed his own group, New Basics Brass Band was born, and Maccabee cited Dirty Dozen as a main influence.
“I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, that is so cool.’ I modeled our band off of Dirty Dozen,” Maccabee says. “I just got out of school and wanted to start a band because I wanted to gig.”
Young and Naïve
Photo courtesy of Tim Perdue
Three years later in spring 1996, the Dirty Dozen was set to make a stop at what was once a staple of Columbus music scene, Staches. A place in which Maccabee recalls being an absolute dive in all the best ways.
“With the power of being young and naïve, I called up the club owner and said, ‘I have a brass band, can we open for them?’” Maccabee says. “Not only were we just young and dumb and said let’s jump on the show, we ended up playing one if not two of their songs in front of them. That’s like opening for the Rolling Stones and playing ‘Brown Sugar’.”
New Basics would go on to record their debut album in 1997 and ended up getting a couple members of Dirty Dozen to play on the record.
“They didn’t laugh at us that first night, although they could have,” Maccabee says. “They were so nice and super supportive.”
Shaking it up
New Basics has maintained a steady flow of shows and performances throughout the years. The band has played all over the country including at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and South by Southwest, an annual film, media and music festival held in Texas, and all-around Columbus.
The group even had the opportunity to record with some of funk and jazz’s biggest names including Bootsy Collins of Parliament-Funkadelic, Freekbass and trombonist Fred Wesley.
While New Basics has been the longest running project of Maccabee’s, his musical life has spread wide and far.
He recently started a project SupaFun Band, a novelty act where the group dresses up as clowns. They play a variety of TV and movie theme songs, cartoon music and favorite Buckeye songs.
Photo courtesy of Tim Perdue
The band has played the Ohio State Fair, the South Carolina State Fair, grand openings of businesses like IKEA and even had an opportunity to play in China but ultimately had to pass on the show due to government issues.
“I want to think of it more as I am an entertainer, not just a musician,” Maccabee says. “It’s become one of the most joy bringing and lucrative things I’ve ever done, even though it is absurd in the idea of it.”
Aside from the trumpet, sousaphone and mellophone, Maccabee is a singer-songwriter and a constant presence in the Columbus scene. He is a member of the Columbus Songwriters Association and regularly hosts a night at Rambling House.
“It’s really become my main creative outlet right now in terms of creating and writing songs. It’s something I really enjoy,” Maccabee says. “What it really has allowed me to do is get over myself in other ways and to stretch myself. It’s super vulnerable to sing not only a song you wrote, but express things you wrote about yourself.”
A Real Cutting Your Teeth Experience
As a child, Maccabee always had a knack for entrepreneurship, often hosting carnivals in his back yard and charging neighborhood kids to get in, and always found the time to sell something. Though New Basics was gigging throughout Columbus and beyond, Maccabee wanted to find a full-time job.
Mark Greenwood, a friend and founding drummer of the band, was working with an on-hold marketing company, a business that recorded a personalized on-hold message for companies accompanied by music.
“We got a loan from his dad, bought Pro Tools and rented a two-bedroom apartment on north campus. One bedroom was our workstation and the other was where he slept,” Maccabee says. “I think we even had a fax machine, business cards … all that stuff, a real legitimate operation.”
Although behind the scenes the business seemed prime for success, Maccabee quickly realized they were missing one essential ingredient to get the business off the ground.
“I remember the first day, just sitting there … that feeling … and then all of a sudden we realized, oh, we need a customer,” Maccabee says, laughing. “I picked up the Yellow Pages and just started calling people. That’s where I began to learn the art of cold calling.”
For the next five years, Maccabee took in all the knowledge he could through running a business. Macwood Audio offered a number of services, but ultimately the experience taught Maccabee valuable lessons focused on how to gain customers.
Finding Stability
In 1999, he stepped away from Macwood Audio with the desire of finding something more stable.
“I wanted something more stable, less bachelor-like,” Maccabee says. “I was still playing shows and staying up late, I just needed to get my life together.”
Opportunity came knocking once again for Maccabee after a brief stint with a merchant services company out of Texas that he soon found out was not the most honest business.
He was invited to a meeting at Old Bag of Nails Pub after someone came across his business card and recognized the work Maccabee had been doing. It was there where he met Douglas Mack, founder of Payex.
That conversation began a 17-year relationship with the company in a role that afforded Maccabee a great deal of experience. The business was in a coworking space, allowing Maccabee to become practiced at branding, company creation, naming and so much more.
“He showed me how the business really worked and I was able to get involved with things like sales management and doing other marketing like direct mail campaigns,” Maccabee says. “I was able to continue my education of business development sales and marketing and what was working and not working.”
In 2017, Maccabee planned his next venture and combined the years of experience he gained through leading and marketing his band, his work with Macwood Audio and time spent in the credit card processing business to launch a company of his own.
Naventive, which focuses on brand specialization, was founded and launched by Maccabee in 2017.
Photo courtesy of Tim Perdue
“I develop a process that takes somebody through a series of exercises and exploratory questions to help them realize who their ideal client is and what their ideal deliverable is,” Maccabee says. “We’re doing what we do best and that is helping people get absolute clarity.”
Staying Busy
Maccabee maintains a rather jam-packed schedule in his life. Whether that is spending time with his family, working with Naventive or playing out in the Columbus music scene, there is no shortage of excitement in his life. Maccabee and his wife, Erin, are also expecting a newborn baby boy at the end of March.
He has been a member of the Tri-Village Chamber Partnership for years and it is a role he truly enjoys and allows him to connect with so many like-minded individuals.
“Being on the chamber gives me the opportunity to learn and meet people who come from a variety of walks of life,” Maccabee says. “The most involved people are givers and care and want to contribute to the community and to see it flourish.”
He is now in the process of transitioning his weekly songwriter series, “Troubadour Tuesdays” at the Rambling House into a weekly web series.
“We’ll take a deep dive into what inspired the song, a little more into the mechanics. Did the song start with a lick or the lyrics? Who was the influence behind it?” Maccabee says. “It’s an opportunity to shine a light on a great local songwriter.”
The series will partner with venues throughout Columbus and continue to introduce the city to a plethora of talented individuals.
Photo courtesy of Tim Perdue
Through all his endeavors, Maccabee is able to work with people to help them realize their true potential, and that is something he fully embraces.
“I really like making a difference for people,” Maccabee says. “What I ultimately want to do is help people’s dreams come true.”
Rocco Falleti is an assistant editor. Feedback welcomed at rfalleti@cityscenecolumbus.com
