Photo: Rocky Votolato · CC BY 4.0 · credits
Tier 3 · vertical & regional
Rocky Votolato
Person · male · United States · Dallas · born 1977
American guitarist
Timeline
1 events◦ Birth 1
1970s
Biography
English biography346 words · 5 sectionssource: wikipedia-en · licence CC BY-SA 4.0 · revision 1371038163
Biography
Rocky Votolato (born March 8, 1977) is an American indie and folk singer-songwriter. He was also a member of the rock group Waxwing. in 2025, he started a new band called Suzzallo with bandmate Rudy Gajadhar on drums and former Schoolyard Heroes guitarist Steve Bonnell playing bass. Votolato currently lives in Seattle, Washington.
Biography
Rocky Votolato was formerly the singer of a punk quartet Waxwing in the 90s before leaving in 1999 to pursue a solo career. He released several albums between 1999 and 2008. In 2015, he released the record Hospital Handshakes with Death Cab For Cutie member Chris Walla. After 2015, he went on a hiatus until 2022 when he released the album Wild Roots. Every song on Wild Roots is based on one of his family members.
He has been married to his wife, April Votolato, for over 10 years, and they live in Seattle. Their child Kienan died at age 22 in a car accident in December 2021.
In 2022, Rocky Votolato played two sold-out shows in Denver, Colorado.
in 2025, his new band Suzzallo released a debut album “The Quiet Year” as a means of coping with the death of his child.
Solo
Rocky Votolato (1999) (Status Recordings)
Rocky V/Seth Warren 7" (1999) (Redwood Records)
A Brief History (2000) (Your Best Guess)
Rocky V/Suffering & The Thieves 7" (2002) (Velvet Blue Music)
Burning My Travels Clean (LP) (2002) (Second Nature Recordings)
The Light and the Sound (EP) (2003) (Second Nature Recordings)
Suicide Medicine (2003) (Second Nature Recordings)
Makers (2006) (Second Nature Recordings) (Barsuk)
End Like This (EP) (2007) (Second Nature Recordings)
The Brag and Cuss (2007) (Barsuk)
True Devotion (2010) (Barsuk)
Television of Saints (2012) (Undertow Music Collective)
Hospital Handshakes (2015) (No Sleep Records)
Live at Black Belt (2017) (Rocket Heart Records)
Wild Roots (2022) (Spartan Records)
Waxwing
Waxwing 7" (1999) (Henry's Finest Recordings)
For Madmen Only (1999) (Second Nature Recordings)
One for the Ride (2000) (Second Nature Recordings)
Intervention:Collection+Remix (2001) (Second Nature Recordings)
Nobody Can Take What Everybody Owns (2002) (Second Nature Recordings)
Lying On Loot
Split 7" with State Route 522 (1996) (Henry's Finest Recordings)
Discography & profile
Normalised profile
Percentiles are computed over every artist in the database, so a tier-3 artist can still sit in the 95th percentile on a single axis.
| Metric | Value | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia language versions | 6 | 38.9th |
| Spotify monthly listeners | — | no data |
| Release groups in DB | 0 | 0th |
| Studio albums | 0 | 0th |
| Awards recorded | 0 | 0th |
| Timeline events | 1 | 40.6th |
| Recording span (years) | — | no data |
| Genres | 1 | 56th |
Percentiles are computed at render time; missing values mean the artist has no data on that axis.
Discography (0 release groups)
No discography rows stored yet
MusicBrainz enrichment for this artist is still pending. Release groups appear here once it runs.
Stats & PK
Percentile within all 23,672 published artists.Put Rocky Votolato head-to-head →
| Metric | Value | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia language versions | 6 | 38.9th |
| Spotify monthly listeners | — | no data |
| Release groups in DB | 0 | 0th |
| Studio albums | 0 | 0th |
| Awards recorded | 0 | 0th |
| Timeline events | 1 | 40.6th |
| Recording span (years) | — | no data |
| Genres | 1 | 56th |
Awards & honours
Where this record comes from
portrait—Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved 11 October 2026
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rocky_Votolato.jpgcore—wikidata · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6227264genre—wikidata · CC0 · retrieved 11 October 2026
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6227264seed-list—wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Votolatobiography—wikipedia-en · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Votolato
Why this artist is in the database
- List of singer-songwriters
Tier rule: curated genre/region list
Image: Rocky Votolato · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Wikidata: Q6227264 · MusicBrainz: 05010b18-ba21-46dc-be6d-615d90170b8e
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