Robert Cantillon Has Pocket 10s and He’s Ready to Show His Hand

The term multi-hyphenate might be one of the most overused in music right now, but for Robert Cantillon it truly applies.

The 23 year old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has released music as a solo artist, and with his band, Rob Cantillon & the Pocket 10s, while also being playwright, creating short, offbeat plays that run in the city.

Originally from Southington, CT, Cantillon moved to NYC for school, and became a resident after graduation, ultimately finding the musicians who would become his Pocket 10s bandmates at a poker game with friends.

The third single from Rob Cantillon & the Pocket 10s, titled “No Reason,” will be released on May 9th, and he says that while it’s been a long time coming, it’s going to be well worth the wait.

“I wrote it in high school, and it’s had such a life since then,” he explains, “It’s gotten the benefit of of multiple musicians playing on it now, multiple voices with Jules (Pasko), who’s just incredible, and I don’t want to put things out before they get to that point sometimes.”

He continued, adding, “I don’t want to sound like I’m being precious with any of these songs, because the solo projects, some of those I put out the month I wrote them, and that was an awesome outlet. I felt like, yeah, this is spontaneous and ready to go, but with some songs, I really want to to put all my heart and soul in. Then once I feel like they’re ready it’s so gratifying to finally put them out.”

I caught up with Cantillon over Zoom to find out more about how he built his band at a poker game, as well as his holy trinity of musical inspirations, and his latest dark comedy play, which involves Caitlin Clark as a murderer of the elderly!

First off, you originally had a band named the Pocket Sevens, so how did the Pocket Sevens become the Pocket 10s, and is this band a better hand? 

It’s a great question. The Pocket Sevens was my high school project. It was myself, my good friend Jack Kastner played bass, and my friend Ben Palladino played drums.

We played a couple shows, we put up a couple quote-unquote “festivals” in my backyard, and it was a really fun project.

I feel like I keep that in a separate place. I work with those guys, and I’d love to put out a Pocket Sevens song one day, just for old time’s sake, but since I’ve been in New York it’s been the Pocket 10s. That’s been my main project, both performing, and recording.

I knew when I came to New York I wanted to work with people who are a lot better than me, who outclassed me on their instruments, and I’ve been blessed to find those people. Tim (Youngman) and Julen (Rodriguez) have been part of this project since pretty much day one in New York, and that’s what I consider the core lineup, me and the two of them, then whenever we can have Jules (Pasko), I love to have her on board, as well.

I remember her from your recent show at Arlene’s Grocery. She has a heck of a voice. 

She does. She’s incredible. Jules and I met in college. She was studying acting, and I was studying playwriting, so she was in our thesis class where we worked with the actors on table reads, and I was very fortunate to get her on board with all of this.

I read the whole idea for the Pocket 10s came together during a poker game. 

Yeah, that’s how I met Tim. He was a friend of a friend, and we got to talking about music. It was right around the time the pandemic was ending, and I was like – I’m going to start. I really want to play live here. I’ve been in New York three years. I’ve been wanting to do it. I’ve been trying out, trying to be in bands, trying to start my own thing. I’m just going to do it now.

Meeting Tim was a huge turning point. My good friend Ethan McDonnell, I met through that poker game, too. He plays keys for us whenever he’s in the city.

If that was your best idea to come from a poker game, what was one of your worst? I want some balance here, so it doesn’t just seem like an Algonquin Round Table of poker. 

Man, I’m an okay poker player. Most of my worst ideas have been, I had a stack of chips, and then after that worst idea I had to go quietly watch my friends play the rest of the game.

You’re not heading to Atlantic City any time soon. 

No, I don’t think of myself as that good of a player, unfortunately. I came into the games, I met some great people, and I didn’t lose too much money. I still have the four walls around me.

And you gained a band. 

I gained a band. To me, that’s always been the most important thing.

With the Pocket 10s you’ve released two singles, “Gotta Get Away,” and “Going Postal,” with single number three, “No Reason,” due out in May. You also have solo work, so other than the players involved, what’s different about your work with the Pocket 10s versus your work as a solo artist? 

Those two singles that we’ve put out, and “No Reason,” those were times when I booked space, I came in with the band, and we practiced. They’re songs that I had written, but I’d worked them with those guys before. We went in all together, and we basically recorded it live. Then we tracked in some guitar solos, some extra vocal tracks, all that sort of thing, and then mixed it all together.

Irving Gadoury has been instrumental as my point man on mixing all of this, and recording it.

My solo stuff was, and is – because I want a return to putting stuff out just under my own name – usually stuff I just did on my own, sometimes with a little help, sometimes with an outside producer, or someone to do one or two different instruments on it.

It was mostly my early work, and it was me just really wanting to have stuff out there, and take the ball from point A to point Z, and try to make something happen all on my own.

I had a lot of fun doing that, but I have had infinitely more fun working in the band environment, and working with other people.

In addition to music, you’re also a playwright. When an idea is in your head, does it immediately present itself in the eventual creative format it’s going to take, or does a song sometimes become a short play, or vice versa? 

Plays, I usually know that it’s going to be a play. Songs, not so much.

I love having the two kind of concurrent, because I do find if something doesn’t work in one, I wind up either using it explicitly in another, or at least thinking of it in the other.

I really want to do a rock musical one day. I need to make myself do it. My training in these two fields, it seems like I have to do that at some point. There’s a couple songs I’ve written where I feel like, man, that would sound good on a theater stage.

With plays I love dark comedy, I love silly, I love nonsense. I truly have joy in that. Music is generally where I’m a little more personal. Not always, but I think if I’m really working through something, and I want to create something out of that real life thing, I gravitate towards music for sure.

You mentioned creating a rock musical. Do you have any favorites? 

It’s the basic answer, but Rent, truly. If I could play in the pit band for one musical, I would love to play in a production of Rent.

A friend did a short rock musical with all songs by The Beths, this New Zealand rock band, and I got to play bass in the pit for one, and it was a great experience.

Who were some of your initial musical influences, and how did your musical development as a fan, and artist, grow? 

When I was growing up, music was always on. My parents are big fans. My grandmother idolized Elvis Presley, and that was a huge influence on me. He’s been an influence on every generation since he’s been around, but she absolutely loved him, and she loved his music, and that was big for me.

My mother always had Dave Matthews Band on, and Billy Joel. My father likes the classics, like Aaron Copland, and Mozart.

I think all of that still sits in what I do.

When I started getting closer to playing music on my own, I would say Tom Petty was a huge reason I knew I wanted to play the guitar. Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, those were my early (inspirations), where I was listening, and wanting to play it, and looking up the chords.

My uncle Fran, he’s a lifelong guitarist, as well, and he loved those guys. When we would play together along with my uncle Steve, who was learning at the same time I was, those were the guys that we tried to do any song that we could of theirs.

As it kept going, it was maybe a little heavier genre of rock, and Led Zeppelin certainly came into the mix, but Petty, Dylan, and Springsteen, if I had to point to three when I started to play, were probably my biggest influences.

In addition to the guitar, you broke out a harmonica during your set at Arlene’s. I think puts you in a bit of an exclusive club in 2025. With the trio of inspirations you mentioned I think I may know the answer to this, but what influenced you to pick up a harmonica? 

Yeah, you do know the answer.

Early on I knew two things, I was learning guitar, and I knew I had to be able to sing while I’m doing this, and I need to be able to play harmonica, because that’s the music I loved.

It’s a song by song thing. If I’m doing “Heart of Gold” (by Neil Young), or “Like a Rolling Stone” (by Bob Dylan), any of those covers, it’s fun because I know the crowd, like you said, doesn’t really expect the harmonica anymore. Certainly not with the neck holder, so it’s fun to bring that out when I know it’s not something anyone else in the show usually is going to have.

I never meant for it to make me stand out. I (began using) it because those were truly the songs I wanted to play, but people get excited when I pick up the neck holder, and that’s kind of fun.

Moving to your work in theatre, you recently had a play at the One-Act Festival titled Caitlin Clark Murdered My Grandmother. To that I say … WHAT??? 

First and foremost, I am a huge fan of Caitlin Clark. I mean, I grew up in Connecticut, the basketball capital of the world, and women’s basketball capital of the world. That led me to Caitlin Clark.

The play is a detective play. The main character has just attempted to exact her revenge on Caitlin Clark. She’s sure that Caitlin Clark is responsible for killing her grandmother in the 1960s.

It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I have a whole lot of fun, and I was able to direct this production and work with some some really awesome actors. Talia (Godfrey), Francoise (Traxler), and Addison (Hinojosa) were wonderful in their respective parts.

Now we have to make sure Caitlin Clark finds out about it. 

I would love to think that it might even be a blip on on Ms. Clark’s radar.

I’m going to keep doing it in the city until it ends up coinciding with her schedule.

Honestly, I hope that she would find it a nice tribute, and I think she would find it funny.

When I do plays, they’re short plays like that. I’m working towards something full in the summer, but it’s a great outlet. I love doing the 15 minute comedy, leaving the audience like, “What did we watch?”

Finally, with “No Reason” coming out in May, are you also working on an EP, or are you going to be a singles artist for a year or two before putting something together? 

At the moment, it’s going to be singles.

I would love a longer project, but these have been coming in sort of piecemeal, and we’ve had these very productive sessions when we can.

“No Reason” we recorded last January, and I’ve been working on the mix with Irving since then. There’s been hiatuses, and I wasn’t sure where it was going, but it wound up exactly where we wanted it.

I have a couple other songs that we’re pretty much done with, and I’m trying to figure out the right direction for putting them all out.

I do think within a year, or so, I'll be ready to compile this stuff into a cohesive EP, or maybe something longer.

We tried out a song for the first time live the night you saw us that I wrote two years ago. It can be a slow process, and I feel like I’m just figuring it all out myself.

For more Robert Cantillon, check out robertcantillon.com.