The music world recently lost a talented musician, Rob Laakso, best known for his work with Kurt Vile & the Violators. In response to this heartbreaking news, Kurt Vile took to Instagram to pen a heartfelt and lengthy tribute to his late friend, sharing some of their favorite memories together.
Rob Laakso passed away on May 4th after a battle with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of bile duct cancer. At the time of his death, he was 44 years old. Laakso and Vile had been collaborating since the early 2000s, and Laakso officially joined Kurt Vile and the Violators in 2011.
In his emotional Instagram post, Vile reminisced about the cherished moments he spent with Laakso. He shared the story of how they first met in Boston, where Vile followed Laakso around, admiring his work with the band The Wicked Farleys.
Vile also recounted their time together during the recording sessions for the albums ‘Smoke Ring for My Halo’ and ‘Watch My Moves.’ He expressed gratitude for having Laakso’s angelic backing vocals on the song ‘Say the Word’ and mentioned how it was magically fitting.
Kurt Vile recalled the following in his Instagram post:
“I used to follow Rob around in Boston in the early days because I worshipped his first band, The Wicked Farleys, so that was definitely my mission when moving there for a couple of years at the start of the aughts… Luckily, he took me in and recorded me even though I was awkward and shy (good thing, so was he, but just in different ways).
Later, some of that stuff ended up on the Swirlies album ‘Cats of the Wild,’ thanks to Rob… An early dream of mine fulfilled (auxiliary Swirlie!)
More recently, it was sometimes just me and him at Shawn Everett’s studio in LA to bottle it in. I often see the image in my mind of Rob shaking his hand in pain after playing the same two bass notes while I sang and played lead guitar on the skinny mini for over 10 minutes (but every note from Rob solid as hell, what you need.)
That was right after coming off a tour of the sea lice with Courtney, where Rob was the glue (you were often the glue, brother.) Thanks to my best bro Rennie for saying, ‘My right-hand man lost his right-hand man.‘ That was heavy to see but beautiful and true.[…] “
Through his shared memories and kind words, Kurt Vile has immortalized their bond with Rob Laakso and celebrated the life of a talented musician who will be dearly missed. There’s no doubt that the passing of his dear friend will be hard for Kurt to comprehend.
