Amber Rubarth

Biography

Rubarth was born in California. At age 17, she graduated high school and moved to Carson City, Nevada to apprentice at a chainsaw sculpting shop. After three years, she quit the apprenticeship to pursue music. She taught herself to play guitar and began performing at local open mic nights and coffee shops. Phil Ramone in The Huffington Post describes her style as "part of the new old-soul generation." Rubarth soon began touring throughout the U.S., Europe, and Japan. She tours with a 1956 Gibson ES-125 hollow body electric guitar, and also plays piano. In her side project The Paper Raincoat she sings and plays keyboard, guitar, glockenspiel, and occasionally drums.

Recognition

Amber Rubarth was awarded Grand Prize in the prestigious NPR Mountain Stage New Song Contest for her song "Letter From My Lonelier Self" (2010). The prize included recording with Jacquire King (Norah Jones, Kings of Leon, Tom Waits) and a performance on NPR's Mountain Stage. The new album was released September 30, 2011 through the contest organizer NewSong Recordings. Amber Rubarth's song "Washing Day" (co-written with Adam Levy) won 1st Place in the 2006 International Songwriting Competition in the 'Lyrics only' category, judged by Tom Waits, Brian Wilson and Robert Smith. The music video screened at the 2007 SXSW Festival in Austin. On May 8, 2008, Bob Boilen chose Rubarth's song "You Will Love This Song" from her second album New Green Lines for his NPR show All Things Considered. He said he was "attracted by her honesty and humor". On August 26, 2009, Tom Robinson featured the song on his BBC Radio show Fresh On the Net in the UK. She was recently listed as #16 in the UK "Music to Die For's Top 100 Favourite Female Vocalists of the Decade" between #17 Gillian Welch and #15 Tori Amos.

Many of her early fans discovered her music on MySpace where she received over 1.7 million plays and was featured in the Top 100 Independent Artists.

Recordings

"Sessions from the 17th Ward" (2012) - Live HD Binaural recording featuring Dave Eggar (cello), Tim Snider (violin), and Chuck Palmer (percussion). Chesky Records.

"A Common Case of Disappearing" (2011) - "New and Noteworthy" release on iTunes, debuted at #13 on the Singer Songwriter charts. NewSong Recordings. Produced by Jacquire King, features duets with Jason Reeves and Jason Mraz. Band included Adam Levy (guitar), Marco Giovino (drums), Frank Swart (bass) and Zac Rae (keys).

"The Paper Raincoat" (2009) - collaboration with Alex Wong and Kevin Rice. Full-length album for the band The Paper Raincoat, featured on iTunes Indie Spotlight.

Good Mystery (2009) to sold out audience at Joe's Pub in New York City. The collectors edition is a hand-crafted birch wood box with red wax hummingbird seal on a sliding lid top. Limited edition of 1000 handmade boxes sold out almost immediately through pre-order. #1 Best seller on Amie Street on release day and for two additional weeks.

"The Church EP" (2009) - collaboration EP with Adam Levy, recorded upstate New York in an old church.

"New Green Lines" (2008) - full-length album featuring "You Will Love This Song"

"Unfinished Art EP" (2007) - Limited edition handmade version of her "Unfinished Art" EP consisted of an original blind contour painting by Rubarth pressed onto a hanging handmade canvas with the album and liner notes inserted in the back.

"Something New" (2005) - Full-length album recorded in Brooklyn, NY, produced by The Animators.

Tours

Amber Rubarth has toured extensively throughout the US, UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, and Japan, sharing the stage with many eminent artists including Emmylou Harris, Jason Mraz, Kenny Loggins, John Oates, Loudon Wainwright III, Richie Havens, Martin Sexton, Producer/Artist Ethan Johns, Lisa Loeb, Roger McGuinn, Dave Eggar, Sara Bareilles, Joshua Radin, Gary Jules, Brett Dennen and Colbie Caillat.

In May 2009 Rubarth joined Jason Reeves and Brendan James to create "The Vespa Experiment," a musical tour along the California coast in which the three artists traveled on Vespa mopeds, camped, and did community awareness activities for 13 days to spread the message of environmental awareness.

In September 2009, she toured America and Canada supporting Gary Jules and Joshua Radin.

On November 23, 2011, Jason Mraz invited Amber to perform with him at his sold out Carnegie Hall concert, which included their new unreleased co-written song "Rated Ours."

The Paper Raincoat

In addition to her solo work, Rubarth formed a band with songwriter Alex Wong, called The Paper Raincoat. Rubarth explained in an interview with The Boston Globe that her solo work tends to be more personal, whereas The Paper Raincoat's songs are more imaginative, involving fictional characters. Their debut EP (Safe in the Sound) was featured as an iTunes Indie Spotlight Artist. In the fall of 2009, they toured the U.S. as support for Vienna Teng, and their music was the subject of CNET's 'The 404' podcast. The album "The Paper Raincoat" was released in October 2009. The band was named "Best of What's Next" by Paste Magazine who said "We think the world might be a little better if everyone heard this record." Their songs have been featured in Disney's The Last Song, One Tree Hill and Google and Aquafina commercials.

Discography

Movies

Rubarth played the lead role of Joni and composed the score for the feature film September 12th which is due out next year.