19 Facts About Robert Pollard

Robert Pollard was born in Dayton, Ohio, where he has lived all his life.

When Robert Pollard began to show interest in music during high school, his father tried to discourage this.

Robert Pollard attended Northridge High School in the Dayton suburb of Northridge, followed by Wright State University in Fairborn, Ohio.

Robert Pollard has said that much of the inspiration for his songwriting has come from time spent hanging out with his high school friends from Dayton, a group he calls "The Monument Club".

Robert Pollard had a deformed hand with these little bitty fingers.

Towards the end of his senior year at Wright State University, Robert Pollard married Kim Dowler, a home-town girl he had been dating for seven years.

Robert Pollard has worked at all levels of primary school, from elementary school to middle school to high school.

Robert Pollard found the most difficult assignment to be teaching physical science to junior high schoolers.

Robert Pollard started playing music in local cover bands in Dayton, and got involved in a songwriters' guild, but he longed to be the leader of a band.

In 1992, bowing to the lack of support from family and friends, and to the pressure of unpaid debt, Robert Pollard broke up Guided by Voices after releasing Propeller, which he felt was their best album to date.

Robert Pollard began releasing solo records in 1996, alongside regular releases from Guided by Voices.

In 2006, Robert Pollard resumed touring with a new band informally dubbed "The Ascended Masters", which featured Tommy Keene on lead guitar and keyboards, Dave Phillips on guitar, Jon Wurster on drums, and Jason Narducy on bass, but subsequent to the cancellation of some 2006 dates due to a leg injury, Robert Pollard announced his retirement from touring.

Robert Pollard has issued recordings under a variety of other band names and in collaboration with former GBV colleagues and other musicians.

However, once signed to a major label and constrained to the expectation of producing only a single album per 18 months, Robert Pollard began the self-financed and released Fading Captain Series, a series of releases both under his own name, and a wide variety of pseudonyms.

When Robert Pollard announced that the Fading Captain Series was being concluded he announced that he was starting up a new record label, then called Record Company Records but later re-titled as Prom is Coming, which is named after a song off his first solo album Not in My Airforce.

In spring 2007, Robert Pollard began a singles collection called the Happy Jack Rock Records Single Series in which one 7-inch record was released per month for 12 months starting June 22,2007.

All the records featured an A-side from Robert Pollard's dueling Merge releases that year and a non-album B-side.

In 2008, Pollard announced the forming of yet another new label Guided by Voices Inc The first album release on Guided by Voices Inc was Robert Pollard Is Off To Business, preceded by the 12-inch EP Weatherman And Skin Goddess.

Robert Pollard wrote a song about each: "Your Name is Wild" about his daughter Erika and "My Son Cool" being about his son Bryan.