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Uuntil May last year, trumpeter Robyn Steward had never been in a nightclub, apart from playing trumpet with Lancaster duo The Beloved Eggs at London’s Heaven, and a few nights in a university hall that doubled as a lunchroom. Steward is autistic and has multiple disabilities including cerebral palsy. “Sometimes the strobes can give me a migraine, or a heavy feeling,” she says. I feel like my body is a little lost.
When he wanted to see a gig at Fabric nightclub in London, he asked his friend to go with him as a chaperone. He said: “I was very impressed with how easy it was. The subtle touch combined several needs found in the space. “The mezzanine level meant I didn’t have sculptures on my face. There was a rail that I could hold on to, and there were seats facing the balcony so I could watch the game.” He also saw Fabric’s recently redesigned dancefloor, which deliberately transforms sound into audible vibrations to better accommodate those with hearing loss. Steward said: “I could see the lights going on and everything, but I felt safe.
Inspired, she contacted Fabric to see if they would welcome her long-term experimental, atmospheric music label, Robyn’s Rocket, which since 2017 has been booking noise bands, DJs and cool bands in London venues from Deptford to Dalston. Although it plays with disabled and able-bodied performers and audiences, Robyn’s Rocket is primarily about inclusion. “Learning-disabled and non-learning-disabled people – and autistic and non-autistic people – need to be together, where there’s no power of any kind,” he says. The goal is to create a place “where people just have a good time together”.
We meet in a recording studio in Deptford, south London, the day before Rocket’s first night at Fabric. The manager, 39 years old, is very happy; after the interview, he goes to the shops where his friend helps him figure out what he wants to pick up for drinks. It is in keeping with Rocket’s spirit of explaining what is often assumed or implied. Online, they provide detailed information on how the evening will go. All artists fill in the technical details and find the passengers. Each box and string is assigned a name, shape or color. All of Rocket’s gigs are played and timed strictly so that those streaming with them don’t miss out. “Once a plan is agreed upon, it’s non-negotiable,” says Steward.
Upon arrival, everyone is given a badge shaped like a silver rocket, which curves up, across or down as a measure of how well they communicate. The fabric is decorated with more than 100 signs: the signs always have words and forms and contain drawings, human and exotic. A silver screen covers the stage, and the live performances from the Rucksack Cinema artist are astral-worthy. “You’ve entered new planets, haven’t you?” cries the leader of the “cosmic dross” Henge.
For Steward, the theme of space is also about a new world of equality. “You might meet someone here who has a learning disability, or someone with a disability. You might not. But everyone is equal in this community.” Robyn’s Rocket Night matches the beauty and political spirit of Afro-futurist jazz visionary Sun Ra and his Arkestra. “The idea that you can create a different, almost other-worldly experience, for these events is very natural,” says Mark Williams, co-founder of Deptford-based arts charity Heart N Soul (where Steward is a fellow artist). “It’s using imagination and creativity to free people, and to be on a different kind of plane.”
Steward was born in Suffolk, and started singing when a teacher brought instruments to his primary school: “I really wanted to play the trumpet, but I ran out of time, so I spent a whole week blowing raspberries.” The teacher came to the meeting again the following week, and immediately the Steward asked for a trumpet. “I played the note right away.”
As a baby, Steward used Makaton (a language that uses signs, symbols and speech) to communicate until he went to Musical Keys, a group for children with special needs, at the age of three: “It was music, so I learned to communicate that way – there was a lot of repetition.” After learning to speak, he did not stop; his parents got him a Dictaphone for long car trips: “They said, ‘You can talk to this Dictaphone all you want, but leave us alone in the front.’ I’ll make my own radio stations that sound like Alan Partridge’s Knowing Me, Knowing You.
Unlike his East Anglian counterpart, Steward is very nice, straight-talking. The first half of his career was spent giving autism courses, speaking at conferences, and doing research. He has also written books such as The Autism-Friendly Guide to Self Employment. But, by the age of 30, Steward “really realized that I had to think about what I wanted to do for the rest of my life”. He had just learned to play the trumpet through a large group of adult lessons, and seeing the performance of trumpeter Andy Diagram (who plays trumpet and guitar) was very important to develop his skills. With the help of Heart N Soul, she built Robyn’s Rocket from a small house in Deptford to a permanent venue at Cafe Oto in east London, after which she invited musicians including Alabaster DePlume, Coby Sey and Mica Levi to perform.
A singer Seaming To played Rocket night in 2024. “More and more of my friends are realizing that they have neurodivergent characteristics,” Seaming To says. And many of them find it very difficult to get out of noisy places.
At night, Steward dons his signature purple fedora and doubles as a trumpeter and dynamic MC. “I did the game because I just wanted to wear Henge,” he says, looking good at the stadium. For all the humanity of Robyn’s Rocket, Steward still has aspirations for heaven. “And why don’t you want to put it in a ship of our own making?”
