Wymond Miles vividly remembers the “dramatic arc of change” between the Light In The Attic reissues in 2008 and the sudden gearshift following the release of Searching For Sugar Man in 2012. Miles describes an audience of “mostly 20- and 30-year-old hipster kids” giving way “all of a sudden to 50-year-olds and a whole older generation… in twice as big places as we had started.” Light In The Attic’s Matt Sullivan says the label sold “20,000 copies of Cold Fact and 15,000 of Coming From Reality” before the film; sales since its release are now soaring. “To a lot of people, nothing happened before the movie,” Sullivan says. “But, no. Rodriguez toured a bunch in the States and we got him a show in New York, his first ever New York City show at [160-capacity] Joe’s Pub in September 2008 and we moved up from there. I would be the tour manager and those were all like 250-500-person rooms.”

“The first time I met him,” says Miles, “we had a rehearsal space rented here in the city, we had horn players, a percussionist, this whole big nine-piece band we built around us for him. We had this big group there, and everyone else had to go and really he didn’t even want to play his songs. We’d play them a couple of times. We’d get half way through ‘Crucify Your Mind’ and he would just applaud and say, ‘It’s going to be great.’ He just wanted to play covers and hang out and talk with everyone. It’s always been that way. He isn’t really interested in rehearsals or what seems to be much in his own songs. He just likes the groups. We always worked really hard to be well-rehearsed and it was nice to have his trust in us.

“We started with setlists and then, as the years have gone by, he’s liked to work less and less with them. He’s putting in more and more covers, too. I don’t think we played any covers on those early tours when Cold Fact and Coming From Reality were reissued. But by the fall last year, there were no setlists and covers thrown out that we had never played together as a group or ever known that he knew how to play.

“Why do I think that was? On those early tours, we’d be in places like the Doug Fir [Lounge] in Portland, all in the hotel room together, passing the guitar around, and he played cover songs for maybe three hours, everything from Marvin Gaye to contemporary pop things. He just loved other people’s songs. At this point, I think there’s a certain humility built in – he still feels in the shadow, that people would maybe be more interested in other people’s songs than his own.”

In fact, Rodriguez is now in a position where other people are covering his own songs. Recently, Brittany Howard from the Alabama Shakes and Ruby Amanfu covered a Cold Fact track, “I Wonder”, for a single on Jack White’s Third Man Records – White, of course, is another successful alumni of Detroit. In fact, the Motor City is a conspicuous presence in Rodriguez’ own life. Steve Rowland remembers, “When we were making Coming From Reality, he was going back to Detroit to run for mayor.”

“I ran for mayor twice, for state representative twice and for the city council three times,” Rodriguez confirms. “I describe myself as a musical political. I’m born and bred out of Detroit. Detroit is an interesting place. You’ve got to be from somewhere. I’m going to get back there for the Doctorate and I’m going to file to run for mayor. I can explain. To run for mayor, you need a minimum of 515 signatures of valid voters, up to 1,000, they won’t accept any more than that. So I’m going to file and see what happens. I’m petitioning now through other people, so when I get back there for those few days, I’m going to file for office and see what happens.”