Blanker Interview
Q: Can you talk about your musical history throughout the years and how Blanker came to be?
A: This might be going a bit too far back, but my dad was the assistant pastor for the Baptist church I grew up in, so I actually spent a bunch of my formative years in the church band. There wasn’t any sheet music. People would just start singing a song a cappella and the band had to figure out (or make up) the chord changes in real time. That really gives you an ear for things. I had a few music projects in college, but Upstate Escape is the only one with any longevity. I started that group while in grad school in Ithaca, NY and we played out there for a couple of years until I moved to NYC and reformed the band here. It was a great run (about seven years altogether) and we got to meet some cool people and play some great shows, including a short tour in Poland. Toward the end of that period, though, we all got bogged down with work and other pursuits and it became a struggle to get us all in the same place at the same time. My drummer announced his final show in the summer of 2014 and that seemed as good a time as any to pack it in. I spent a year or so after that thinking that I was done with music, but eventually found it kind of gnawing at me. I bought some basic recording gear and started putting together some rough demos by myself. That process prompted the creation of Blanker.
Q: Blanker is a solo project. How does it compare versus your time in Upstate Escape?
A: In some ways it’s the same, in that I was the primary writer in Upstate Escape and would often bring fully-written songs to the other band members. There are some big differences, though. Upstate Escape songs were written to be performed by a three-piece rock band (guitar/vocals, bass and drums). Blanker, however, is a studio-based project, which allows me to utilize a bunch of instrumental/vocal layers and experimental ideas that would be tricky to pull off live. The downside is that everything takes longer. With Upstate Escape, I could show up to rehearsal with a riff or two and quickly hash out the feel and structure of a song by just jamming on it with the guys. In Blanker, everything is written/recorded sequentially. Drums end up taking an incredibly long time as I have to program them from scratch.
Q: You wrote and recorded your recent release What A View. Can you talk about the creative process?
A: For better or for worse, stress tends to drive my writing process. If I have a whole day to myself, I’ll rarely come up with anything new, but if I’m busy with work and barely sleeping, ideas tend to randomly come to me in snippets. I find it best to quickly capture them in the moment and go on about my day. (I have almost 300 voice memos on my phone and pages and pages of lyrical musings.) When I eventually have time, I track the barebones of an instrumental and listen to it on repeat while scrolling through lyric ideas or singing gibberish until something sticks. Sometimes things fall into place quickly. Sometimes they don’t. I wrote the bones of “She Moves” (off of What A View) over ten years ago, but only found words that I liked for the chorus recently. I should add a caveat that there is one song on What A View that I arranged, but didn’t write. “The History Channel” was originally written and recorded by my friends in Juggernaut Drunk (https://juggernautdrunk.bandcamp.com/). They’re a great band and their frontman, Donny, is truly an amazing lyricist. Something about “The History Channel” really resonated with me, so I asked the guys if they’d be cool with me covering it. Hopefully I did it justice.
Q: There are some interesting titles on the album such as “Trying To Fit The Cookies Back Into The Sleeve.” Can you give some insight into the themes that run through the album?
A: I like having some fun with naming songs. I feel like a lot times that process gets too formulaic and artists end up picking whatever line is repeated most often in the chorus. As far as themes go, I think the album focuses on the various things that people do to try and make themselves happy and how silly (or even destructive) those attempts can appear to an outside observer. “Trying To Fit The Cookies Back Into The Sleeve” and “Straight, Life, And Other Jackets” speak to that in the context of romantic relationships. “Bunkers” and “I’m Not A Player (I Just Bluff A Lot)” speak to that in terms of politics. A lot times it’s me poking fun at myself, like in “The Almighty Jam Band” (referencing the waning years of Upstate Escape) and “Too Many Songs” (referencing an embarrassing injury from several years ago).
Q: Have you collaborated with other musicians to bring What A View to the stage?
A: At present, I’m content with Blanker as a studio project. If I found the right bunch of people, I’d be open to doing a few shows, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
Q: What else do we need to know about Blanker?
A: In my mind, I think of Blanker of a musical collective that currently only has one member. The goal of the collective is just to have fun creating music and putting it out into the world free of charge. I’ve already started reaching out to other musicians across a variety of genres to collaborate on a one-off or ongoing basis. If anyone reading this would like to be involved, they should shoot me a note at [email protected]. With a little luck, there will be a new Blanker release in 2018 and it won’t just be me next time around.
Q: Can you talk about your musical history throughout the years and how Blanker came to be?
A: This might be going a bit too far back, but my dad was the assistant pastor for the Baptist church I grew up in, so I actually spent a bunch of my formative years in the church band. There wasn’t any sheet music. People would just start singing a song a cappella and the band had to figure out (or make up) the chord changes in real time. That really gives you an ear for things. I had a few music projects in college, but Upstate Escape is the only one with any longevity. I started that group while in grad school in Ithaca, NY and we played out there for a couple of years until I moved to NYC and reformed the band here. It was a great run (about seven years altogether) and we got to meet some cool people and play some great shows, including a short tour in Poland. Toward the end of that period, though, we all got bogged down with work and other pursuits and it became a struggle to get us all in the same place at the same time. My drummer announced his final show in the summer of 2014 and that seemed as good a time as any to pack it in. I spent a year or so after that thinking that I was done with music, but eventually found it kind of gnawing at me. I bought some basic recording gear and started putting together some rough demos by myself. That process prompted the creation of Blanker.
Q: Blanker is a solo project. How does it compare versus your time in Upstate Escape?
A: In some ways it’s the same, in that I was the primary writer in Upstate Escape and would often bring fully-written songs to the other band members. There are some big differences, though. Upstate Escape songs were written to be performed by a three-piece rock band (guitar/vocals, bass and drums). Blanker, however, is a studio-based project, which allows me to utilize a bunch of instrumental/vocal layers and experimental ideas that would be tricky to pull off live. The downside is that everything takes longer. With Upstate Escape, I could show up to rehearsal with a riff or two and quickly hash out the feel and structure of a song by just jamming on it with the guys. In Blanker, everything is written/recorded sequentially. Drums end up taking an incredibly long time as I have to program them from scratch.
Q: You wrote and recorded your recent release What A View. Can you talk about the creative process?
A: For better or for worse, stress tends to drive my writing process. If I have a whole day to myself, I’ll rarely come up with anything new, but if I’m busy with work and barely sleeping, ideas tend to randomly come to me in snippets. I find it best to quickly capture them in the moment and go on about my day. (I have almost 300 voice memos on my phone and pages and pages of lyrical musings.) When I eventually have time, I track the barebones of an instrumental and listen to it on repeat while scrolling through lyric ideas or singing gibberish until something sticks. Sometimes things fall into place quickly. Sometimes they don’t. I wrote the bones of “She Moves” (off of What A View) over ten years ago, but only found words that I liked for the chorus recently. I should add a caveat that there is one song on What A View that I arranged, but didn’t write. “The History Channel” was originally written and recorded by my friends in Juggernaut Drunk (https://juggernautdrunk.bandcamp.com/). They’re a great band and their frontman, Donny, is truly an amazing lyricist. Something about “The History Channel” really resonated with me, so I asked the guys if they’d be cool with me covering it. Hopefully I did it justice.
Q: There are some interesting titles on the album such as “Trying To Fit The Cookies Back Into The Sleeve.” Can you give some insight into the themes that run through the album?
A: I like having some fun with naming songs. I feel like a lot times that process gets too formulaic and artists end up picking whatever line is repeated most often in the chorus. As far as themes go, I think the album focuses on the various things that people do to try and make themselves happy and how silly (or even destructive) those attempts can appear to an outside observer. “Trying To Fit The Cookies Back Into The Sleeve” and “Straight, Life, And Other Jackets” speak to that in the context of romantic relationships. “Bunkers” and “I’m Not A Player (I Just Bluff A Lot)” speak to that in terms of politics. A lot times it’s me poking fun at myself, like in “The Almighty Jam Band” (referencing the waning years of Upstate Escape) and “Too Many Songs” (referencing an embarrassing injury from several years ago).
Q: Have you collaborated with other musicians to bring What A View to the stage?
A: At present, I’m content with Blanker as a studio project. If I found the right bunch of people, I’d be open to doing a few shows, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
Q: What else do we need to know about Blanker?
A: In my mind, I think of Blanker of a musical collective that currently only has one member. The goal of the collective is just to have fun creating music and putting it out into the world free of charge. I’ve already started reaching out to other musicians across a variety of genres to collaborate on a one-off or ongoing basis. If anyone reading this would like to be involved, they should shoot me a note at [email protected]. With a little luck, there will be a new Blanker release in 2018 and it won’t just be me next time around.