{"id":12281,"date":"2012-09-11T11:33:44","date_gmt":"2012-09-11T19:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/?p=12281"},"modified":"2014-08-20T14:30:23","modified_gmt":"2014-08-20T22:30:23","slug":"discover-multitalented-blake-mills-opening-for-fiona-apple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/2012-09\/discover-multitalented-blake-mills-opening-for-fiona-apple\/","title":{"rendered":"Discover Multitalented Blake Mills–Opening for Fiona Apple"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Blake Mills<\/strong> is a multi-talented, Venice Beach-based singer-songwriter, studio session and touring band guitarist, and producer who is making serious inroads in virtually all facets of the music industry.\u00a0 His debut album is entitled Break Mirrors<\/strong>, and it is on heavy rotation on the Lefort jukebox<\/strong>.\u00a0 The album is highly recommended for those that want to hear subtly-inventive music endowed with well-crafted, heart-rending lyrics and accomplished production.\u00a0 Mills has skills well beyond his 25 years, having begun playing guitar at the age of 10.\u00a0 Mills then forged a band (Simon Dawes<\/strong>) with Taylor Goldsmith<\/strong> (of Dawes) <\/strong>while attending Malibu High School.\u00a0 From there he began playing in studio sessions and opening for or touring with the likes of Lucinda Williams, Conor Oberst, Band of Horses, Cass McCombs<\/strong> and Dawes<\/strong>.\u00a0 He’s also become a producer for fellow musicians such as Jesca Hoop, Sara Watkins<\/strong>, Dawes<\/strong> and Haim<\/strong>, among others.\u00a0 Mills will be opening for Fiona Apple<\/strong> tomorrow night at the Santa Barbara Bowl<\/strong>, and then will be playing in Ms. Apple’s band during her set.\u00a0 Make sure to be there in case he brings Fiona<\/strong> or Jackson Browne<\/strong> out on stage to help him with a song or two.\u00a0\u00a0 Or Jackson<\/strong> might just show up to reclaim his Telecaster<\/strong> borrowed by Mills.\u00a0 We caught up with him via phone while he was on break from the Fiona Apple<\/strong> tour.<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>:\u00a0 Your career seems to really be picking up steam on all fronts, and now you\u2019re between legs of the Fiona Apple<\/strong> tour and back home for a break. Good to be home?<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>:\u00a0 Well, let\u2019s see, I finished last night at 5:30am and got home and got a little rest. So I\u2019m doing alright. Being on tour and out of town, a lot of studio work piles up so when I get home there’s not a whole lot of time off. With so much going on, it’s hard to say no, that I need to take a break and get some sleep.<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>:\u00a0 Sounds a bit like the old Warren Zevon<\/strong> adage, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” huh?<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>: Exactly.<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>:\u00a0 We’ve really enjoyed getting to know your various talents and your debut album (Break Mirrors<\/strong>), which may be getting to be past-history for you given that it was released initially in late 2010.<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>: Well things have a funny way of repeating themselves, and a lot of topics on that record seem to come back around when you least suspect it.<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>:\u00a0 How’s the Fiona Apple<\/strong> tour been going as an opening act and band member?<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>:\u00a0 That’s been an interesting dynamic. The dynamic of the opener is oft-times to woo or capture the audience’s attention and sometimes it’s a real steeply-uphill battle.<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>: We’re amongst those that make sure to catch opening acts, and have seen the difficulties of being an opener play out, and particularly at larger venues.<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>: It can be difficult. For me to try and fill up 45 minutes with material from the album, which is by its nature somewhat mellow, the odds are somewhat against it at times. Add to that the challenge of some venues that have been designed with bars inside the venue, where you’re watching people who are making drinks and people who are drinking and chatting. With that level of chatter, as the opener you may think “It’s just me,” but then the headliner steps out and gets the same treatment.<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>: The Santa Barbara Bowl<\/strong> should be good venue for you and Fiona<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>: Yeah, Santa Barbara’s incredible. I’ve had the pleasure of playing at the Bowl<\/strong> a couple of times. I came through in the band I was in, Simon Dawes<\/strong> [formed in high school with Taylor Goldsmith<\/strong> of Dawes<\/strong>)], in 2006. We were straight out of high school and on tour opening for Maroon 5<\/strong>. That was interesting in itself, being somewhat prematurely hurtled into the opener spotlight and learning a lot of lessons that I’m still experiencing. But it’s a different game each time.\u00a0 Worst-case scenario you get to sharpen your methods to quell the chatter. You can try a little jab here and there to see if they’ll come around for you.<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>: Speaking of jabs, tell us how you came to be such a dynamic guitar player? We read that you picked up the instrument at a young age. So what was your first guitar and what drove you to play it?<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>: It was a Fender Squire Stratocaster<\/strong>. I bypassed starting with acoustic and went straight to the electric because I really wanted to emulate players that I was seeing on MTV. I was profoundly obsessed with Nirvana<\/strong> at the time, along with some others of that era like Soundgarden, Hole<\/strong> and Metallica<\/strong>. The guitar was just a vehicle to try to be like my heroes at that age.<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>:\u00a0 What’s your favorite guitar on tour with you right now?<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>:\u00a0 Right now I’ve got this Fender Telecaster<\/strong> on loan from Jackson Browne<\/strong>.\u00a0 I suspect there are songs inside of his guitar. Perhaps songs that weren’t good enough for him, but they’re good enough for me!\u00a0 If they’re in there, I’m gonna find ’em.<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>:\u00a0 Did you take lessons or were you self-taught, and how did you progress so well?<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>:\u00a0 I took a few lessons from the store where we bought the guitar, and asked the guy there just to teach me how to play Smells Like Teen Spirit<\/strong><\/em> and Come as You Are<\/strong><\/em>, and that was enough for me. Things took off from there. My father didn’t play, but he was a massive music fan and always surrounded by music and musicians. So one day a guitar-player friend of my father’s asked me to play at my father’s house at Topanga Beach. So I played him something from Pinkerton<\/strong>, and this guy picked out by ear and explained to me the chord changes and interworkings of the song without having a guitar in front of him. I couldn’t even tune a string without a tuner, and this guy did all of this by ear, and I just thought that was the coolest magic trick ever.\u00a0 New goals would pop up from different places like that over time.\u00a0 I just wanted to figure out how to play everything, and that’s still going on. You see or hear somebody do something mysterious on the guitar, and you think “there’s got to be an explanation for that.”\u00a0 Most often there is an explanation, but sometimes there isn’t.\u00a0 And those are the kinds of things that keep it beautiful.<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>:\u00a0 Since then have particular players influenced you?<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>:\u00a0 There have been a lot of players that have influenced me.\u00a0 But at a certain point after taking the guitar seriously, I lost a lot of interest in other guitar players and started seeking out other instruments and musicians–horn players, piano players, composers, and their chords and string arrangements, and singers especially.\u00a0 So other stuff would grab me, and it was hard to appreciate other guitar players. Since then that’s fallen away, and I’ve finally been able to listen to another guitar player and think “Oh my God, that’s fantastic, and a really beautiful way of playing the instrument.”\u00a0 Some of the guys expanding the horizons of the instrument are John Scofield, Jeff Beck<\/strong> and Derek Trucks<\/strong>, and other guys who push the envelope. O thers have defined the envelope, like Ry Cooder<\/strong>, the Cuban player Manuel Govan<\/strong>, and Richie Valens<\/strong>. These guys were the ones that made the rules, not just the guys who pushed them and broke them. There’s a whole history to the instrument, and so many that have done beautiful things with it.\u00a0 I’m a little late to the party.<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>:\u00a0 But it sounds like you’re continuing to be exposed to all the right players at that party.<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>:\u00a0 Well there’s just so much. It’s not like some other areas in music where you think “the Golden Years are over.”\u00a0 We’re still conjuring the period of greatness for the instrument. We’ve had Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn<\/strong> and a lot of other people who aren’t with us any more, but the guitar is still such a young man’s thing.\u00a0 The electric guitar especially brings out new players that continue to do new things with the instrument that nobody’s ever heard before.\u00a0 And you can’t say that for every instrument.\u00a0 It’s not like there’s a new, world-class bouzouki player that everyone has posters of up on their walls. Whereas with the guitar, there are lot of people who have had and still have posters of Hendrix up on their walls.<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>:\u00a0 When did you start to get noticed and sought out for studio and tour playing?<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>:\u00a0 It was definitely a gradual thing. It’s funny, when you’re in high school and you want to start a band, play shows and be a rock star, you think that if you don’t play your cards right, the worst that can happen is you could end up a lonely, dissatisfied studio musician.\u00a0 So it was never the goal at first.\u00a0 But when I was in a band and doing a lot of touring I found that touring was not really in my blood.\u00a0 I wanted to stay home and be more grounded.<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>:\u00a0 We read somewhere that you said that you hate shows. Tell us about that.<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>:\u00a0 Well, there’s a few things about shows that I hate. I love to play. Performing is fine, particularly for people who are interested in listening to it.\u00a0 But there are shows where you just seem like you’re there to provide music in the event that somebody wants to stop talking, pay attention and listen to it.\u00a0 What’s funny is it’s not like Fiona<\/strong> is not noticing [how the audience is acting during the opening act].\u00a0 She’s pretty protective of her opening acts, like we’re her babies.\u00a0 So she’ll watch and develop an opinion about an audience and give accordingly, which is a little bit of poetic justice that I can hang onto.<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>:\u00a0 You’re definitely preaching to the choir on this. We’ve shouted down quite a few people at shows in our lives.\u00a0 It seems like it’s gotten worse, but it’s never been easy. From our perspective, if you want to go to shows, then go and listen to the music. If you want to talk, then go somewhere else so that both you and the music-fans will be happier.<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>:\u00a0 It’s a strange dynamic, especially with the kind of songs and music that I write.\u00a0 One of the reasons I never went out and toured to support the album is because the songs’ subjects don’t make you want to get up on a soapbox, and say “Now, pay attention to me. I want to tell you this story.” I don’t want to get in a room with people I don’t know and say “alright, here are all these things about me.”<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>:\u00a0 And the album’s songs are pretty autobiographical and personal.<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>:\u00a0 Yes, the album is very revealing and exposing, and the point was never to put that album up like a Bat Signal<\/strong>. It was an album that I made for selfish, therapeutic reasons, and I’m satisfied with just having made it.\u00a0 I don’t necessarily need to go out and perform it.\u00a0 But if people want to hear it, then absolutely I’m not going to shut it away and be a hermit about it.\u00a0 But if you’re going to be an opener for a big artist, that artist’s fan base is not prepared for it.\u00a0 And I can sympathize.\u00a0\u00a0 So I try to present the songs in an appropriate manner.\u00a0 The album was recorded two years ago and the songs have evolved. After going out on tour and opening solo with Lucinda [Williams]<\/strong>, I sort of boiled the album’s songs down to the core so they were easier to digest and a little more straight-forward.\u00a0 But then when you try to take that to Fiona Apple’s<\/strong> audience, and they’re used to hearing music that’s more sophisticated, you have to figure out a way to make the songs enjoyable for them.\u00a0 I’ll just keep experimenting. It’s good for me to get in front of an audience so I can glean something new from it.\u00a0 Sometimes you just go up and play a couple of really slow, mellow songs to see if they’re going to bite, and sometimes they do.<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>:\u00a0 Will anyone else be joining you on stage?<\/p>\n

Blake Mills<\/strong>:\u00a0 The other members of Fiona’s band do come out, including Sebastian [Steinberg]<\/strong> on bass and Amy [Wood]<\/strong> on drums. We had Zack Rae<\/strong> on keys on the last leg, and on this leg we’ve got Patrick Warren<\/strong>. They’re all musicians that I’ve played with for a little while, and they’ll come out and join. I just have them come out for as much as they want to, and it’s really great. It really helps fill out the sound and stage, and make it more fun. They’re all unbelievable musicians. If the audience isn’t listening, at least we’ve got each other [laughs].<\/p>\n

TLR<\/strong>:\u00a0 As an example of what you’re talking about, we saw the Out of Town Films<\/strong> video of you and Sebastian<\/strong> on bass on Hey Lover<\/em><\/strong> off the album, and that was great to see [check it out immediately below].<\/p>\n