Get To Know: The Sometimes Island

In Austin, Texas, there's a manmade lake called Lake Travis, and sometimes, depending on the fluctuating tide, small islands can be seen poking out of the lake. These part-time islands are the inspiration behind the Los-Angeles based (via Austin) multi-instrumentalist and producer Matt Blankenship Jr's moniker. "I thought it was a good metaphor for sometimes it’s just a one-man band, and sometimes I have a bunch of people with me," Blankenship explains about the meaning behind his latest endeavor, an indie electro-pop project, threaded with summer vibes. While we recently chatted with the well-versed musician, we heard about his upcoming EP, his journey as a musician, his tour survival tips, and more. Get to know The Sometimes Island now!

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Photo Courtesy of The Sometimes Island

He Decided To Do Music As A Profession at 14 Years Old

Blankenship’s musical journey stretches all the way back to the age of 7 or 8, when he says he asked his dad to let him play drums. “My dad was pretty smart. He was like well, I’ll get you this little drum practice pad and as soon as you can do a drum roll, I’ll think about getting you a drum set and getting you drum lessons. I was like 7 or 8 and I had no idea how to do a drum roll,” Blankenship recalls. As the story continues, his dad then offered him piano lessons, which he continued to learn for about seven years. Blankenship reveals that he’s since been dedicated to music 100 percent for more than half his life, saying, “I think I was around 14 when I was like ok, I think I’m just gonna do this for the rest of my life, as a profession. I’m 30 now.”

It's been a winding road since then, with other bands and past projects, but Blankenship describes the formation of The Sometimes Island as a natural progression. "These songs...this project in general has been something that I started working on about three years ago. I was in another group at the time, that was much more electronic leaning. This was my way to have an outlet to make this beachy kind of catchy music. I have bubble gum in my veins. I love a good pop song, so I was writing these [songs] and they weren’t a good fit for the band I was in. It came down to that band breaking up and me focusing on this full time for the last year," he says. 

He's Focused On The Community Around His Music

Having played music in the buzzing scene that is Los Angeles for more than 11 years, Blankenship says he's learned a thing or two about the business side of things. "I spend more time marketing myself than making music. Which to make enough music just means that I do this constantly," he confesses. He continues to share his wisdom, adding, "The biggest lesson I’ve learned is you can make a Facebook event and invite people to a concert, but if you just do stuff that works on a small scale, like calling a friend and saying 'Hey, I have this show. Would you like to come?' That’s the kind of hustle that you have to do to get people to actually go." Blankenship emphasizes the overflowing market in Los Angeles, saying you really have to go above and beyond to create something unique and memorable. "In this town especially there’s no shortage of really talented musicians, and they’re all playing shows and you have to create an environment where people want to go to your show not just because the music but because there’s like a comradery. And the other people who come see you play kind of create a little scene, and that’s how you get something going. Rather than just being like hey this is a really good song, listen to it! People will listen to it and forget about it. But if you create a community, then you have something going," Blankenship advises. 

He Hoards and Repurposes Old Material 

So while Blankenship may have started writing material for The Sometimes Island years ago, it doesn't mean he's released all of it. In fact, Blankenship reveals that he obsessed over the songs on the upcoming EP, called Bad People. He elaborates on the EP songs, saying "I spent way too long on these songs. They’ve been around for so long and I didn’t have anyone to bounce musical feedback off at the time. I obsessed over them, and they’re good for it, but I learned a lot about just writing off the cuff and improvising. Just because I worked on something for 10 hours doesn’t make it better than something that came from maybe 15 minutes. I’m really hard on my music and I’m actually proud of these songs, which is saying a lot for me." 

Blankenship also reveals that he saves the material that he hasn't deemed as ready for release. "There’s also a huge value in tying a bow on something and saying this is done and listening to it objectively. If a song isn’t good, then you don’t have to release it. But if it’s pretty good, you might have worked all the good out of it had you kept going. If you make a crappy song that has a really good part, I’m very into cannibalizing my old material for a new song. There’s some parts of songs where I’ve been like this would work really well, and I never released that old song...," he says.

African Funk Music Is His Jam

Blankenship talks about his influences, saying, "I spend a lot of time looking back on the past. There’s a lot of great music out right now, but The Beach Boys are a huge inspiration to me. I’ve been putting a lot of harmonies and vocal soundscapes into my music. I love the sound of chillwave from around 2009."

As far as his favorite music just to listen to and absorb, Blankenship gives props to the genre of African Funk music. "As far as new stuff that’s coming out...I don’t even really know what’s new anymore with Spotify. If a song is new to me I’m like did it come out a week ago? A year ago? I’ve been really into trying to get out of my pop music space, so I’ve been listening to a lot of African Funk. Which is great music to have on. The songs are extremely long, really jammy. It’s great music to just sort of have on while you’re doing other things, but it’s also great to listen to directly. African Funk, man, that’s been my jam." 

He Stays Tame During Tour

Blankenship will be hitting the road at the end of July and early August, but he admits the tour won't be all that wild. "I’d love to do the whole rock’n’roll party all the time thing, but I gotta make sure I’m not drinking too much, I’m getting enough sleep. Because this tour is particularly packed. It’s one gig after another. And if I’m tired for one, chances are I’ll be tired for the next one. I have all the time in the world to party when I’m not on tour. So I’m very regimented about it." As far as which cities he's most excited to play in, he says, "I’m definitely excited for all of them. I don’t want to sell anyone short. I’m particularly excited for the Seattle gig because I’ll get to play a show with my  good friend Claire George. So I’d say that one I’m particularly excited about."

Blankenship also gives a teaser about some of the songs that will be included in the setlist this tour, saying, "I think 'Bad People' is a lot of fun. That’s gonna come out as a single in a couple weeks, and it’s the namesake of the EP.  It allows me to go off on a bunch of crazy vocal stuff. And I really enjoy playing a quieter song that will come out on the EP that’s called 'Mornings Are The Worst,' that’s just sort of very acoustic. I don’t really believe that mornings are the worst. I wrote it on a morning where I hadn’t slept at all, so the sun rising was a bit of a bummer. That’s a song that just sort of wrote itself. It became sort of a critique of who I was at that time, in retrospect."

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Keep up with tour updates and new tunes from The Sometimes Island here, and listen to the newest single "Can't Move On" below!

Get To Know: Island Apollo

Los Angeles-based band Island Apollo made their return last month with the brand new single "Hold It Down,' their first music release since 2015. After having a string of success with their debut EP, from their songs being used on major television networks to winning an OC Music Award, the band have recorded an entire new EP in Seattle with producer Eric Lilavois. While we eagerly await the release of this new music, get to know even more about the guys behind these infectious and unique indie tunes. We chatted with guitarist Heath Farmer to get the scoop on everything from their recording process up in Seattle to Mickey Mouse and his take on the LA music scene. Tune in now...

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The Band Took Their First Guitar Lesson Together

Taking it was back to his days as a 10 year old, Heath Farmer kicks off with some backstory of the band's formation. "I started playing guitar for the first time probably when I was around 10 years old. My brothers and I, who are in the band, and Ryan our lead vocalist...all four of us took our first guitar lesson together. So there’s like a long history and connection between when we first started playing music and our band that we have today," Farmer recalls. 

Shifting towards his journey into creating his own music with the band, Farmer gives some insight on his influences, continuing, "I don’t think I really got interested in making music until I entered middle school. Once you become a teenager, music becomes like the most important thing in the world to you. I went through a couple different stages of musical epiphanies I guess. The first song that I heard that made me go 'wow, I didn’t know you could do that with music' was 'Clint Eastwood' by The Gorillaz. I remember hearing that and going 'I had no idea that you could work a beat like that along with a melody and still have a story that’s really relatable.' Then I went to Blink 182 then to Thrice. Then threw it way back to The Beach Boys... and then Muse. I had another big one when I discovered Arcade Fire. That’s kind of where I’m at right now." He and the band have pulled from this wide range of influences to craft their own refreshing sound.

Missing a Flight Took a Positive Spin During Recording

While the band were recording the brand new and still unreleased EP up in Seattle with Eric Lilavois, Farmer says the band explored a new sound by stepping out of their comfort zone. "It seemed like an opportunity that would help inspire us. We went up there and spent a whole week recording these songs and living together in Seattle. Really going from one end of The US West Coast to the other. It’s funny, it’s almost like a parallel dimension from Southern California because it’s got a lot of the same cultural vibes, but in a completely different setting. Everything is just a little bit different. Enough to where it’s a completely different experience. I think that helped us explore things musically that I don’t know if we would have necessarily done had we been in our comfort zone. So I think it was a good opportunity that we seized. There’s a very big possibility that we might do something like that again," he mused. 

Speaking of being out of their comfort zone, Farmer recalls one particular experience that caused some mayhem during their final day of recording. "There was one moment where I actually had to leave earlier than the rest of the band to go back to Southern California, and I missed my plane. So they came back to pick me up, and drove me back to the studio. There was this weird sense of confusion and frustration from me. Because it was the last day, we split everybody up in the studio so we had a couple different stations. We had the control room as the main recording live room, where we had people doing various different parts. We had another station set up in the lounge where we were recording a lot of the extra instruments, whether it was percussion or some synth lines. So just because my mind was completely scrambled at that point, I started hearing things in the music that everybody else wasn’t hearing. Sometimes that ended up being a good thing and sometimes that ended up being a really really bad thing. To the point where I honestly think I was having auditory delusions. Everything was just so frantic for me that day. Initially it was very--inefficient. As the day went on and I started to calm down, I had this creative perspective that I don’t think I would have had had I not gone through such a weird day. That translated to a lot of different ideas with the unreleased songs. It was a really, really weird experience," Farmed recalled. "For the record, completely sober. I think as a musician I should make that clear. It was this frenzy that I was in that really lead to that," he immediately followed up. 

Although it seemed like a stressful experience, Farmer put an optimistic spin on the story, concluding with, "It was amazing what that amounted to at the end of the day, and it was a very a positive experience." 

“I think that helped us explore things musically that I don’t know if we would have necessarily done had we been in our comfort zone.”

— Guitarist Heath Farmer on recording in Seattle

They're Big Disney Fans, Especially Mickey Mouse

As mentioned, Island Apollo have had their music featured on major TV networks from VH1 to CBS and used in ads for the likes of Sprint and SoBe. So with new music on the horizon, what product would the band like to associate their music to? "That’s a great question. I saw that Mickey Mouse had a summer playlist this year on Spotify, which is hilarious. That would be pretty cool if we were listed as one of Mickey’s summer jams," Farmer revealed. Wise move on his choice, since Disney opens such a huge door to other opportunities. 

Elaborating further on the new music and when fans can expect to hear it, Farmer continued, "We should have a new song coming out within the next couple weeks. It’s a total dance party song. Not in the sense that it’s EDM. This is actually like---the best way I can describe it is Surf Funk. There’s a lot of stuff in the song and instrumentation that we’ve never tried before."  Stay tuned for news on this unchartered territory with Island Apollo!

They Care About Their Live Show

As far as an upcoming tour to pair with the new music, Farmer says, "We’re in talks about a few different things regarding touring. We just want to make sure it’s done in the right way for us. We’re not exactly sure where we’ll end up, but we’re hoping to be on the road soon." He does promise that when they do tour, he and his bandmates will give their all for the live show. 

Talking more on being a part of the live music scene in LA, Farmer shares his insight on the oversaturated market. "To tell you the truth I’m kind of--" he begins before pausing. "I want to say the right thing, but at the same time I want to say the truth," he continued. "I’m pretty disappointed with what a lot of new artists are doing today. We’ve played shows with guys who will straight up just push a button on their keyboard and then hold one guitar to play one line in the song, and then sing everything else over their pre-recorded tracks. I greatly appreciate the music, but it’s a pretty boring thing to watch. That’s my unadulterated observation on that. Especially in the local music scene where there aren’t big budgets to have sets and and lights. I feel like that’s watered down the rest of the scene. Because people look at that and go ‘wow that’s all I have to do?’ And then some people get inspired by that and then everyone’s just half-assing that...to put it bluntly."

Farmer concludes his take on the LA scene with a very important point about live performances, saying, "I look at that and just think wow, you guys wrote a lot of great songs, why are you half-assing your live show? That’s the difference between going to the show and listening to the recording. There’s this intimate experience of watching the creator create. If they’re not doing that for you, you kind of think like what’s the point? That’s not to say that the community that’s at a live concert scene is not important. That’s very important to it all. But at the same time you have to give a reason for why the community wants to come and see you. You still have to put on a show. There are a lot of great bands that we’re friends with that we love, but at the same time, there’s a lot of people not impressing anybody."

There's An Unbreakable Bond Between The Band

Playing on the bands name, I wrapped up the interview asking Farmer if he could be trapped on an island with one member of the band, who would be pick and why. After pondering briefly, Farmer confirmed the tight-knit nature of the group by answering, "I don’t know if I can answer that question to be honest. I don’t find anybody in the band to be dispensable. I’m not saying that to be politically correct-- I mean it," he says. "Everybody in the band is incredibly integral to what we have been able to manifest, and I would never take anybody’s contribution for granted. I would just be like alright well if I have to be stranded on a deserted island, then I’ll swim to shore to be with everybody. I’ll probably die along the way," Farmer concluded. 

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Get ready for the new music and a possible tour from Island Apollo by listening to "Hold It Down" and following their Facebook Page.