The Proclaimers at BB King

Emily:  Today on Creative Spotlights, I am with Michael Blu, a 20 -year music industry veteran who first rocked the scene in LA, then went indy discovering his own sound mixing rock/alternative with deep meanings and a fun vibe that really entices his fans.  My first question is tell me about your music journey. What has first inspired you to pursue music?

Michael: Well, my music journey really started at a very early age. My father plays the guitar and would sing these songs like Moon River, these fun, little playful songs around the fireplace.

Of course, my dad is my hero. He’s probably the greatest, most beautiful man I know. He just lost the love of his life that he took care of for the last six months of her life. He was just a great man.

I really looked up to him. He plays the guitar and sing. I was always so inspired by him. I learned how to play the guitar at an early age and sing.

And then, I discovered girls and forgot about music for a large period of my adolescence. My journey led me to Los Angeles. I grew up in Vancouver, Washington. And when I was about 18, I went into marine corps. I lasted for four years.

And after marine corps and shaved up hair, I said, “I’m going the other way now.” I went to L.A. and became a hippie. It’s more like a 60s psychedelic hippie with the 60s look, the necklaces and earrings. And then I got into psychedelic and doing my hair purple, pink and green. I got into acting, modeling and all that fun stuff.

And then, I was driving home from somewhere one day, I had this melody in my head. I didn’t know if it was a song I heard. It’s like [singing]. That was this melody that’s was going on.

Emily: Nice start! I love that mention of the LA scene, super cool. What happened next?

Michael: It was infectious! I went home and I told my sister who has been my biggest supporter. Her name is Deborah. She’s been my biggest supporter and fan in all the years I sucked. She still is my biggest supporter.

Andso, yeah, I called her and I go, “Deb, I got this melody in my head.” She’s always been a singer with beautiful voice. I thought she’d know what to do with it. I said, “I’ve got this note. It could be a hit song. I just know it. I hear it on the radio…”

And she said, “Sing it, sing it to me!” I’ve just got a broken lyric and I’ve got this melody. So, we spent the next three hours on the phone just going over this melody over and over again and writing down the lyrics.

And so, it turned out to be this really fun country tune. I can’t remember the name. It may come back today. This was 20 years ago. I wrote this country tune. And I didn’t know anything about music other than singing along with the radio every so often and playing a few chords on the guitar.

Anyway, so I found a producer out of his own home studio. I went it and he produced it for me. I got so inspired and I wrote like eight more songs in a month. It’s like bam, bam, bam.  It’s all country. So, I was singing all of these country tunes I wrote. It was so much fun. I was just like, “Wow!” I felt alive and it’s creative. I just loved it. I was like, “Wow! This is where I‘m supposed to be.”

So, I just dove into it. I went and bought a cheap guitar and started playing again and pitching myself and writing The songs, lyrics and melodies has always come really easy to me. I could write a song in a day. I don’t think that’s a problem. I don’t know how good the song would be, but I could do it.

Emily: Awesome, that is a sign of a creative genius, being truly inspired naturally by life and the moment.

Michael: I just got this bug and I just loved it. And then, actually, once I started writing with acoustic guitar, my songs started to become more alternative because I was just a hack on the guitar. Hacks are pretty good with alternative music and the grunge…This was right when the grunge movement was starting out and starting to happen.

Emily: Yeah, that was a cool time, I remember Nirvana, early 90’s those were good times! 

Michael: I loved Nirvana and all those guys. So, I think I had a big influence from that era, the 90s. I’m sure that comes across in my current music, but.

So, I turned alternative. And then I got a band together. They just all assumed that I had experience. I didn’t tell them otherwise. I just kind of pretended that I knew what I was doing in the band world.

So, as the leader of this band, these musicians that actually have been playing music live for like years and years and were very precision at their instruments, here comes a rookie who was just pretending (I’m just a typical poser), I was just, “Hey, I want to do this. I’m going to freaking make it happen. I’m a rock star!”

So, I just put the ego on. I think I’m a pretty nice guy. I don’t think I’ve stepped on too many toes. But to be a rock star, you’ve got to put your ego on. I just pretended to be what a rockstar would be.

I was pretty decent at it I guess because we went on for six years in L.A. and had a big fan base. We played at least two to three nights a week at different venues. We played everywhere. We had a great time, but then that went away like most bands do eventually.

Emily: Yeah. Life takes you in new directions…

Michael: I went solo, moved up to Oregon. Oregon led to my wife. My wife was from Italy, by the way, Francesca. She’s my soulmate. I have two beautiful young boys (five and a half and three) and two little kittens just added to the family.

Oregon led back to Los Angeles for about six years. And then Los Angeles led to San Francisco where we had our first child. I’m doing music all these time, but now I’m just writing and producing during this section after my Venus Pumping days. That’s the name of my rock band in L.A. So, I was in my home studio in my various locations on the West coast.

I’ve always been writing and producing. It’s just part of me now. In the kitchen, helping with dinner, Francesca will go, “Hey, are you with us?” I’m daydreaming. I’m thinking about the lyrics or a melody or something related to music. It’s just part of me and it’s just who I am as Michael, the music maker.

I’ve got a page on Facebook. I recently changed it the ‘Who are you’. I said, “I’m a husband, I’m a father and I am a music maker.”

Emily: Music Maker…it;s great to settle into your purpose like that truly. 

Michael: Sweet and simple.

Emily: Husband, Father and Music maker. How has your music changed, your latest music the last few years? Has it changed? How’s it sound like?

Michael: Big time! Right now, it’s even changing more drastically. It has taken the biggest change in my lifetime right now and I’m really excited too.

So, basically it’s changed within the last years. Let me talk about the first change.

The first change came about when Michael finally discovered that he doesn’t have all the answers – or maybe I do, but I just don’t know it. Anyway, I tried to be really humble and ask people that I really respect in the music industry for feedback. I say, “Here’s my music. What do you think? Don’t hold anything back.”

So, I’ve got four people in my life, in my world that are just amazing human beings and musician with great ears. They all hear things differently than I do.   I finally came out and said, “Hey guys, my music’s not really doing anything. I primarily do music for myself, but it would be nice if others could enjoy it too.“

I was thinking, “How can I make Michael’s music more tasty to the people out there?”

And so, in order to that, it’s kind of like a cook. If you’ve got something good and tasty, most people are going to like it. They are going to go, “Mmmm, that’s pretty good.” If you’ve got ingredients that just don’t taste good, most people are going to be like – if you put in pepper on top of chocolate cookies, you’ve got a problem. But you’re really close. If you just take out the pepper, you’ve got a winner.

So that was the biggest first change in my music within the last year and a half. It’s basically just asking for feedback and accepting it humbly and graciously and trying it on.

The second one is happening happening right now with these remixes that we’re doing with the original album that we’ve mastered and released in May.

Emily: Oh, that’s awesome! So now it’s evolving with remixes and new sounds.

Michael: Yeah!So, we’re doing these remixes and they’re turning it into house tracks like deep house and progressive house music. But I think with a little bit of a tweak because it’s got Michael Blue in there. Michael Blue does house! And it’s really fun!

I mean, I’m having fun. I’m dancing in my chair, bobbing my head back and forth, smiling from ear to ear going, “This is fun!” I want people to have fun when they listen to something I have created.

The album that I love, I think it’s my best. I don’t want to say my. It’s our best work yet because it was a community that put it together where I managed it and packaged it and mixed it. But I think it’s the best that Michael has ever put out. I think it’s something I’m going to be proud for the rest of my life.

Emily: What are some artists that have inspired your work, some of your music inspirations over the years? What has stood out for you since you’ve had such a long career in the industry? Who are some of your inspirations?

Michael: It’s so broad and diverse. When I was is L.A. and I was doing psychedelic energy rock, we were just off the hook! I mean, I was dancing barefoot in a throng in every bar in Los Angeles with neon blue or pink or green, yellow hair. Just crazy, energy, fun.

But during that time with all that craziness, this rock and roll, psychedelics and just off the hook energy, I was listening to only classical music for five years following. Nothing other than classical music in whatever I was doing. That’s it! When I was in my car in L. A., I don’t even remember, there’s two classic music stations in L.A. I was listening to both of them. I just loved it.

So that was a huge influence to me in that period. Through my life, I remember staying home from school pretending to be sick, so I could watch Elvis Presley movies. And I loved his movies and I loved his music, his charisma, everything. He had it all. I would put him number one on the Michael Blue influence list.

And then Kenny Rogers, you go from Elvis Presley to Kenny Rogers. That’s a pretty big leap. Willie Nelson to pink Floyd to of course the Beatles, I spent countless hours listening to them as everybody else as I found out. Dolly Parton, believe it or not, Seals and Cross.

It was this really weird mixture of sounds, The Police. Sting, he’s somebody I just drank. Brilliant, brilliant artist. Michael Jackson. And I was just listening to a new Prince song yesterday that a friend of mine turned me on to and it was unbelievably good.

Emily: What do you think is the future of music? 

Michael: Well, the thing is that people, more and more people are waking up every day to the fact that their thoughts creates their reality. If they wake up in the morning and they put on happy music and they’re dancing around, they’re having fun, they get ready to have a good cup of coffee, they walk out the door, they walk into their place of work and they are giving high fives to their friends, they’re creating this energy that just ripples around them.

Versus the day where they wake up and they’ve got a stomachache and they’re like, “Oh, it’s Monday… argh,” and the rent is due and, “Oh, my God! I stepped in in dog poo. They walk into work with their head down, “Hey, Bill!” It’s that ripple, that’s the tone for their entire day.