A Conversation with Bleu – HuffPost 10.22.10

Mike Ragogna: Hello, Bleu. So, your new album Four was fan-funded using a kick-starter campaign. You were looking for a few thousand dollars but had a surprising response. Would you go into story?

Bleu: Well, it’s really just incredible, and I’m still flabbergasted by the thing. We set out to raise eight thousand dollars to do a small publicity campaign for the record, so we set a forty-five day goal, to raise our eight thousand dollars, and to be perfectly honest, I was really nervous that we weren’t going to raise the eight thousand dollars in forty-five days. The way that kick-starter campaigns work is, if you don’t raise your goal in the set period of time, then you just don’t get any money and nobody gets charged. But at the end of twelve hours, we had raised ten thousand dollars, and I should mention again that this is all coming through fans. By the end of twenty-four hours, we had raised twenty thousand dollars, and with our campaign, we had raised forty thousand dollars. It’s just completely changed my whole outlook on making records, my career as an artist, and all that kind of stuff because it’s shown me the power of independent music and independent minded fans. It’s incredible stuff.

MR: So, you were looking for eight thousand, got forty thousand, which, in the DIY world is amazing. This money is so needed, and it levels the playing field a bit, at least with some labels.

B: Although, obviously, the labels are working on smaller and smaller budgets, and especially small independent labels don’t even have this kind of money to put behind a record. So, in comparison to some of the small independent situations that I’ve been involved with over the last few years, the funding on this project is actually more expensive than some of the indie deals that are out there right now. I don’t know, it’s a really exciting time, I think, and I’ve seen other fantastic artists meet, and/or smash their goals with fan funding as well. It’s also a way for fans to get directly involved in the people that they like, become more involved in the music making process, and the general output and attitude of the people they are supporting. In our case, because we raised so much extra money, we’re actually taking a small portion of this extra money and letting the fans decide what we’re going to do with it. So, that’s kind of an unheard of situation, you know? Not only are the fans putting in the money, but they’re also deciding how it’s going to get spent.

MR: You might say it’s another interactive element between the artist and the fan.

B: It’s great, it’s a great situation. On the other side of the equation, I’ve been funding some other people’s campaigns, different artists that I love, and it’s exciting for me, as a fan, as well. It’s really incredible, and I hope this sort of model will continue and sustain, because I think it’s a great way for music makers and fans of music to have a sort of participatory approach to art.

MR: Now, one of your first claims to fame was “Somebody Else” that ended up on a Spider-Man soundtrack.

B: Yeah, that was a long time ago, but that was sort of my first major label thing that came out. I got some good attention for it…I think it was track three on the record, so a lot of people heard that one.

MR: Would you say that your loyal fan base has been building the most since that was released in ’03?

B: I think, obviously, I garnered a big part of my fan base with my major label debut, but I had already released two records before that. So, the fan base, really, has been building since ’99, when I released my first weird, little, holiday Christmas record in Boston. Some of the people who donated on the kick-starter campaign have been involved, in some degree, even since back then, you know?

MR: Nice. Four features one of the best anthems I’ve heard in a while, “B.O.S.T.O.N.”

B: Well, thanks.

MR: Now, we spoke about the fan funding being a part of the publicity campaign, but was there any fan funding involved in the recording of the record?

B: No, I sort of have a longtime recording partner, my best friend Ducky Carlisle, who lives in Medford, Mass., just outside of Boston, and we made most of the record together, me and him. I did a lot of the recording on my own, I worked with a couple of other people, I worked out of my home studio, and this other good friend of mine, Dorian Crozier or “Wook” did one song over at his place. But the majority of it was me, and Ducky holed up in his studio putting it together.

MR: “How Blue” is a beautiful song, and is that a genuine string quartet at the end?

B: Yeah, I worked a bunch on this record with a great group out here in Los Angeles, called The Section Quartet, and they play on all the big pop records. I actually worked with them on my third record, which is the last record I released, and they did a bunch of great playing on that thing, which made me really want to work with them again. My buddy Stephen Lu — who is a string arranger out here that I think I’ve known since I was eighteen years old — did the string arrangements on everything except “How Blue,” which I did with another buddy of mine, Scott Simons. I love doing strings, especially with The Section Quartet, because with those guys, it’s a good time.

MR: Who are the members of that group?

B: At the time, they had a couple of different members, so I’m going to pass on saying their names in case I get them all wrong (laughs).

MR: By the way, I have to tell you, I’ve never heard the words “ass” or “You’re (blank) don’t stink” sung so tenderly.

B: (laughs) Thank you. I don’t know, I guess I have a history of throwing curse words into power ballads. I think pretty much every record now has some sort of song with a prominent curse. It’s the twelve year old inside of me that just won’t go away.

MR: And the name of that song, for our readers, is “When The (blank) Hits The Fan.” Gee, I wonder what that word is.

B: We got a little independent deal in the U.K., and the record is actually coming out there before it comes out in the United States. I’m going over in October to do a little support for it. We’ve run into issues before with, “Do we bleep out the word?” or, “Does it appear in the name of the song on the back of the record?” So, we approached the label over there about all of these issues, and they were like, “What are you crazy? You can’t bleep it out, it makes you look like a wuss.” It was really funny to me, how different their attitude to that whole thing was. They were like, “No, you can’t bleep it, it has to stay it.” Like that was the whole thing.

MR: And good for them. The whole censorship thing in this country is sort of like the Mayflower just landed, come on.

B: (laughs)

MR: I just don’t get it. How many hundreds of years have to pass before we lose that stick up our, well, that word that you sing so tenderly in that song.

B: (laughs)

MR: Let me ask you one other thing about your career as a whole. You were on Aware Records, which a lot of people would give anything for; it has John Mayer as its flagship act, right?

B: Yeah, Train also started out on that label, as well as Five For Fighting.

MR: Right, and The Thorns. It’s been a really cool little label. On the other hand, you did have a dispute with them, right?

B: Well, not really. In all fairness, it really didn’t have anything to do with Aware. They were always very supportive, but as the larger parent company, Sony, started going through it’s ongoing downsizing that has been happening for the last six years, it trickled down through Columbia, and, basically, Aware got the news that they had to let some acts go. They were really cool about the whole thing. I can’t really fault them because it was, if anything, more about the diminishing record industry as a whole.

MR: Right. Well, the diminishing record industry, as a whole, is where we are right now. It’s great you’ve taken your business into your own hands.

B: Exactly, and if all of that hadn’t happened the way it did, I wouldn’t be where I am today, which I think is an exciting place to be.

MR: So, to me, this album has a Springsteen feel with Brill Building aesthetics, you know?

B: Yeah, in the writing for my last record, I started really getting into Stax and Motown and what I would call classic songwriting. There’s still a lot of modern pop and nods to all of my favorite artists and songwriters from over the years. But I’ve enjoyed putting some of that, for lack of a better term, soulful, classic stuff on these last couple of records. I hope that, as a songwriter, I’m growing and moving forward.

MR: So, obviously, this is album number four, but you’ve made other recordings.

B: Well, I’ve put out more than four records, but it’s my fourth record under the name Bleu.

MR: Yeah, that’s where I’m going with this.

B: It’s my fourth, sort of, proper Bleu record. I have a band with Mike Viola and Ducky Carlisle, who I was mentioning before, called, The Major Labels, and we’re sort of a very McCartney-esqe kind of a rock power-pop band. And of course, I did the L.E.O. Record, which is sort of my homage to Jeff Lynne and The Electric Light Orchestra, and I’m working on this LoudLion record now, as well, which is a band I have with a bunch of people including Taylor Locke of Rooney. That’s sort of a Def Leppard/Mutt Lange homage. This is my fourth real Bleu record. I’m definitely going to continue to engage in all the side projects, and things like that.

MR: Yeah, the tally is hard because you have all these side projects, along with your own history pre-Bleu.

B: Yeah.

MR: So, the way “My Own Personal Jesus” is ID’d on the CD, the “bonus track” space in front of it was interesting with regards to the title. While listening, I got a kick out of the silence because I thought the “nothingness” was some sort of wise-assery, like a silent reflection, and combined with that title, I thought it was brilliant.

B: Oh, that’s interesting. You’re the first person to say that, and I wonder if other people will have that take on that. I try to do a hidden track on pretty much everything that I do, and that was a great song that I kind of wanted to put on the record. But I couldn’t find a spot for it, so it just seemed the perfect thing, to put it at the end. In terms of the title, it doesn’t really have anything to do with the song, obviously. The chorus goes, “I want to believe in something bigger than me, I want to believe in some big mystery. I want to believe in something I can’t see. I want to believe in the Son and the Holy Ghost, but I only believe in my baby… ” is sort of the punch line to that chorus. So, it’s a song about the woman in my life, sort of being my own personal religion, and that’s the idea behind that title. I was just looking for something as blasphemous as possible.

MR: And what beautiful blasphemy it is.

B: I’m not a big Depeche Mode fan or anything like that, in case you were wondering. My old roommate from college, who I’m still really good friends with, is like the biggest Depeche Mode fan ever. So, it’s sort of for him, too. I just think it’s funny.

MR: (laughs) Do you have any advice for up and coming artists?

B: You know, I think, more than ever, people need to be making music for themselves and for their fans. In my professional life as a producer and a songwriter, I still see people making music for, what I would call, the great masses. You know, making music for the radio or for MTV, however you want to put that. I think that those days need to be kind of put behind us. We, as musicians, have a really good opportunity to make music for ourselves and for the people who care about us. So, that’s my advice — do what really speaks to you, and what you think is great, and what your small but loyal fan base believes in and cares about.

Transcribed by Ryan Gaffney