Ryland Blackinton of Cobra Starship – HuffPost 11.15.11

Mike Ragogna: What advice do you have for new artists?

Ryland Blackinton: Tough call. I think with pop music, it’s really tough. I think that there’s a way to work within the preexisting structure that pop music is in, but find a way to do that in a unique way, which is a huge challenge. But I think that’s what works. People don’t want the exact same thing that they’ve heard, but they don’t want something that’s so far outside of the format that they can’t understand it. It’s about walking that line. I was talking to a friend last night–Alanis Morissette was number one at one point. We all have to expect that nobody could have seen that coming, that this hippie woman with super long hair who used to date Dave Coulier, no one could call that. She came out of nowhere, and sometimes, that happens. Otherwise, I would say be an individual in a format that’s preexisting.