Blue Flashing Light Talks To Æ About Charity, Opportunity, And The Future

by Mary Catherine Brutz
11/26/2007

The power of karma is finally working its magic on one local Athens band.

Blue Flashing Light, a group who set up camp just over a year ago at Pigpen Studios, has done more than their fair share of helping out the community through a variety of benefits. They are now getting the long-awaited respect and recognition they deserve.

99X in Atlanta has added Blue Flashing Light to their rotation and also sponsored their performance at 10 High in Virginia Highlands last Friday night.

This fall Blue Flashing Light was also voted a finalist in the Austin City Limits Music Festival, outperforming over 600 bands from around the country.

Over one-fourth of their performances in 2007 have been benefit concerts, and on November 30 at the Melting Point, their final show of the year will follow suit.

Blue Flashing Light will be performing Friday night along with Allison Weiss and her band Allie and The Bandits to raise money and awareness for the Sexual Assault Center of Northeast Georgia.

Influenced by U2, Oasis and The Killers, the group released their first album, Shadowboxing, at the 40 Watt in September.

The recent decision by bass player Sheldon Wolfe to leave the band has caused the remaining five to make some changes, revamp their sound and take the next couple of months to work on a new EP, due next February.

Athens Exchange had the opportunity to talk with Ian Schwarber, frontman for Blue Flashing Light, and got the scoop from this past year’s progress to what’s in store for 2008.

Athens Exchange: For those who might not be familiar with Blue Flashing Light, how would you classify your music as far as genre is concerned?

Ian Schwarber: Our band has had problems defining itself in terms of its sound, especially in the past year, because we’ve tried so many new things. I’d say what we are now is more of an adult alternative type of sound. That’s a very comfortable place to fit in for us. You know, like Coldplay, Keane, U2...

AE: How do you think Sheldon Wolfe’s decision to leave BFL is going to change the band overall?

IS: It’s going to change a lot, actually. One thing is we’re not adding a new member. We’re taking our guitar player Ryan Cattie from being a rhythm guitar player down to being the bass and I think his playing is going to be absolutely astonishing because of his melodic ability as a guitar player. I think we’re actually going to have a very melodic, very Beatle-esque, very modern day Oasis-esque type of sound on the bass. The lead guitar player, Adam Monica, is really going to get a chance to be a lead guitar player whereas before they did a lot of guitar work together.

AE: So how will the new record be different from Shadowboxing?

IS: I think we’ve been living inconsistently with who we are for the last year. I mean we love that record, but it’s indicative of a band that no longer exists. The band that exists is going to put out a record that’s extremely up-to-date to what we’re doing now creatively as artists.

AE: Last Friday you had a performance in Atlanta, sponsored by 99X. What was that like?

IS: Amazing. We played in front of a well-packed room and had very good crowd reaction. I think we brought the house down. We also got to have a lot more interaction with our fans than normal. Our performance there was very much what to expect next year. It was definitely going towards the right direction.

AE: You write the majority of the songs, correct?

IS: I write the majority of the songs either by myself or with my brother, which is not to say that we write people’s parts for them. I write lyrics, and my melodies and the song structure. The chords are either written by myself, my brother or the both of us, but everyone writes their own parts. Nobody infringes on anybody else, but we take each other’s advice.

AE: As far as performances are concerned, about one-fourth of those this year have been benefits. Why so many?

IS: I think I’ve got a lot to atone for and I think my band probably has the humility to say they’ve got a lot to atone for. We’ve got the luck to have a set of talents that allows us to be able to do what we love and raise a lot of awareness and a lot of money for many different causes. There’s nothing better than contributing money to children with cancer, to women who get abused, to children who have mental illness, to impoverished areas that don’t have instruments and to centers that need money to keep going so they can help local artists. It feels amazing.

AE: Your last concert in Athens this year is at the Melting Point, November 30 benefiting the Sexual Assault Center of Northeast Georgia. Was this your idea, or did they come to you?

IS: They came to Bulldog 103.7 with that idea, and Bulldog 103.7 decided they wanted BFL to be their headline. We’re thankful to them for that.

AE: So do you think they picked BFL for this because of your background with benefits or based solely on your music?

IS: I doubt it was solely on the music. If it was solely on the music I would be extremely surprised and I would buy the whole station drinks. I think they probably chose us because we were playing that venue a week later. It was probably because they know that we are willing to do benefits, willing to forgo making money ourselves in order to help a good cause. We’re suckers for that, and there is nothing better to be a sucker at than that.

AE: You’ve been set up in Pigpen Studios since moving to Athens. How did you work out that arrangement?

IS: When we were moving here we looked online at places where you could actually have a residency, which is an apartment for your band. It has security. It has sound-proofing. It has heating and air-conditioning. All that stuff. It does cost $360 a month to live there, but it’s worth it. But, when you play benefits all the time and when you travel to towns all over with gas and equipment and you forego hours to work, it does get a bit uneconomical. That’s the struggle of artists all over this town. It costs you to be an artist. The starving artist notation is actually incorrect. It’s more like welfare artist.

AE: So right now BFL is making zero. You have to pull this money out of your own pockets?

IS: Absolutely. We sacrifice. Don’t think of it as if I’m complaining or I’m bitching. You sacrifice what one would call pleasures in life, such as nicer couches in your house, or vacations, dinners out, stuff like that. But, the pleasures in life for us are things like going on stage, and to perform and to make records.

AE: What’s your favorite part about the Athens music scene?

IS: How nice and welcoming everybody is.

AE: Least favorite?

IS: How unbelievably intolerant a lot of people can be. Also, the amount of ignorance that goes into a lot of the opinions that I’ve heard. I’ve heard reviews of bands that I really do like that I cannot get my head around how these reviews get written. So really, my least favorite [thing about Athens music scene] is the lack of investigation on the part of some people to just say, “I like this kind of music and if you’re not this kind of music there’s no way I’m going to listen to you.” It’s a very close-minded perspective.

AE: How is BFL different from other bands here in Athens?

IS: We play Atlanta a lot, and a lot of bands here don’t play Atlanta a lot for whatever reason. But we’ve played there more times than we’ve played in Athens honestly. You find out that there is a lot less animosity between bands there then there is here. We’re so far outside of that because we do things that a lot of these bands don’t even mess with. We take a big interest in UGA. We take a big interest in the Flagpole. We take a big interest in AthFest. We take a big interest in benefits. We take a big interest in traveling to different cities to learn from other cultures.

AE: Where do you see Blue Flashing Light a year from now?

IS: I see us on MTV2, maybe MTV1. I see us in rotation on major alternative rock stations around the country. And I say that because I do see that.

Tickets for the concert Friday night are $5 in advance and $7 at the door. They can be purchased online from the Melting Point.